Making New Art Friends

A few weeks ago I emailed an artist whose blog I follow with a simple question.  She answered my question and then soon found my blog as well.  In no time we made plans to do an art trade.

The artist in question is Jess Bradley.  She's got a great sense of fun and humor.  You can see her art here.  And also here.  And some more here.  And also a bunch of other places that you can get to from those places I already mentioned.

Now on to the art trade.  All this cool stuff came from far across the Atlantic (from Bristol, UK am I right Jess?) to get to me here in Provo Utah, USA.

My favorite bit was the trading cards.

But the keychain was cool too.  Previously my keys were boring.  Now they are happy.

You can see all the details about the stuff here.  Lots o' goodies.

Hooray for making new friends.

Folio Academy

Will Terry, a buddy of mine, and Wayne Andreason, a guy I don't actually know, just launched a pretty cool website: folioacademy.com

It's an instructional site with art tutorials on a wide variety of subjects.  There are already a bunch of cool videos up on the site and they add more all the time.

Cool stuff.

Lost Monster - Moe Finds a Home

Hooray!  Moe isn't homeless any longer.  He was found by local artist J. Kirk Richards (who incidentally happens to be a friend of mine.)  Kirk tracked down Moe the monster and gave it to his son, Bryan.  Awesome.

Then he blogged about it.  Thanks Kirk, you rock.  You rock too, Bryan.

What do you folks think, should I do this again?

My Friend Jake...

... is selling prints of his illustrations to help with the relief effort in Japan.  More info on his blog.

Lost Monster #1 - The Experiment

A few days back I was inspired by this cool post on this great blog.  And I wanted to do something similar.  So I made this guy:

Now I need to find a good place to hide him.  I really hope he finds a good home and I get the picture back.  If this works then I want to do it again.  (And yes, that is my foot.)

Thanks for the inspiration Isaac, Gracie, Lily, Elijah and Aaron Zenz.  You folks rock (get it?)

Picture Book Marathon 2011 - Day 23

I think I'm bending the rules on this one, but technically this isn't a new picture book idea and I didn't write it.  It was actually written by Rick Walton, a buddy of mine.  But I am illustrating it.  So I figured I would use it for the marathon.

I'm still in the planning stages of the book, so these are really just some quick compositional sketches that I colored.

Plot Synopsis:

There is a little girl who is afraid of monsters but she figures that monsters are not very scary if she just calls them bunnies.  Then she races all around the house checking out all of the places that "bunnies" usually hide.  In the closet, under the bed, in the attic, in the basement, etc.

She runs into the backyard and there finds a cute little bunny (a real one.)  She sees it and cries, "Monster!" and runs away.

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It's more involved than that but that is the gist of it.

Look for more info on "I'm Not Afraid of Bunnies" coming soon on this here blog.

On the Subject of Hippos Riding Bicycles

Yesterday's Picture Book Marathon idea/sketch was based on a favor that I asked of some friends a couple of weeks back.  Let me explain.

When I go to schools and talk to kids about writing and illustrating stories one of the things that I like to talk about is how, with stories, there is always more than one right answer.  To demonstrate this I gave this assignment out to some folks: Draw a picture that has a hippo on a bike (or a tricycle or a unicycle.)

This is what I got in return:

from Michelle Weaver:

from Jed Henry:

from Jake Wyatt:

from Anthony Holden:

I have the best art friends.

Picture Book Marathon 2011 - Day 4

Today's idea gets logged under "weird."

Groblets are explorers.  They like to go camping in strange places, like inside your ears.  This isn't really a bad thing though because groblets are great story tellers.  After a long day of exploring, when the groblets have settled down for the night, they tell fantastic stories.  And never the same story twice.  This is where story ideas come from.

You may think somebody is really creative but they most likely have a groblet infestation.

If you've been enjoying this year's picture book marathon then I suggest you check out a few other illustrators who are also doing a book idea a day:

Julie Olsen

Jed Henry

Nate Hale

They are all doing fun stuff.

It's Marathon Time

Yep, a marathon.  But no running involved.  February is Picture Book Marathon Month.

Picture Book Marathon logo by Nate Hale

It's simple, 26 picture book manuscripts in 28 days (I get 2 days off.)  Since I like to draw I'm going to instead aim for 26 picture book covers in 28 days.  Maybe with a short plot synopsis to make the cover more coherent?

Get all the details here:  http://www.picturebookmarathon.org/

So, now I'm accountable.  Why do I do things like this to myself?

New Content at Creative Kid Central

I just updated the Creative Kid Central website.  There are two additions to the Lesson Plans page.

First we have Vocabulary Comics.

And then we have Making Language Arts Fun (with Rick Walton).  Thanks Rick for letting me link to the fantastic content on your website.

Apart from that I added a page for coloring pages.  Right now it has all of the monster name tags that I did for Tiff's classroom this year.  Though, they are too hard to preview.  I need to make it easier to browse the different pages.

Wow, links all over the place.

Brotique Week

Upcoming event in Kids Books.  It's gonna be great.

So, if you're going to be in the Provo area come check us (my critique group) out at one or all of these many cool activities.

The Double Dip

I made this card for Jed.  Happy Birthday Jed.

Book Munchers - New Photoshop Brushes

I didn't make the brushes used to paint this illo.  They were made by Jake Wyatt, a friend of mine.  Special thanks also to Jed Henry who constantly answers my Photoshop questions.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get more interesting textures in Photoshop.  I think this is a good step but there is still much to learn.

Drawing and Storytelling

I just posted a great video of Pascal Campion talking about drawing and storytelling on another blog I contribute to and I'm too lazy to post it again here.  But I do think the video is good enough to point out to you folks.  See?  I do care.

See the video here, at the Brotique Blog.  (Brotique = my writing critique group.)

Study of a Friend's Work

It turn's out that I know a lot of really talented artists.  I figure that I've got a lot to learn from a lot of talented people.  And so, I do (or at least I try.)  I did a study of this painting by Guy Francis.

I think it turned out okay.  Here's to learning.

A Bit Bipolar

On Tuesday, July 20 from 6:00-8:00 pm I will be having my BFA Final Show.  Have I mentioned that previously?  A friend of mine, Annie Henrie, will also be having her reception for her BFA Final Show at the same time.  It's going to be a big ol' art party.  Fun times for all.

Annie's work is a bit different from mine.  To give you an idea of what the two will look like together here are our two postcards:

New Miyazaki Movie!

The New Miyazaki film is an EarthSea story.  If you don't know the books and you are a fan of fantasy then you should check them out.  Really fun and sophisticated fantasy, not just a bunch of character class D&D stuff.

See the trailer here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/disney/talesfromearthsea/

Documentary on Kid Lit

As a documentary junky I'm fairly excited for this one coming up.  As an author/illustrator, I'm REALLY excited for this upcoming documentary.  Check out the trailer at the website:  www.libraryoftheearlymind.com

Banjo Pig

My Friend Guy Francis runs this great blog with his friend Stacy Curtis.  It's called Dueling Banjo Pigs.  It's pretty much as it sounds.  I made a banjo pig and it made it on the blog.  Fun times.  Check it out.  Join in the duel if you want.

Arnold Friberg Dies at Age 96

An amazing artist passed away yesterday.  His paintings of scenes from the Book of Mormon were a part of my life since before I can even remember.  According to my History of Illustration course at BYU, not only was he an amazing painter, he was also a really good person.  A lot of really fantastic painters seem to have totally unbalanced home lives, but Friberg was a saint (ha ha, get it?)  Anyhow, here's a few of his works.  Great stuff.

My friend Greg Newbold has a great post on his blog about Friberg.  Check it out.