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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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Thursday, November 19, 2015

Flying Squirrel for Illustration Friday - Animal

Thought I'd share this illo I did with Brush pen, watercolors and digital for Illustration Friday. I mean how could I not do IF this week as the prompt is ANIMAL! So here you go: my Flying Squirrel gliding on a starry night.
Flying Squirrel by Diana Ting Delosh
ink & watercolor & digital
Just like this flying squirrel the weeks have been zooming by. I can't believe it's a week before Thanksgiving. Which means Christmas is right around the corner and 2015 might as well be over. Hold on there, there's still lots that can happen and things to do before the years up.  There's still lots to paint and experiment and create with. Not to mention the mess to clean up after all the experimenting and creating but later for all that. Right now I'm enjoying messing with my brush pen. It seems to have a lot of possibilities with it's ability to go from thick to thin in one stroke. So I'll try to be more like my gliding friend and enjoy the moment of being and doing.


Wednesday, October 21, 2015

#NerdyChickDraws Contest Winner

Nerdy Chick Draws
Ink & Watercolor
© Diana Ting Delosh

I'm Happy to announce that my entry for the #NerdyChickDraws illustration contest won Honorable mention! Woo Hoo! You can read the post and see the other winning entries over at NerdyChicksWrite

Click HERE to see all the other entries

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The 2015 CBIG Illustration Directories are Live!

YAY - the 2015 CBIG Illustration Directories are now up on the CBIG website. I am so proud to be amongst so many amazing illustrators. Please click on ILLUSTRATOR DIRECTORY to flip through the pages and see for yourself.  Go take a peek. Did you find my promo pages in both directories?
I'm honored to say that my  Bear & Hare illustration made the cover of the 2015 CBIG Color Illustration Directory The cover images were picked via a vote by the CBIG membership. By the way, my  promo is on page 10. 

Did you spot my promo on page 7 and my spot illustration on page 31 of the 2015 CBIG Black & White Illustration Directory?
FYI - The individual pages are also being posted on the CBIG blog.
Happy viewing.

In case you are wondering. Yes, I did design both directories. Just like any other other CBIG member, I could submit a cover for each book that I had a page in. And just like any member I could vote for the 8 illustrations I felt deserved a place on the covers. Yes, we were allowed to vote for our own art. No, I did not tally the votes.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Illustration for Lucky 2 B Quilting Logo

Lucky 2B Quilting Logo illustration - signage

This summer, I was hired to create Clover, the logo mascot for the Lucky 2B Quilting store. Originally, Cassie the new owner of the shop had inquired about usage of one of my dancing bunnies but I pointed out that my original art for that piece was barely 3" tall. For her store signage she needed something sharp at 14 inches high. Furthermore and perhaps even more importantly, I am using my dancing bunnies for all sort of things and was not planning on stopping. The  solution was to create a bunny dancing with a lucky 4-leaf clover in her mouth just for her store signage. Note I only created the Clover illustration. The logotype and quilt background is someone else's handiwork.

The challenge for this job was that the line had to be sharp and crisp at about 14" high and still clear when reduced for use on a business card or letterhead. Since I work in traditional ink & watercolor vs digital vector art, I had to make sure my ink line would maintain its integrity at both ends of the  spectrum. To figure this out, I enlarged my 3" bunny to 14" and matched pen widths to the blurry outline. Than I reduced the test lines to business card size to see which looked best. 

This was a fun commission and Cassie was a pleasure to work with. If you're into quilting and other fabric arts, please visit Cassie and Clover online or at the store:

421 Main Street
Pecatonica, IL 61063

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

2015 Color Illustration Promo Page

All Art © Diana Ting Delosh
Bear hugs Hare illustration
Bearish  Fuzzy Initial Caps: D T D
ink & watercolor
Here's my Promo Page in the soon to be released 2015 CBIG Color Illustration Directory. One of the reasons why I've taken on the Directory project for our group is that I believe a group of talented illustrators makes a louder  noise than an individual artist.  More immediately, being part of a group project means that I have to create my promo pages  by a real deadline. Of course you should still promote yourself as an individual illustrator every chance you get.

One of the problems I have with creating my promo pages is deciding on the art. For 2015, I finally decided to showcase my new fat ink style and my hand lettering. I chose my Bear hugs Hare illustration, from my picture book dummy, Bear and Hare, for it's emotional heart. Which in turn led me to design bearish fuzzy initial caps for my name.

The objective of any promo piece is to intrigue the targeted viewer to take a gander at your website. Hope this page does the trick and  leads them to: dianadelosh.com

In case you missed it, click 2015 Black & White Promo Page to view my page.

