Friday, August 30, 2013

Bedtime Stories for my Little Brother


This is a repaint of a piece I made about a year and a half ago. Here's the older version:


It's kind of like a game of spot the differences, isn't it? At this small size the painting may not look that much different. It's really in the closeups where you can see the improvements.

This time I extended the composition to work as a double-page spread in a picture book. I rendered the dinosaur and everything a lot more than before. But the biggest thing I did was put more design into things: adding a pattern to the plain blue beadspread, making the plain lamp a dinosaur lamp, changing his weird black pajama turtleneck into a Giants jersey, replacing the generic teddy bear with a stuffed triceratops.



This painting is inspired by my little brother Chris. Sometimes I would tuck him in bed at night, and he would ask me to tell him a story. So I would make up some silly story about "a little boy named Chris, who was just starting to fall asleep for the night..." and then dinosaurs and Darth Vader and Barry Bonds and all his favorite things would happen to him.


When I look at this painting, I regret not taking the time to tell Chris more stories. There were too many nights when he begged for a story but I squirmed out of it. What was I so busy for? Where did teenage Kelley have to go that was so important? I'm sorry about that, Chris.


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

You Look So Young

Twice this week I have been mistaken for a 17-year-old. I am 27. This happens to me A. LOT. For example, a random lady at the SCBWI conference asked me if I had moved out of my parents' house yet.

"Yes," I responded, having moved out of my parents' house nine years ago.
"It must be nice not having your mom bugging you to clean your room all the time, right?" She said.

Yes, yes, I know, this is a nice problem to have, and I'll be thankful for it when I'm older. I won't deny that it's sometimes flattering.

But I am trying to start a business here. A one-person business where I basically am my brand. "Cute teenager" is not the impression I want to leave on clients. In my last office job, the average employee was about twenty years older than I was, and sometimes they could be pretty condescending. In my last class, a professor implied that I held a certain belief only because my parents told me so.

I want clients to see me like this:


Not so much this:


Any suggestions?

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Sketching at the park


The blog has been quiet for the last few days while I've been visiting my grandparents in Boise. While I was there I went to Kathryn Anderson Park with my sketchbook and did some little doodles.


It was a beautiful park and very quiet, but it was such a hot day that I couldn't really enjoy drawing as much as I wanted to. After about an hour I was pretty baked.



I saw a stag with fuzzy antlers in the bushes. He let me get really close to him!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

After Art School


This week the director of Illustration Department at Academy of Art University, Chuck Pyle, asked illustration alumni to share their recent successes on Facebook. The resulting thread shows the diversity of the illustration world. Here's a sampling:

Joie Brown:  I got a job and my first day was today! I'm a production assistant at Riva Creative (they design theme parks)

AJ Gregory: Finished a painted album cover over the weekend for a very popular, underground Seattle rock band - Helms Alee! Being released on the label, Sargent House. Big exposure!

Jonathan Colton: I'm ever busier doing Police Composite Sketches, did two last week of a couple of robbery suspects - lol.  In September, I'm attending another class on Composite drawing that deals with interviewing children, and image modification: the effects of Methamphetamine on faces.

Chan Ae Lim: I got a commission for a picture book. Still unable to get an agent-but freelancing is giving plenty of insight on the business side of things.

Nicole Album: I'm an artist for pottery barn teen. textiles, wall decor, illustration for posters, etc...

Re Cloud Yoch: A game i worked on went bankrupt so I now own an entire game worth of art. yay for writing my own contract!

Marc OwlBoogie Aure: I've been in the art industry for 15 since graduating in 1998. Egreetings, Inc. during the dot com boom right out of school. Litigation graphics artist for 7 years after that. I did freelancing for Old Navy doing toddler boys clothing. I was a lead artist at Zynga where I spent the last 3 years. Now I'm a lead artist at start up called Mind Pirate.

Ciaee Ching: I just signed a contract as the illustrator for a children's book.

Noah Patrick Pfarr: Had a pretty good Entertainment Weekly illustration last week, and promoting it put me on the radar for Wall Street Journal and LA Times!

Linda Ólafsdóttir: I've been freelancing full time for three years now - and so far I've had the time of my life…most of the time! I signed a five book deal with Sterling Publishing which I'm currently working on, have worked for educational and children's book publishers in Iceland as well as illustrated and designed stamps form the Iceland Post.

Christine Knopp: This will be my second year with Disney Interactive working as a concept artist, though I have also helped with some UI and done a lot of background paintings recently.

Sueann Williams I'm currently working full-time as an artist at the mobile gaming company Storm8 in Redwood City. Working there is both fun and challenging. My co-workers are amazingly talented and I learn so much from them everyday. I've been there for a bit over a year now and it feels great getting paid to do what I love. In the meantime I've discovered that I'm a terrible freelance artist!

