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Welcome to my blog , The Hare Illustratère. I'll be posting about my art process and journey as an illustrator/author here.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Illustration Friday - Brigade

SNOWMEN!
Ink & Watercolor
© Diana Ting Delosh
Here's my entry for Illustration Friday - A whole BRIGADE of Snowmen to usher in the winter holiday season. I was working on my motley crew of snowmen sketches when IF posted the word of the week and I thought they fit the prompt.

I created these snowmen for my POD stores*. The arts done -now just need to sneak in the time between assignments to make the illos into  "products". I know I'm a wee behind, at any rate the snowmen will be arriving into my various stores and depending on how you look at it they're either too late for this winter season or too early for next year's. In the meanwhile I hope you liked the preview.

Snowmen will be arriving soon at my *stores: 

Note to self: 2012 resolution #1 - create seasonal art 3-6 months ahead of the season for my POD shops. Give them time to build some SEO and all that other good stuff.

Friday, December 2, 2011

YAY -I Completed PiBoIdMo 2011!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed 
the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,
and will, to the best of my ability,
parlay my ideas into picture book manuscripts.

WHEW! - so glad I completed the challenge, although with a dry patch in the middle I almost gave up. All in all even with a bit of creative block it was a lot of fun: reading the daily inspiring posts on Tara's blog, hoping to win a prize here or there. Most of all just having fun and knowing that I'm not the only one muttering PB ideas to myself for the month of November.

Now the work ahead and into 2012 is to flesh out at least 1 of these scribbled ideas into a real PB story - a PB dummy even!

For more info about PIBOIDMO please read or Follow Tara's blog at http://taralazar.wordpress.com/  

Friday, November 18, 2011

M-M-M-M It's a PBDummy!

M-M-M-M CUPCAKES
Scan of my Picture Book Dummy
All art and text © Diana Ting Delosh
Web/Portfolio - dianadelosh.com

Tah Dah - I'm so happy to say it's a DUMMY! I've been working  on this dummy , betwixt and between jobs and life and there were many times that I thought it would never be a cohesive piece.  This 32 page dummy is comprised of 2 finished colored spreads and the balance is loose sketches. I even created some yummy cupcake type for the title. Finally, here it is all put together and in time for my big portfolio review last weekend.

So how was M-M-M-M CUPCAKES PB Dummy Debut? I saw 3 reviewers; 2 editors from small to midsize publishing houses and 1 Art director from a large Big Name Publishing house. 

The Big Name Publishing House Art Director liked how my dummy demonstrated that I had a real sense of how a picture book should flow.  However her imprint was not interested in Concept Stories. 

Editor # 1 was also not looking for picture book illustrators although CB liked my portfolio and told me I could send her ideas and sample art. Sigh. 

However I really seemed to hit it off with editor #2. PG seemed to really like my portfolio and my dummies especially M-M-M-M CUPCAKES. She also really liked concept books as this mid-sized house tends to sell to libraries and schools, hence their lists are school curriculum driven. PG even quickly read through the brief text and gave me a few suggestions and permission to formally submit this proposal after I've made her suggested revisions as well as send other new proposals to her. YAY -very exciting! Keeping fingers crossed!

Note I did not mention the Publishing houses nor the reviewers by names. I have a superstition that if I talk too much about something prematurely I may jinx myself. More importantly though is that this is my experience and yours with the same company and reviewers would be your unique experience based on your work.  This review has convinced me to try a new strategy of picking smaller or midsize publishing houses as they seemed to be more open to acquiring new projects/illustrators. 

FYI: I only show my hard covered dummies in person at reviews, conferences etc. To submit this project as a Picture book proposal, I create a multipage PDF  from the 16 spreads (15 internal spreads plus the cover) that I can easily pop in the mail or even just attach to an e-mail, with cover letters of course. 

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

PiBoIdMo 2011!


Here we go again! I just signed up for PiBoIdMo 2011,  Picture Book Ideas Month at http://taralazar.wordpress.com/. The challenge is to come up with 30 picture book ideas in the month of November (30 days). Just ideas - no outlines etc. -keep it simple and have FUN.

Last year I put my ideas onto index cards. Not sure if I'm using the same low-tech method for 2011. I may just scribble them into my journal and enter them on a running list. My 2010's participation in this challenge resulted in the current dummy that I'm almost finished with. Click HERE if you're curious about that project.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

SH-h-h-h -Feeling most mysterious!

It's all Hush hush and mysterious
 -just like my
feline super sleuth character,
Audrey Hepcat.
© DianaTing Delosh
Wow it's been awhile since my last post, but I have 2 good excuses:

1 -  I've been busy with illustration gigs. YAY! Unfortunately they have been mad rush jobs. BOO! Admittedly this is partially due to my own scheduling as everything: personal and professional seems to happen at once and I don't want to miss anything.

2 - Two of the jobs I'm currently working on are confidential. Which means no blogging about them. Drats! One of them is a bread and butter type jobs, so no problems keeping mum about it. However the other project is one that I want to show off some of the illos from so it's hard to be hush hush about it. The only thing I can say is that it's an E-book project and the illustrations are almost all done. Needless to say - I can't wait until it's finished and I can finally burst out with the news.

