New work, and full of plans for winter break

This is another new piece I just finished for the show I have up right now–I finished it weeks ago, but I had to scan it in parts and I only got a chance to go into Photoshop and piece it together today…no time for anything art-related the last few miserable weeks, thanks to the million (read: three–but they were three REALLY BIG, mean projects) giant school projects I had to finish up. But another semester down now, hooray! So, anyway, here’s the picture…

Jenny Greenteeth. watercolor and pen & ink, approx 12"x16"

And now that I have some time, I really want to take some photos of the show before it comes down…it turned out looking pretty cool.

So, projects for the break are: submit “Owen’s Uncles” to the next publisher on my list; research how and where to submit my illustration portfolio; work on the new story idea that’s been bugging me for weeks with no time to work on it; keep working on illos for La Belle Dame Sans Merci (totally stalled out on that before, but I have better ideas on how to do it now); and do some work on “The Lettuce Rancher.”

I gave up on that last one there for a while because I kept seeing advice for would-be children’s book writers saying, “Don’t bother with that cute story you wrote about your pets, you sentimental dolt” (the last part was only implied). But while I was reading zillions of picture books for one of my library school assignments, I kept coming across cute stories about the author’s pets, and I learned two things from this:

1. Nuh-uh, advice-givers, those crappy pet stories totally do too get published; and

2. Yes, they generally do suck. So the advice still makes pretty good sense.

But MY cute-story-about-my-pets doesn’t suck, so I’m going to work on it again…

Family Portrait

Got another new piece completed for the show I’m doing in November, so I thought I’d share it. I think this turned out kinda cool, and I had better luck with scanning it than usual, too, so yay. Plus I’m KIND OF getting the hang of seeing where the colors are off, and knowing what I need to do in Photoshop to adjust them. (Although I really cannot emphasize “KIND OF” enough here.)

Anyway, check it out:

Isn’t she cute?! I love my weird, unpleasant-looking little kids…she would so be friends with the little boy in the Silver Key.

Now back to what I should be working on, which, as always, is an assignment for library school.

*pities self*

[eats some potato chips out of boredom and despair]

*loathes self*

see, I don’t JUST do pen and ink

I’m getting ready for a show next month and hoping to get a bunch of new things finished for it; just got this one finished up last night & thought I’d share it.

Malevolent Spirits. 12"x18"; pen and ink, watercolor.

I would explain the story behind it, but everyone who has ever known a cat understands anyway…

I wish the scan did the colors justice, but watercolors are SO tricky to get to scan decently. My strategy now is just to adjust the colors in Photoshop using the selective color tool, and the results are passable, but I sure wish I knew of a better way of going about it. I had found a tutorial with some tips, but the site’s down now… so if anyone out there has any suggestions, let me know!