Scotland D. Barnes: I got out of Jury Duty.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Porch Swing


I just finished a bunch of b&w illustrations for a self-published chapter book. Here's one of them; I think this one might be my favorite. I'll share more about the book and the illustrations I did for it once the author gets his website up and running.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Anna Goodson on style

"Perfect your style. Work on having a distinct style that you have mastered over time.  If you work in several styles, choose one and focus on it. Your work should be recognizable. Your style should belong to you. If you can achieve that, then that’s a huge advantage."

-Anna Goodson, artist rep

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Zaya and the Northern Lights




Lately I've been enjoying the blog Universal Beauty, which has photos of people in traditional dress from around the world. It has a lot of Tibetan, Mongolian and Northern Chinese peoples, and I loved their styles. I drew this little character in my sketchbook and really really liked her. I named her Zaya.


I drew a few different sketches of her, but they were all kind of stiff. Frustrated, I went to bed one night trying to think of a more dynamic composition, and the idea of the northern lights popped into my head. And then what if the northern lights were animals? Spirit animals? Spirit animals with tribal tattoos? And one of them was a narwhal?


I scanned this thumbnail pencil sketch, and started digitally painting on top of it in my usual process. But soon the reindeer's antlers were getting in the way of the character, so I changed her mount to a yak. But then I was having trouble finding a good reference for the yak, so inspired by James Gurney, I made my own photo reference from clay.


Yep. And that's how you do that.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Belt = dead snake


Here's a tip for all you illustrators out there: need to draw a dead snake? A belt makes a great stand-in for your photo reference needs!


So pro!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Featured in ImagineFX magazine


Way back in March I was notified that I was going to be featured in the August issue of ImagineFX magazine. I have been patiently waiting for my copy ever since then - and after I ordered it, it took over 3 weeks to arrive from the UK! But it was worth it - when I opened the magazine I saw my work printed full bleed on a double-page spread. I said "woooooooooah" out loud.


It is so cool to see my work in print, and at such a large size, too! I had no idea I was going to get so much page time. (Is that a phrase? Page time? It should be.)


Thank you, ImagineFX! If you want your own copy of this issue you can buy it here.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Snapping Turtle


I'm practicing a new style, some digital pen-and-ink interior illustrations for a client who wants a classic look. More to come later.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

To be successful in illustrating

"If you want to do great work and be successful you need to be illustrating...in some way every day. Do personal work, create the kind of work you would like to be hired to do, research ideas, get inspired. Picking it up only when you have a job to complete is not enough. Without constant practice your hand will become rusty between projects...Decide if you truly have the aptitude for illustration, and if so, pursue it relentlessly. If this is not right for you then find what motivates you and move on. Illustration is brutally competitive and requires more than talent to succeed."

- Chrystal Falcioni at Magnet Reps

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

SCBWI Conference 2013 - I survived



Oh, what's this? Oh, nothing, you know, it's just me and some buddies taking a picture with David Wiesner.

David. Freaking. Wiesner. You guys.

Sure, he looks slightly frightened, but still it was a highlight of my trip to the 2013 SCBWI conference in LA. (By the way, see the squirrel shirt I'm wearing? I get a lot of compliments on it wherever I go.)

The conference, which spanned four days, was so massive that I don't want to bore you or myself by recounting every detail of it. I attended with my fellow AAU alumni Sunny, Shih-Fen and Hyoji, as well as fellow scholarship winner Katie. The conference took place at the Hyatt Regency. Here's the view from our hotel room:


SCBWI kept us busy from 8:30 am to 6:30 every single day in overly air-conditioned conference rooms and ballrooms. And then on Saturday they threw a big party. I think my friends and I were all mentally exhausted but inspired and encouraged.



The Golden Kite Luncheon

The Portfolio Showcase

Wiesner discussing book design

An underlying theme throughout the conference was courage. Deciding to be an author or illustrator is scary. There were many motivational speakers who shared their own stories, talking about the dozens of publishers who rejected their books before they finally got published. At the end of the conference, Jarrett Krosoczka humorously read aloud negative online reviews of his books. ("Too much yellow," one reviewer quipped.) Then he talked about why we write children's books, of how a good book can change a child's life and stay with them forever. I started thinking about all the books I loved as a kid and a teen, like The Chronicles of Narnia, and maybe got a little choked up. Sunny later said, "I'm so fulfilled with the happiness to know that I'm in the right place."

Jarrett has a TED talk which is pretty similar to the talk he gave at the conference, if you're interested:


At the airport I saw Jarrett eating a hamburger at Burger King. I almost said hi to him, but then I didn't because I am chicken.

Raffles were held throughout the conference. On the last day, about 40 books were lined up, and if your name was pulled out of the box, you could pick out a book. My name was called when there was only one book left. After a weekend of celebrating beautiful, clever, thoughtful, funny children's books, I end up with "Almost the Real Thing: Simulation in Your High-Tech World", published in 1991.



Whatever. Time to get back to work.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Modern vs. Traditional art


This video sums up how I feel about modern art.
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