Note: When the CBIG Directories go live they can be viewed at cbig-nyc.com and cbig-nyc.blogspot.com

Monday, September 7, 2015

Happy Labor Day!

PENGUIN BEACH
Ink & Watercolors
© Diana Ting Delosh
Here's to the last Hurrah of summer!

For me, Labor Day has always signaled the end of summer and the start of the fall. Even if it still reaches 90º - autumn is in my head along with all the promises of a new fresh season.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

My Kathy Temean Illustrator Saturday Interview

Nicholas Bunny Blowing Dandelion Seeds © Diana Ting Delosh
Fat line style - Ink, Watercolor and Photoshop

In case you missed it, I was interviewed by Kathy Temean for her popular Illustrator Saturday series on August 8th. You can read all about my process and more at Illustrator Saturday - Diana Delosh.

For this interview I answered a lot of questions and gave a behind the scenes look at my new fat line illustration process, Nicholas Bunny. She also wanted, gasp, a picture of me. I mean the last "portrait " I had taken was on my drivers license. I was half tempted to send a pix of me at 3 but decided I should really grow up and asked a friend to take a proper photo. It was a lot faster and had much better results than weeding through family photos and cropping everyone else out. Kathy chose all the illustrations for the article other than the art for the process part. To be honest, I was really curious what pieces she would pick for the article. All in all it came out as a lovely illustration career overview. Thank You Kathy!

Friday, August 7, 2015

2015 Black & White Illustration Promo Page

2015 B & W Promo Page - Panda / Wildflower
All Art © Diana Ting Delosh
I belong to a local illustrators group and one of my favorite CBIG Projects are the Illustrators Directories: Color and the Black & White. Here's my Black & White Promo page for the upcoming 2015 directory. And of course, I make a PDF version for my own usage. Handy for handouts or as a digital tear sheet.

For my Black & White promo page I wanted to show my grayscale art and my line art. I also wanted to show that I do people and with all the fuss with adult coloring books, my line art. But I didn't want to show too many things. And of course they had to look good in a vertical format. Here's my solution. 

Book Buddies illustration : ink with ink wash on Canson 120 LB  watercolor paper. greyscale art.

Wild flowers illustration: ink on vellum paper. Line art. 

Here's to hoping it's enough of a taste to get the powers that be to click on dianadelosh.com to see more.  And Golly Gee Whiz  - land me an illustration commission.

Monday, July 20, 2015

Make Money from Your Art - 3 Steps

Jester Pig, ink & watercolor ©Diana Ting Delosh




From my perspective it seems to boil down to 3 actions you must do to make money from your art.

1 - Create the Art. Butt in chair routine.

2 - Show and Tell. Add new art: to your portfolio, submit, e-mail, mail out postcards, blog, tweet, FB whatever.  No one knows you created something until you tell them. To expand on this concept, no one knows you exist until you help them discover you. If you want clients with wonderful illustration projects to commission you, they have to know what you do and where to find you.

3 - Do both of the above routinely and on a regular balanced basis. Yup, the old 2-step, Create and Promote with the added crucial 3rd step: routine and balance. Create followed by Show and Tell on a regular, weekly if not more frequent basis.

All well and good in theory, BUT what happens when you're working on a commissioned piece OR a personal project that you want to submit/propose that must remain hush hush, then what??? Sure you're creating daily but you can't do step 2 until it's published. Ah -this is where I trip up.  Here's a list I've made for myself to keep on task: show other work, talk about other projects, tightly cropped sneak peeks*, toss out a hint, if possible - do other art that you can  show off**, etc. The idea is to keep promoting your art and to not totally drop off the radar.

*It may be fine to show sneak peeks of personal projects but I'd be hesitant to do this with commissioned work... unless you've gotten permission to do so.

**This is where all those online art challenges come into play.

OR if you're so busy due to whatever life is currently dishing that one if not all steps are out of whack than what? This one is more complicated but I think the zen approach is best. Don't beat yourself up and just do what you can. When you can... and keep at it...at your current pace. Create, promote, repeat.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!

Ice Cream Soda
© Diana Ting Delosh
watercolor
Hope you're all having a lovely summer weekend.

Personally, I'll be doing the family, running around bit - seeing everyone and wishing there was more time and I had more energy. At any rate - I hope to be coming back from all the family fun refreshed and ready to create anew. Sometimes I feel like all the family stuff just bogs down my creative flow and then I realize that without my family, life would be so dull. Sure I might get more done but would the art be as rich without the life to inform it?

You can read about the Ice Cream Soda Art Process HERE.

The Ice Cream Soda Giclée is available at my Print Shop, wingedrabbit.imagekind.com
Unframed Prints come in various sizes and paper selections. Custom framing is also available.