Illustration Friday - Chicken

Here's one in honor of Jannie Ho aka @Chickengirl, a new friend from twitter!  I really am loving twitter for the networking and being able to find and follow lots of illustrators who are working and fabulously talented!!  And Chickengirl, well, her work is really great and so...with no further adieu, here is my chicken...well, actually it would technically be chickens but who's counting?

I actually did these illustrations a while ago.  It's kind of a funny story...a cautionary tale I think for all of you newb illustrators out there...

So, I was living in southern Indiana and every year in a little town called Corydon, IN (the FIRST capitol of Indiana as the residents proudly say) they have a Cock-A-Doodle Days celebration!  This is probably because the town's main employer is Tyson Chicken.  Anyhoo...I knew a guy who owns an art and frame shop there and he sets up a booth for that weekend.  So I go home and whip out these 4 illos and give them to him in hopes that he'll be able to sell them and I can make a little "scratch" for my artwork!

Well, I didn't know this guy very well, and it turns out I never saw my little chickens again.  Every time I went back to his shop and asked for them, he would tell me he had them put away somewhere and would get them out for me "next time" I came by.

So the moral of this Chicken Tale?  Don't ever give away your originals without getting some cashola up front first!!!  I suspect he sold them and just didn't want to give me any credit.  Or somebody pinched them from his booth, or maybe he was telling the truth and he misplaced them.  I dunno...I'm moving back there soon...so I'm gonna look him up again and bring a baseball bat this time!

Illustration Friday - Winter

In the spirit of the season, I decided to do something a little different and try my hand at colored pencil.  I really do like working in colored pencil.  Something about the medium makes me slow down and really enjoy the process.  Since I love birds, I thought a nice winter cardinal would be fun.  So without further adieu, here is my Illustration Friday "Winter" entry.  - L

Illustration Friday - SPENT

Here's one for IF...my interpretation of "Spent" in honor of the economy and the housing/mortgage debacle.  If you have a home, looks like you'll be spending lots of money keeping it in the future!  Just one artist's viewpoint, for what its worth.

The Finished Illustration

Thought you might like to see how my son's web comic illo turned out.

 As you can see, it's quite a bit more refined than the previous post.  I worked really hard trying to give it a feeling like a video game cover.

Figure Detail 1

Detail 2

The colors are a little washed out, but all in all I think it turned out really well.  My "client" was super-happy and that's really what counts, isn't it?

Keep making art - L

Illustration Friday - Renewal

This week's topic is renewal.  How appropriate.  We've just renewed the decade.  Welcome to 2010.  It's hard to believe we're ten years into a new milennium...especially considering that we all thought (or at least some people thought) that the whole world including the internet would come crashing down in the year 2000.  It's been a tough ten years, but through it all I've tried to keep my faith and maintain my focus and drive to become a successful freelance illustrator.  On that note, I've just gotten asked to bid on a new gig that hopefully will start my year off with some cash-ola in my pocket!  Groovy!

So here's my take on the Renewal theme.  I think of sleep...a chance for the body to renew, and chance for spirit to refresh, a chance for mind to soar.  So sweet dreams!  I hope you're feeling "renewed" in the morning!

-L

Happy Holidays

This year is ending up pretty well so far!  Just found out I'll be moving to the LA area and have already secured a place to live in Marina Del Rey.  On the water and just a short distance to the beach!!!  So far so good.  To celebrate, here are a few holiday illustrations for you!  Have a Happy New Year!  2010 is gonna be GREAT!!!

(click on image to view full size)

(click on image to view full size)

Web Comic Cover - evolution of a painting

I have been working on a painting recently for my son who is developing a web comic series.  He has some great ideas and asked me to paint a "cover" illustration for his soon to be unveiled (like Christmas or soon thereafter) site.

The illustration has evolved in stages, and I photographed each stage to send to my son.  I thought I'd share that here as an ongoing "work in progress" blog.

The criteria for this illustration were:
It should feature his "furry" character who is part fox, part human.  He was inspired by his avatar in Second Life.  The character is involved in an ongoing war-type scheme involving "world domination".  Don't ask me, ask him.  I'm clueless here cause when he tries to explain it, my eyes start to glaze over and roll back into my head.  (sorry joey!)  Anywho...one of his favorite MMORPG games is Call of Duty, so he asked me to make his cover art similar to CoD's artwork.  Basically I looked at the image and took it from there.
Here's stage one and you can see the composition is really similar:

Joey has drawn lots of what he calls "mechs" which are kind of Star Wars meets Halo mechanical battle-type vehicles.  He asked me to add in several of these, most specifically a battle helicopter and a couple of walkers.  So here's stage 2 and 3 showing that:

As you can see, the background is developing and I'm trying to get some depth.  Also the figure is becoming more detailed.  The surface I'm using is a very textured one.  It's basically a gessoed canvas with rough sand poured on top and gessoed again.  It's a wonderful, gritty texture and I think it adds a lot to the piece.

