Week of September 19, 2016 & My Experience with MyMATSPrep (Children's Book Illustration)

Hi again! I can't believe September is almost over already! Summer is done (boo!) and Fall has arrived (yay!). There's a lot about Fall that I enjoy, particularly cuddling up under a warm blanket with a good book and a hot tea :)

Work this past week was a little side-tracked. Lilla Rogers from MakeArtThatSells.com has been promoting her newest class for Children's Book Illustration and this week was offering 5 days of free Matsprep assignments. I think you know me well enough by now to realize that I couldn't possibly turn this down, so I signed up, took a deep breath, tried to let everything go, and let myself go to do my best. I did manage to find some time to work on improving my negative painting skills with a tulip exercise, plus, I followed a design tutorial from Designcuts.com and also created a kids party invitation in Illustrator!

MyMATSPrep:

These assignments are always a challenge and I couldn't wait to dig in! Check it out :)

Day 1: Lilla showed us an old photograph of a young girl she named Minette and asked us to make a character around her. The first page is a study of a style that I would like to adopt, the second is my Minette and who I think she is :)

Day 2: We were asked to look out of our bedroom window and draw what we saw. My bedroom faces the backyard. I think I managed to capture it pretty well :)

Day 3: Because it's a children's book we were asked to redraw our window image but this time flip what we saw, make small things big/big things small, take into account a child's imagination and sense of play.

Day 4: Time to introduce perspective and a sense of distance to the scene.

Day 5: Take our final scene and include little Minette in whatever manner you would expect her to be in it.

I really had a blast making this final image! It was so much fun to put together something that I had thought about for a long time. Because I have two girls, I've often imagined what the yard could look like to a young mind! Plus, I had the chance to draw in a way I've always wanted to, and research and develop a character!


Negative Painting:

I have a passion for negative painting. I love looking at what artist's have created and the complexity of the image is completely different than when you strictly paint in the positive! I've been wanting to practice this style for quite some time now. Several months ago I snagged myself a copy of Roland Roycraft's book "Fill Your Watercolors with Light and Color". I adored looking through the book and was so pleased that it had exercises I could follow, one of which was this beautiful tulips painting:

My negative tulips painting following Roland Roycraft

Children's Party Invitation:

I adore lettering and typography, almost as much as painting, and I never seem to get enough chances to play with them. So when I saw that Designcuts had a tutorial on creating a cute little children's party invitation (with a few freebie graphics!), I knew I had to take the time to try it out! It also gave me the opportunity to flex my Adobe Illustrator muscles. I found a nice card mockup to customize and display it in too :)

My version of Designcuts Children's Party Invitation

So that was my week. It was pretty exhilarating actually! Almost everything I did seemed to be on point, even though none of it was following my intention for the week. I haven't completely figured this week out yet. October is a very busy month at the Wiklund house what with Thanksgiving, Hallowe'en, and a birthday, but I'm sure that's true at your house as well. 

Stay warm, stay safe, hug your family and I hope to talk to you again next week!

Until next time,

Mandy

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave me a message.

If you're interested in commissioning me, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)

Week of September 12, 2016

Hello again, I'm so happy you're here reading this today! How was your week? Mine was more hectic than I like, and less productive than I'd hoped for. It was my oldest's birthday this past weekend so planning and whatnot did take some of my time (yes I overthink and it gets very distracting!!). I don't have too much to tell you this week. I only managed to add one new product to my Etsy shop, but I also signed up for a character design course that I want to tell you more about, and I'm thinking it might be time for another challenge!

New Product:

My latest product is a card design from an image I drew about a year ago of a line of chickadees on a wire. It is a printable product so it's instantly sent to your email after purchase! If you're interested in purchasing this card click here to be taken directly to the post in my shop.

My new Chickadees blank greeting card printable. You can purchase this directly from my Etsy shop :)

I can think of a dozen places this little image could be used on. I'm considering adding it to a few products in my Society 6 shop as well, mugs, towels, etc. What do you think?

Character Design Course:

I got a pop-up advertisement in my Facebook feed recently. Normally I just glance at them quickly and move on, but I was inspired to click on this one because it seemed to be a possible solution to my MATS B map problem.

Aaron Blaise is a former Disney artist and animator and has a collection of courses for character design and animation. The specific one I thought might help me is his Figure Drawing and Character Design Bundle, you can click here to read more about it.

I've only spent a few days watching the videos and I can tell you that this guy knows what he's talking about! If you want to draw in a more illustrative style (less realistic), I recommend taking a look at his site. He also offers some free information that I found valuable as well, so it's worth taking a look.

