Advent Calendar: Days 1 thru 7 of my Christmas Illustrations

 I've been getting into the holiday spirit by posting my Christmas/wintry illustrations as an Advent Calendar over on my Instagram. As a greeting card designer it's no surprise that I have amassed quite a few Christmas designs and I thought this might be a good way to show some off. There might also be a few fresh ones that are just illustration thrown into the mix. I'm posting daily over on IG but I'll be posting them in batches over here for those who aren't on IG.

Day 1: Barn Owl Flying Through the Snow

Day 2: Christmas Honey Bears

Day 3: Peace to All

Day 4: Lion and Mouse

Day 5: Peace Dove

Day 6: Ugly Christmas Sweater Bunny

Day 7: Christmas Joy 

So are you All set up for the big day? Have you dug out your ugly Christmas sweater? OR are you more like me a bit of a procrastinator? No matter what, Happy Holidays!

Web: dianadelosh.com

Instagram: @dtdelosh

also  @dtdelosh at Hive

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Happy #KidLitArtPostcard Day!

 

 Here's a melange of my illustrations for the December KidLitArtPostcard. I'm an illustrator and I'm in the process of wrapping up one project and on the hunt for something fun, full of sweet animals and maybe even a touch of magic.

 

If this was a normal day I'd be posting this on Twitter, Instagram and Hive  -but it is not. And apparently there is something wrong with my key board because all the lower case "Ys" are missing. HA! I also managed to somehow anger the Chief Twitterer cause my account got suspended for???? And I just tried posting on Hive but that site seems to be quite problematic and I can't post an image right now. So I'm down to one working social media site. sigh.

 

Just discovered that it must be just a blogger problem because when I go to preview this post there are too many lower case y's all over the place. Think I caught all the errant y's. So please excuse the whining. Now I'm going to do some sketching at my drawing board and away from the computer.

So how's your December 1st going? Hope it's less problematic then mine.

Web: dianadelosh.com

Instagram: @dtdelosh

also  @dtdelosh at Hive

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Happy Mother' Day!

Happy Mother's day to all the mom's, and mother figures. We are who we are because of you.

Web: dianadelosh.com

twitter: @dtdelosh

Instagram: @dtdelosh

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Hoppy Easter!

 Hoppy Easter!! Happy Spring to my fellow creatives!

Here's hoping everyone finds a way to grow and bloom wherever they're planted.

My Gardening Bunny illustration: ink, colored inks and a bit of digital. Art created with the art challenges/prompts in mind for both #cbigArtShare - Gardening and #colour_collective - Mallow & Mint.

#cbigArtShare: monthly prompt  - post on Twitter/Instagram on the 2nd Tuesday of the month. May's prompt is #mermay. See @cbigNYC

#colour_collective: weekly color prompt - post every friday at 2:30pm on Twitter. Colors are posted on Saturday for the following Friday. Color pair forApril 22 is Seashell & French Sky Blue. I find the weekly challenges a bit, well, challenging, especially now that they're doing color pairs! See @CLR_Collective 

Find me at:

Website: dianadelosh.com

Twitter: @dtdelosh

Instagram: @dtdelosh

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com   

April: KidLitArtPostcard: Kazu

Kazu, Fox girl character © Diana Ting Delosh

One of my  goals for 2022 is to post a #KitLitArtPostcard post every month on Twitter.  Here's my April digital postcard. That means designing 12 different digital postcards for 2022. Which will give me a range of designs to send out to Art Directors and editors when I do an e- mailing.

Rules for myself are: 

• Preferably fresh, recent illustration.

• Has to be an illustration I've never used for a KitLitArtPostcard.

• Post on the Day, the earlier the better.

The pros of creating digital postcards are many.  It's free and you can tailor your design to the recipient. No Printing costs. No stamps. No address labels. No waste. 

The cons: It's harder to get email addresses for art directors and  editors. Hence why #KidLitArtPostcard is such a genius idea for kidlit artists.

#KidLitArtPostcard created by Gina Perry, @ginamarieperry, last spring for illustrators to promote their art on Twitter since the pandemic made snail mailing postcards problematic. Illustrators create a digital postcard and post it on the 1st Thursday of the month on Twitter and now even on Instagram.

My Feb #KidLitArtPostcard Twitter post

Dragon Egg, Mandrake Root © Diana Ting Delosh

Web: dianadelosh.com

twitter: @dtdelosh

Instagram: @dtdelosh

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Good Fortune Fortune Cookie

 

Recently I got an amazingly auspicious fortune from a fortune cookie.  I should point out that these days an actual fortune in a fortune cookie seems to be rarity. Nowadays they're mainly pithy sayings or quotes like the early bird catches the worm or something about being diligent.  Which may be true but really, I don't need a cookie to tell me that. So this was an exciting moment.

"Look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny"

Yup this fortune is a keeper and I'm taping it to my desk. Mind you, I do take these things with a grain of salt, but it's still nice to see when you have a picture book dummy out on submission with your agent and a grant application out as well as numerous other things out that you won't get a response to for awhile if ever. Never mind the projects you're currently keeping busy with to keep your mind off of everything as well as the real need to have something new to: submit, share,  always keep moving forward. It's like the universe sending you a message that all your efforts may come to fruition one day. No harm in finding a positive sign among all the negative voices that makes you question your illustrator/author dreams.

Here's to all my creative friends ever working, illustrating, writing, submitting and promoting: Good Luck and may all your creative dreams come true.

You can find me at:

Website: dianadelosh.com

Twitter: @dtdelosh

Instagram: @dtdelosh

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

Check out my shops:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Check out my ThumbNailer

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
Follow me on Twitter @dtdelosh

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards
Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

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

Check out my ThumbNailer

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