I'm really liking where this project is going and am having lots of fun collaborating with my kid on it!  I had no idea how really smart and creative he is! 

When next I asked him for more detailed information on the figure's armor and weaponry, he sent me some images and I incorporated those into the next stage:

So this is where the painting is thus far.  I am still working on it and will post the next phases as they continue to evolve.

I am really enjoying this collaboration with my son!  Thanks, Joey!  Hope you like your Christmas Present!!!

Love,

Mom

NPS Poster

Here's a recent poster done for the NPS at Grand Canyon.  I was asked to create a poster for a sculpture exhibit at headquarters.  The sculpture was done by Julie Ogier and it features the endangered Humpback Chub.

So I guess you could say I've been published and my client was the National Park Service!  WOOT! Poster is still being approved, but you get the idea!!

By the by, I am re-designing my web site.  It's currently under construction, but the new web page address is: http://sites.google.com/site/lizstevensart

Thanks, -L

Recent Work

I'm now on Guru.com. Just look me up under freelancers as lizstevensart or Profile ID: 1056961. Here's a recent cover I did for the Native American Culture and Arts Expo to be held at Grand Canyon, AZ in 2010.

Art Marketing 101

Ok, so it's been a little longer than a week since my last post. Managing 2 blogs...what the heck was I thinking??? Oh well, you can only do what you can do.

I've been thinking alot about marketing myself lately. I have this book called Art Marketing 101. It's a great book for any artist who really wants to know how to run his or her career as the business it really is.

Now, I know some of you out there will disagree that art is a business. So to you purists, I apologize in advance! I personally want to be able to do what I love and hope to be well rewarded financially! So if you want to paint and never sell a canvas, more power to you! That's just not my style.

Anyways, back to this art marketing thing. This book says the first most important step to fulfilling your dream of being a full-time artist is to create your identity as an artist. When you meet people for the first time and they ask you what you do for a living, what do you say? I say "I'm a freelance illustrator". I may not have made a dime in the last week from selling my illustrations, but by saying it, I become it. Every time I say it, I believe it a little bit more, and gain a little bit more self-confidence as an illustrator! Amazing the power of positive thought!

What's the next step? Well I've got to come up with a "brand" and get serious about this business thing. A business plan, logo, identity, even a mission statement. All this so I can present myself in a consistent, identifiable way. This identity should extend across all platforms...i.e. letterhead, logo, business cards, web site, blog. You know the drill. Some thought about what I want to be doing in 5 years, 10 years. Where I want to be. Then focus, and get to work! If I want to be a children's book illustrator like I've been saying forever, I've got to start doing some kids illos, don't I?

So back to the book to figure out how to do all this stuff, and then figure out some kind of story to use for a picture book dummy. Whew. Ok, deep breath...go for a run, clear my head. More research required! Here's a sketch of some characters I was fooling with a while back. I like the little burrowing owl character. I even did an "emo" version messing around one day. I'm off to run. Later!

A Blog a Day?

I just looked at today's Blog of Note list. I have to say my favorite is An Apple A Day. It's awesome. Beautifully photographed and well written! Emerson's blog has inspired me to write and post more. The problem is...what to write and post about? I hate blogs that are just random...and I don't presume to be a great writer. I really admire the blogs that have a theme and stick to it.

I created this blog to have a place to show my artwork...my illustrations, really. So that's what this blog is about. I want to be a full-time, freelance illustrator. The blog is supposed to document my process and progress. I guess I just really have a short attention span, because in the past, I mostly would post some recent (or not so recent) work and then forget about it. But you can probably tell that from reading this.

So what is this process of becoming a full-time illustrator? Can I really do it? Will blogging about it help? Let me tell you what I'm doing so far...

1. Posting to this blog...committing to post at least once a week?!?
2. Posting to my second blog...http://www.trailsketches.blogspot.com...committing to update it once weekly as well.
3. Listing myself at several freelance sites such as: www.ifreelance.com and www.guru.com
4. Drawing, sketching, painting daily.
5. Working on development of my own children's picture book
6. Deciding on and executing a body of work (fine art) for a future gallery show.
7. Finding ways to market myself and my work.