The only other thing I can say is that the E-book company found me via my web presence. So all this frenzied web activity does do something other than bring you more followers on Twitter and Linked-in. Keep on blogging my creative friends.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Fox and The Crow - Process

THE FOX AND THE CROW
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink, watercolor and Photoshop

Decisions, questions and hopefully solutions are a part of my illustration process. As the above illo was my entry for a fun group project, CBIG AESOP'S FABLE Illustration Catalog, the first questions was which Fable. Easy enough something that featured things I like: animals, food, nature. Sure I could've also used this as a challenge to draw things I don't like but as I was already in the midst of juggling other deadlines why stress. I did say this was for fun.

Decisions: the angle perspective of art - lot's of doodling. Decided to keep it simple as I wanted to show the goody falling from the crows mouth  as well as her "OOPs" expression and the triumphant glee in the fox's face and body. Also needed to decide on whether I was going the traditional route and illustrate cheese as the coveted food item. Some of the versions did not specify cheese so I thought I'd have some fun with it and do one of my favorite yummies, the rainbow cookie. Now that's a treat worthy of some cunning.  Ink in the foreground, main characters and paint.

Background Quandaries: Keep it simple or do the whole forest. Usually I'm not this indecisive but this time, who knows, maybe it was the August heat. Couldn't decide and went back and forth during the sketch phase. Decided on simple and then second guessed myself by adding in the forest after I had painted the foreground. OOPS! Painted out the forest with Gouache. Just could not stop myself as I impulsively added just a few trees over to the extreme right.  Muddled it up again! My only excuse for this lapse in judgement was that I was juggling multiple projects and clearly muddle brained myself. Forgot a major rule in illustration: Keep what is important to the story in focus. Thank goodness for Photoshop. Deleted the offending background and replaced it with a sky I had painted for another project. Sigh!

And there you have it the story behind the illustration.

My Fox and Crow illustration is my entry for this years CBIG group project the CBIG AESOP'S FABLE Illustration Catalog. The pdf catalog may be viewed on the CBIG website and all 26 illustrations are showing on the CBIG blogzine from September 1st through October 31st, 2011. See my FOX AND THE CROW  - CBIG Blogzine - September 23, 2011.

Monday, September 5, 2011

CBIG - The Children's Book Illustrators Group: AESOP'S FABLES Illustration Catalog

Wow it's been awhile since I posted on this blog. I've had a busy busy summer with assorted projects. Here, finally, for your viewing pleasure is one of them... the CBIG Aesop's Fables Illustration Catalog.  I'm also happy to be 1 of the 26 illustrators that participated in the CBIG second annual illustration catalog as well as the designer of this group effort. Please hop on over to the CBIG blogzine during the months of September and October 2011 where I'll be posting the illustrations from the catalog.

CBIG - The Children's Book Illustrators Group: AESOP'S FABLES Illustration Catalog: CBIG is proud to show off our 2011 Illustration Catalog, AESOP'S FABLES . Featuring the talents of 26 participating members, listed below in...

Friday, August 5, 2011

2011 Summer Postcard -Cupcake Cat


Here's my Summer 2011 self-promo postcard. As the main focus of my personal art this spring/summer has been my Cupcake dummy and I thought the cover art was bold and yummy looking - decided it would be a natural for the front of my postcard image. I was contemplating doing a larger size but I just wasn't sure if the added expense of printing and postage would equal any benefit in positive responses. One would hope it did but then one could hope for a lot of things.

Went to VistaPrint.com to see if they were running any sales and they were -YAY. Decided to go with my usual standard size but since they were having a sale I added a color illustration to the back. The design above for the back of the card is actually turned sideways but I'm showing it horizontally so you can have a better sense of it. Yes I measured my address label size to make sure I wouldn't be covering up any of my back illo with it. While I'm not sure if postcard size would matter - I think 2 illos maybe better than 1 to get the targeted art director or editor to look at my website.

The cards have been designed & ordered. They should arrive within 3 weeks. Which gives me time to update my mailing list. Maybe this year I'll actually do 3 postcard mailings as I'm always threatening to do.

Friday, July 29, 2011

IF: OBSESSION

ANTICIPATION
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Watercolor

Here's my entry for this weeks IllustrationFriday.com prompt - OBSESSION.

Kitten has an OBSESSION with cupcakes. He can't wait until they're baked, frosted and ready to eat. YUM. This is another scene from my CUPCAKE, story. Still working on the project between jobs & life. I can't wait until my half-baked Picture book dummy is fully realized. 

For another illustration from my CUPCAKE PB dummy see my June 16, 2011 post.  OR visit my website at DianaDelosh.com.

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Art Hare's Wares: 1 Year Zazzle Anniversary Salebration

The Art Hare's Wares: 1 Year Zazzle Anniversary Salebration: "About a year ago, June 2010 I opened my Zazzle Shop DeloshDesigns* because I thought it would be fun to see what my illustrations looked lik..."