SCBWI Long Island March Newsletter Art

Winter Friends © Diana Ting Delosh
Colored Art and digital

Back at the end of 2018 I was honored to be invited to create cover art for the SCBWI Long Island newsletter, Kid LIt News . The only directive was to include a kite. As it was to be a winter/spring issue I decided on animal friends having some winter fun. It was bit tricky figuring out how to get the kite to work as logical part of the illustration but I think I came up with an interesting solution.

Winter/Spring 2019 Kid LIT News Cover

There is even a lovely interview by fellow illustrator, Stephen Ingram about my art process and more for an article in the Kid Lit News Winter/Spring 2019 issue, which I'm happy to announce went live, March 14, 2019.

If you don't live on Long Island, NY and want to find out more about the SCBWI click here: scbwi.org

Web: dianadelosh.com

Illustration blog: dtdelosh.blogspot.com

Product Blog: arthareswares.blogspot.com

twitter: @dtdelosh

Group Blog: drawntopicturebooks.blogspot.com

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Of Life and Dreams - MATS Boot Camp February

Of Life and Dreams © Diana Ting Delosh
Mixed media: Ink, Pencil, Digital
 Mock Journal or Book Cover

It's been awhile since I blogged, either I had nothing to blog about or something but no time to do it. At any rate, here I am. Not promising that I'll be blogging on any regular basis but hopefully more often then not. At the end of 2018 I signed up for a bunch of thing and one of them included Lilla Roger's MATS Boot Camp 2019. This is my second go round with Bootcamp. The first time was in 2014, during the months of Feb, March, May. June and July. If you're wondering, yes, you can read about my experiences in this blog's archive. I signed up this time because I felt like I wanted some assignments that would stretch me. A peek at other markets out there aside from children's book publishing. Similar to why I did it last time. Except this time around I'm at a different place with my art and I thought it might be a good time to revisit the course.

Lilla teaches by giving us a mini assignment before she gives us the brief for the main assignment. This way we get to explore a subject without being limited by the scope of the final product/project. This time around the mini was to do florals and use a specific media. My group was assigned lily of the valley and colored pencils. I hunted around my studio and found an unopened box of Derwent Inktense 12. These are colored pencils that are meant for you to wash over with water. Honestly wasn't sure about the pencils until I threw the water on it - Then I really liked working with them.

Here's one of my minis, Bunny Amongst the Lily of the Valley
© Diana Ting Delosh
Derwent Inktense Color Pencil Sketch 

February's Brief:  Journal Cover with some hand lettering as that's very trendy right now. I loved the idea of doing florals but had a hang up about type on a journal. I never buy journals with type as I always felt like they were telling me what to put in my journal. But I really wanted to do some Hand Lettering. Plus that was part of the brief. I decided to think of it more as a book cover to get over my mental block.

Of Life and Dreams © Diana Ting Delosh
Rough Pencil Sketch layout of journal / book cover. 

Here finally is my finished mock book, ahem, journal cover in the MATS BootCamp February Gallery amongst all the other lovely designs. Click on the thumbnails to see them bigger.

I had a lot of fun drawing florals for this assignment. There will be more florals in my future.

For more samples of my art check out my web portfolio at dianadelosh.com
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Art Process Experiments 4 - 6

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been experimenting with my art process. Hoping to shake things up a bit in 2018. SEE Art Process Experiment 1- 3 

Experiment No. 4A and 4B - Squirrel with Snowdrop: Semi Reverse Process
4A: Sketch. Watercolor. lines added with brush Scan. Add digital details. 
4B: Sketch. Watercolor. Scan. Add all the lines and details digitally. 

Results 4A: Similar to my usual style. But there's less black line, a Limited Palette and the squirrel looks younger because overall he's rounder. I love his Buffalo plaid jacket.

Results 4B: Felt my digital brush lacked the accuracy, smoothness and expressiveness of a real brush. At least at this point my brush skills are light years ahead of my Wacom pen skills. Frustrating. Trashed this effort hence: Art not shown.

Squirrel wrapping his scarf around an early bloomer -Posted this on Twitter for my #colour_collective illustration for the prompt, Cinnabar Green. Not sure if this counts for much, BUT it is my most popular illustration to date on Twitter.

Experiment No. 5 - Sleeping Giraffe: All digital with sketch.

Results:  Did this late at night and perhaps my judgement, focus, and coordination had gone to bed without me but I found the process clunky and frustrating. IF given many more hours of practice, perhaps I could come up with something more satisfying.

Sleeping Giraffe - Hate the colors. Had problems picking colors amongst other snafus.

Experiment No. 6- Sleeping Giraffe: Semi reverse Process Plus Digital Flourish: Sketch, Paint with watercolors. Scan. Added some additional digital flourishes. Note: Giraffe, Weedy Bits and Night Sky are are created separately. scanned and put together digitally. 

Results: Felt happy with the final art. The loose digital weedy flourishes seem to tie it all together in a new, for me, way. I want to explore this direction.

Sleeping Giraffe - Note, I used the same sketch for both Sleeping Giraffe  illustrations. Yes, I know, I should've done ALL the experiments using the same sketch BUT I didn't think of it earlier.  Posted this on Twitter for my #colour_collective for the prompt Delft Blue.

CONCLUSION: To be honest, there were times that I felt the last few weeks were an exercise in procrastination. I was afraid that I was going to just go back to my same old process but with only a few minor tweaks, experiment 4. Which would not have been the worst thing except for the time lost. Luckily experiment 6 came along.

Web: dianadelosh.com

Illustration blog: dtdelosh.blogspot.com

Product Blog: arthareswares.blogspot.com

Group Blog: drawntopicturebooks.blogspot.com

twitter: @dtdelosh

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Gifts: society6.com/dianadelosh

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Art Process Experiments 1 - 3

Recently, I've been trying new ways to work for a variety of reasons including keeping my work Fresh. My usual process is to sketch, ink, paint, scan, Photoshop. Elements are created separately and then put together and further digitally messed with until I'm satisfied. Here's a link to a recent process post.

Experiment No. 1 - Old English Sheepdog:  Reversed my process and No sketch.
Results: It felt daring working backwards. However, I can't imagine doing a whole piece this way. It does open up more possibilities.  I like the less outlined look. I also like that I used less black lines and feel the gray lines give it a softer look.

Painted basic shapes with watercolors. Scan

Added more shadows  and lines with my Wacom tablet and Photoshop. 

Experiment No. 2 - Owl flying in a Pine Forest:  The OWL only - Digital. NO sketch.

Results: Fun and a bit challenging to just draw paint with the Wacom. It has a certain appeal. A sketch would have helped.

The owl is drawn and painted using only the Wacom tablet and added to the Forest. A few Pine trees were hand inked*, scanned than digitally colored and put together for the forest. *I had originally created the pine trees for a different project and before I had the Tablet.  

Experiment No. 3 - Squirrel:  Oil Pastels. NO sketch.

Results: Felt like I was drawing with trees... Doubt if a sketch would've helped. I'd have to do this MUCH BIGGER. Never mind years of practicing. Similar to my Wacom experience but without being able to undo and all the other advantages of digital.

I haven't used oil pastels since high school! Rediscovered why I stopped using them.

Sharing more art process experiments soon.

Web: dianadelosh.com

Illustration blog: dtdelosh.blogspot.com

Product Blog: arthareswares.blogspot.com

Group Blog: drawntopicturebooks.blogspot.com

twitter: @dtdelosh

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Gifts: society6.com/dianadelosh

Check out my ThumbNailer