Once Upon a Midnight - Illustrated Title Type Process

One of my hush hush projects is in the final stages and with permission from the author, Kelly Morrison Handerhan, I thought I'd give you a sneak peek by showing you how I designed the illustrated title type.

I could've used type that's available on my computer for commercial usage But the title of this project is very evocative, ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT. OOH this title is begging for some special treatment. So I begin to doodle and refine. And Hem and haw. Type Style - small caps, all caps, upper and lower case?  Should I add crows? Will they read as crows or just look like blobs?

Decided against crows - too busy. Went with All Caps as I felt the small caps had too much white space between the lines and lowercase letters didn't seem to work as well.  Refined the sketch. Enlarged sketch, transferred to paper via my lightbox and then the inking begins. I use a rapidiograph pen for inking and scan.

Voila - here it is in place on the wrap-around cover art. Once Upon a Midnight is about Andy the Pug on a midnight romp. We just loaded this book project to CreateSpace.com and we can't wait until it's in the marketplace.

Once Upon A Midnight Book Cover art for a story by Kelly Morrison Handerhan
 with cover and interior pages illustrated by Diana Ting Delosh.
Copyrighted material!!!!
For info about Andy please see www.facebook.com/andy.pug.9
You may Now order Once Upon A Midnight on Amazon

Moon Dancing Bunnies win Design of the Day!

Turned on the computer this morning to the lovely news that my latest design, Mid Autumn Moon Festival Dancing Bunnies card was awarded the Design of the Day by Greeting Card Universe. YAY! I think I'll do a hoppy dance myself. Thanks GCU!

For this design, I have a group of rabbits doing a hoppy dance under a very full autumnal moon. The moon is a pale yellow to balance against the pale to medium browns of the hares. The art is created with ink, watercolor and Photoshop.  I don't know if real rabbits dance in the moonlight but I do see more of them on moon lit nights.

The Harvest Moon Festival is a Chinese holiday celebrated on the fullest moon of the year in September or October. Sometimes the moon even has a golden autumn glow to it. Rabbits in Chinese mythology are associated with the moon. Sometimes the hare is is said to be living on the moon under a tree, where he must make medicine for the princess that also lives on the moon. Sometimes he is shown pounding medicine with his mortar and pestle. In other stories the hare lives on the earth and gazes up at the moon where the princess lives. It is celebrated today by eating moon cakes and visiting family.

FYI - the Autumn Moon Festival or just Harvest Moon festival is celebrated this year on September 30th on the full moon of course. If you want to see the inside of the card or to purchase please just click on the card image. If you want to see my other card designs go to gcuniverse.com/DianasCards

Children's Literary Salon in Retrospect: Illustration on June 2, 2012 | The New York Public Library

Earlier this summer I and my fellow CBIG officers were panelists at the New York Public Library, speaking about what we love: illustration and the Childrens' Book Illustrators Group. Read all about it in this nifty article!

Children's Literary Salon in Retrospect: Illustration on June 2, 2012 | The New York Public Library

A Ghost of a Wedding Cake

A Ghost of a Wedding Cake
© Diana Ting Delosh
Black Medium Point Bic® Pen 

Miss Havisham's wedding cake has been standing as it was the day she was jilted. Over the years the frosting has hardened and now the cake is inhabited by spiders, centipedes, noseeums, rats, ants and is festooned in cobwebs and dead roses. A ghost of a wedding cake for a ghost of  bride. This illustration is inspired by the Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations.

Something about Dickens made me think of doing a black and white illo. Originally I thought of using my trusty double zero rapidiograph pen to ink and brush on a wash but then I thought how well a ball point pen could do whisper thin lines -great for cobwebs. That clinched it. I decided to use a Black Medium Point Bic® Pen as my medium. I frequently use ball point pens to sketch with as they're just so handy and flexible. Depending on your pressure and the tooth of the paper you can get a variety of strokes from barely there to bold black. However using this as my medium on a Finished piece of art required me to shift my perspective on this everyday tool. I mean was it really OK? Sure it was fine for impromptu sketches but serious, planned, finished art? Sure, I mean why not? What do you think?

The above illo is in the CBIG Illustration Exhibit, A Celebration of Dickens in Pictures at the Yonkers Riverfront Library Gallery. The show will run from August 25th to October 31st, 2012.  The artists reception will be on September 13th. For a complete schedule of events for this show please visit cbig-nycexhibits.blogspot.com/ .

If you can't make it to the show my fellow exhibitors and I  will also be posting the art over on cbig-nyc.blogspot.com during the run of the show.