February Critique
January 27, 2008 by pghpicturebook
February 5th at the Barnes and Noble at the Waterfront in Homestead (under the Homestead Grays Bridge, formerly the High Level Bridge) 7pm to 9pm
Remember your Mardi Gras Illustrations…and if you’d like to celebrate with colorful dress or whatever…you’re more than welcome; that will be ‘Fat Tuesday’ (Mardi Gras) evening!
Please respond if you’re coming, by leaving a comment here…and if you cannot make it and would still like to share your illustration: post it on your blog and leave a link here…we’d all love to see it!
Keep warm!
I’ll be at the critique…in full color 8-).
Looking forward to sharing my “official” portfolio with the group–then I’m off to the SCBWI Winter conference in NYC!
Annie
Anne,
I can’t wait to see the portfolio…the OFFICIAL one!
…you’re going to have such a good time in NYC! I’m sorry that I’ll miss it this year!
see you Tuesday!
Since I can’t get there, here’s my Mardi Gras!
(and also my Carnival, my Lunar New Year, and my Imbolc. But who’s counting).
http://lizjonesbooks.livejournal.com/118032.html
See you all in March!
Liz,
I love it! Its fun and warm! celebrating LIFE!
Did you start with a dark background and then add all of the details with the oranges and yellows?
Do you ever paint with paints anymore; or do you do use the computer all of the time, now?
Do you work light on dark with any other mediums?
Anyway,
I’m not finished with my ‘mardi gras/fat tuesday/etc etc’ yet, (and even though I have every intention of making it to the critique meeting)…I’ll post mine here when I’m done …sometime tomorrow.
If you have some time check it out. ok?
Thanks.
a link to my illustration:
http://rosegauss.typepad.com/
Rose– I almost posted this one in stages. There were so many ideas I wanted to squeeze in here, and they didn’t all fit.
I wanted the dark tall Andes in the background, and that was my first layer, all blues and greens and blacks.
I wanted the wolf of winter that Brigid’s light chases away, but there was no space for him. I wanted Brigid’s forge (she’s got a lot to do with smithing, as well as creative work of other kinds) I also wanted the heavy limbed trees of the American south with their spanish moss beards, but there was no space, so I settled for streetlamps(left foreground).
I wanted the parade to originate as a river of stars–the milky way(for Brigid, again and her association with new lambs and calves) but I really wanted the emphasis to be on people, so I skipped it in favor of candles and flashlights in the crowd.
I do mostly work in digital, though I still do a lot of pen and ink when I’m sitting in a meeting or my daughter’s horse lesson, and when I’m sketching before bed.
Light on dark is probably one of my favorite presentations– don’t know why. It works pretty well in acrylics, but not so much with watercolor, obviously. Maybe that’s why I’ve always done poorly with watercolor. I think about it backwards!
Much as I love paints, painting is still kind of a hazard with the kids around… maybe in a few more years!
gottcha’ ! (I had kids, too!) …just a few more years.
You’re explainations are as colorful as your illustrations!!! Thanks! i think that its a really neat way to illustrate.
Do you know who Sue Ellen Ross is? She seems to work from dark to light also…facinating! But she starts off with making …like a grisaille first….EVERYTHING is drawn in pencil and before she put down even a stitch of ink or paint she KNOWS what she’ll put where…but she puts the darks in first…very precise.
http://www.howardmandville.com/Pages/Artist%20pages/ross.html
I hope that more people post their links to their illustrations on their blogs… i love looking at these!
Hey, Liz–
(Emailing from the 36th floor of the Hilton in midtown Manhanttan) Light on dark is also my current favorite way to work (I’m preferring medium warm browns for the background at this point). My whole portfolio is pieces worked that way, and all but two of them are digitally rendered. I start with a good pencil sketch, scan it in, then go for the color. Going with a medium/dark background also works really well with pastels.
So here’s my Mardi Gras challenge piece:
http://annetrimble.com/art/Mardigras08.png
I wanted to get the colors of the rural Cajun (south-central Louisiana) and bring in the little girl delighting in her Daddy’s mask (she’s not afraid of “clowns”).
Annie
Wow– Rose– Sue Ellen Ross’s stuff is amazing– thanks for the link! I’m always fascinated by people who know at the outset where they want things to go– for me, it’s a matter of starting with general feel and working to specifics, and I always change my mind through the course of it– a *lot*. Which could also explain why watercolor is not my strong suit! I think I’m just not that disciplined.
Annie– *love* your piece!! After looking at all your pictures, I was really looking forward to seeing your interpretation, and it’s beautiful! On another note– will you be at the Gardner Winter Music festival in Morgantown this year? I think it’s the 23rd or so… I know we’re going for the day Saturday. Maybe I’ll see you there!