The Squirrel & Anteater Are Out of the Bag!

HOORAH! Farfaria is now LIVE... and has published the 2 ebooks that I illustrated. Finally -  the gags been lifted. So without further ado I can now show you what I've been mum about. Between mid September and early February I illustrated, An Armful of Acorns by Adrian Riding and The Greedy Ant Eater by Christine Sawinsky.

 Both books were illustrated using my traditional ink and watercolor technique but with a digital twist. As these were going to be for an ebook app or is it just a book app, each page illustration was constructed of layers of individual illos. For example:  P 7 from An Armful of Acorns, the blue sky is the base layer. The tree is a separate illo and another layer. As is the squirrel and the nuts and the leaves. Each page element is individually inked, painted, scanned, cleaned up in Photoshop and than finally combined into one layered Photoshop file. This way the app developer can make the leaves flutter or the squirrel twirl or acorns spin. These 2 are my first ebook projects. They were a fun creative challenge and it helped that Farfaria was very easy to work with.

Below are my favorite illustration from each book. Both now available on the App Store. 

P-7 from An Armful of Acorns © Farfaria
Filbert is nuts about acorns which lands him in all sorts of predicaments.
To view the cover art or to find out more - click HERE

P-10 from The Greedy Ant Eater © Farfaria
Ambrose clowns around with his nose hose to amuse his friends.
To view my cover art or to find out more - click HERE

Yikes - I don't have an i-Pad!!!!  Yup it's on my to buy list. Needless to say if anyone downloads any of my books, I'd really appreciate it if you would let me know if the squirrel twirls or if the anteater rocks and of course if your kids liked the art etc? Just leave a comment. Thanks!

Illustration Friday: TWIRL

Long Tailed Dragon - © Diana Ting Delosh - Ink, watercolor, photoshop
A long curlicue tail is fun to TWIRL
Twirl for Illustration Friday. 

Dragons - 1 Sketch to Several Dragons

Dragon  Sketch - © Diana Ting Delosh

I doodled this  dragon with my trusty ball point pen during a TV commercial. The commercials and time limit provide enough distraction so I can ignore any inner critic. I find that I can get started on a few of my back burner projects this way. Helps me get more done without the burnout. This sketch then had to wait it's turn until I had time between assigned work to transfer to paper, ink and paint, but at least the sketch stage was done.

As this Dragon illustration usage was for my Year of the Dragon/Chinese New Year cards as well as a decorative motif on various products I chose not to draw/paint in a back ground. I could add these on with Photoshop, giving me more design options. Leave it plain for a decorative look -great on a T-shirt or a card. Add to the tail to make it longer to wrap around a mug for example. Plop it on a solid background for a card or even my painted starry moonlit scene for a more narrative look. 

Asian Dragon- © Diana Ting Delosh

Long Curlicue Tailed Dragon - © diana Ting Delosh

Starry Night Dragon - © Diana Ting Delosh

You can find my dragons inhabiting my shops at:

www.gcuniverse.com/dianascards

www.zazzle.com/deloshdesigns* - DRAGON

HAPPY YEAR OF THE DRAGON!

FYI the Dragon  is supposed to be the luckiest of all the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. The Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days. 2 weeks plus 1 day for good luck. The 2012 Dragon Year is celebrated from Jan 23rd to Feb 5th.

My Chicken Licken Illo entry for the SCBWI TDP Illo Award

Chicken Licken (Chicken Little)

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink and Watercolor

TA DAH! Here is my entry for the 2012 SCBWI Tomie dePaolo Illustration Contest. The winners will be announced very very soon. Keeping my fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath as the competition is an amazingly talented bunch!

If you'd like to see some of the other entries please go to http://scbwicontest.blogspot.com/. Fellow contestant, SCBWI Houston Illustrator Coordinator, Diandra Mae, has put up an unofficial showcase of the entries. This gallery was created to show off more of the art as the official SCBWI announcement will only show off the winners.

Winners announced on January 9, 2012.
And the winner isn't moi -sigh- back to the drawing board,
The winners can be viewed here.