Further Character/Figure drawing:

I spent my Friday in the local library looking up some books that might also help me better understand how to draw figures in a less literal and realistic way. There is a specific style I have in mind, but I feel it's very "in" right now and I'd rather develop my own style than follow a trend that may be gone soon.

Anyway, my search led me to one author by the name of Chris Hart. He has written a good hundred books on the topic of drawing figures and the various ways you can go about it. My library had about a dozen of them on the specific features I'm looking for so I grabbed them all!

I also remembered that I own a book by Stephanie Corfee titled "Creative Illustration & Beyond" which is not only beautifully illustrated, it also has some amazing ideas and exercises for figuring out your style.

(note: I make no commission in mentioning the above products or artist/authors.)

Another Challenge:

With all this information at my fingertips, I'm thinking it might be time to do another daily challenge. My last challenge was to get me painting more so that I could improve my skill and understanding of the medium. I loved it! It was definitely a challenge in the work involved and the pre-planning, but I got a lot out of it! You can read more about my last challenge by clicking here. I know that all the reading in the world isn't going to do a thing to my skill-level, it's the doing that does anything, so I'm seriously considering starting another challenge, this one focusing more on drawing people/figures/faces/poses.

I haven't decided on the length for this one, I can't seem to choose between 30 days or 100 days. What do you think? Have you done a challenge to improve your skills in a specific area? Do you think I would benefit more from a 30 day exercise or 100? I'd love to hear about your experience!

A Sock Doll:

Okay, I know this isn't strictly artsy, but I'm very proud of it and I had to share. For my daughter's birthday I thought it might be nice to make her a sock doll. She's turning 9 and isn't really into dolls per se, so I wanted it to be a little more mature, definitely not a baby doll. After searching the web for a few hours (Pinterest and Google really know how to suck time out of a day!) I found this pattern and tutorial that seemed perfect (click here to see it). With just a few adjustments I customized the doll to look more like my daughter. She seems to really love it!

My latest sewing creation - a sock doll for my 9 year old daughter!

I'm not the worlds best sewer (I don't think that's even a real word), far from it, but I do enjoy breaking out the needle and thread every now and then and making something unique for my family.

That's all I have for you this week. Don't forget to leave me a comment on whether I should do a 30 or 100 day challenge!

I hope your week is good to you and yours. Stay safe and have fun :)

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave me a message.

Until next time,

Mandy

If you're interested in commissioning me, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)

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Week of September 5, 2016

It's been a very busy couple of weeks in the Wiklund house! We managed to squeeze in a camping trip (our only one for this summer sadly), I fell on a metal fire pit, my husband got a mild case of poison ivy, we suffered a 48 hour flu, and then it was a quick scurry to get the girls ready for school! They are both very excited and very happy in their respective new classes, which as a mother is quite a relief :)

This past week I spent some time creating some products for sale in my Etsy shop! I'm currently focusing on digital products which to me seem like an amazing deal because not only do you get original artwork, you can print it again and again (because you get the file!), you get to choose the quality of the print job based on where you print and what you print it on, and you get it instantly after purchase! Considering the cost, I think it's an amazing deal and I'm so impressed at how many illustrators and designers do this!

Currently I have four products available, but I'm hoping to make many more. Right now I have 3 cards and one print. My plan is to also include my MATS B scrapbook page as a digital file, I just have to figure out how I want to offer it. I'm open to new ideas so if there's something you had hoped would be available but isn't, feel free to send me a message and I'll see what I can do :)

These are images of what's currently available:

The download is of the card only in 4x6 and 5x7 formats, no envelope. Click here to read more.

Download the files to print in 4x6 or 5x7 format. High quality image. Click here to read the details.

Same as the first two, click here to read more about what is offered.

This picture is only to show what could be done with the print of my red stag. Click here for details.

I'm still working on my map for MATS B, but I've decided that where I'm going wrong with it is that it needs people. Figures in both the adult and child sizes (though that may still change). So I'm doing some research on how I would like to represent people in illustration. I've found a few amazing books at the library that I will be studying, as well as Frannerd (she's just an awesome illustrator!) and my previous attempts at illustrating people, which I will likely show as I go along. I have a few examples of my own images that I quite enjoyed and would like to see if I can push them a little further.

Well, I guess that's it for this week. I have a lot going on between learning and setting up product this week so I hope to have a good report for you next week!

I hope this week is good to you and yours. Stay safe and have fun :)

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave me a message.

Until next time,

Mandy

If you're interested in commissioning me, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)