I need to get serious about this if I'm going to make any progress before I'm old and gray! Ok, enough of my rant...now let's get to the good stuff...artwork!!!

Intuitive Portraits

Wow. I just realized that I haven't posted anything on here since last November! Slacker!! LOL So I thought I'd post some new work. I have been exploring my spiritual side and have even become a Reiki Master. This has led me to try and get in touch with my intuitive abilities. I am a member of Transformation.com and on that site I made the offer to do intuitive 'portraits' for some of my friends on there.

"What's an intuitive portrait?" you ask? While holding thoughts of you in my mind and holding a positive intention, I begin to draw. It starts out as nebulous marks and then begins to transform into an image. Sometimes the image resembles the person, sometimes the image is symbolic, sometimes abstract. But everything in the finished piece has meaning. It's really pretty cool.

Here are two I created...enjoy!

Namasté,
Liz

Funky Mermaid Swap

These are the mermaids I did for the Funky Mermaid swap. This was a fun one and I got an added bonus! I'm going to be published!!! My artwork was selected for publication in Arttrader magazine's ezine for next month. I'm stoked. So if you want to see my artwork it will be in issue number 5 next month. Go to www.arttrader.com and either download or browse the pdf issue!

These are my 4 mermaids and they are titled clockwise from lower left:
Shrimp Cocktail
Turnabout is Fair Play
Celtic Merman
Lady of the Lake

Gothic Alice in Wonderland SWAP

Here's my take on a "Gothic" Alice in Wonderland. I did Alice, the Queen of Hearts, and the Cheshire Cat. I know it's been a while since I posted. I promise I'll do some IF stuff soon!!!

Illustration Friday-SAVE

Ok, ok...so it's been a REALLY long time since I've entered anything for Illustration Friday. Even tho the last time I did, I got some truly awesome feedback. Maybe I'm just procrastinating, but I've got this list up on my wall. Every week I add the latest "topic" from IF to it. And it just keeps growing...and growing. The kicker is, I didn't even include the all the weeks I've missed! I just started fresh from January. So, how many of you out there actually post to IF each week? And if you post often, how often do you actually create original work just for the IF topic? I guess I'm just showing up as a lazy illustrator. Not lazy, just BUSY really. So I'll be honest..the image I'm posting here I did a while back, but it fits the "Save" topic so there! And as for all you prolific illustrators out there who dutifully publish original work for 25 blogs a week, my hat is off to you! Send some of that super-creative Karma my way, huh? Oh, and I promise that from now on if I look at your illustration or site, I'll post a comment. It's the least I can do. I believe in the universal law of reciprocation!

Thanks for listening! Liz

Coyote Swap

These are 3 images I made for the Illustrated ATC's "Coyote-Trickster" swap. The first one is Coyote Brings Fire, the second is Coyote Steals a Blanket and the last is Coyote Makes Man. I really enjoyed making these. If you're wondering, ATC's are Artist Trading Cards. I'm a member of Illustrated ATC's which is a juried group. The format is any hand drawn or painted medium, as long as it's 2.5" by 3.5" in size. They are great fun and a lot of motivation for me to do some cool art. I'll post the images from the "Gothic Alice in Wonderland" swap later on. ENJOY!!

Raining Cats and More Cats ATC Swap

These are the illustrations I traded in the Cats swap. They were fun to do and I got some great cards back! I'm so excited. This is such a fun way to get motivated and keep doing daily artwork. Now if I can just get back into Illustration Friday Mode...

Keep drawing!
Liz

ATC's--Crows Swap

Ok, so I have joined this artist trading card group and I've been doing some fun work. I joined a Crow swap and here are the images I did for it.

This is a fun way to keep myself working. I get to experiment as much as I want, and I get feedback from the other artists.

It's a juried group so you know you'll get like for like when you trade cards. The folks here are extremely talented and I can't wait until my cards start arriving!

These crows are pencil on bristol. I had done some sketching and I liked the way they looked, so I kept all three the same. I like the idea of a cohesive group. I'll post the ones from the cat swap next time.

Yeah, I know I should be working on illustration friday too. So I'll try to add it as well.

Illustrated ATC's--MOON

And last is the fourth and final, Moon. The elements. Essential. Simple. Beautiful.

Illustrated ATC's--SUN

And here's number three, Sun.