Illustration Friday: Wool

© copyright Alicia Padron 2013

Nothing like wooly sweater and scarves. 

I wouldn't mind the itching if I could play in the snow right now! :o)

A quick sketch for this week's Illustration Friday. 

Illustration Friday: Wheel

© copyright Alicia Padron 2013

This is a little warm up sketch I did earlier this morning on this week's Illustration Friday's topic wheel.

I'm sure most of you artists out there are familiar with Illustration Friday. If you are not, make sure you check it out. It's a great way to keep your creative juices flowing, helps you come up with wonderful portfolio pieces, connects you with other artists around the world, gives you exposure and can even spark an idea for a book!

So what are you waiting for? Click here to learn more. :o)

Illustration Friday: Water

This is an old illustration, but I immediately recalled it for this week's Illustration Friday prompt: water.
I had just made the decision to switch my portfolio from colored pencil to gouache. This was part of a long, wordless story that I think still holds up well today. Minus the fact that I NEVER give my kids 4 fingers anymore (what WAS I thinking?!?).
If there are any other words of wisdom to be had, it would be DIVE IN. I was so scared switch to gouache from my colored pencils, but it was the best decision.

Illustration Friday

-Mirror-

This is a little sketch I drew yesterday for Illustration Friday. 

It has been ages since I contributed! I used to do it religiously every week a few years back and that really helped me build my portfolio. Now I'm busy with work but I sort of miss participating. Yesterday I realized that I can still participate by quickly sketching something and use it as warm up sketches once a week.

If you are an artist and haven't tried it, you definitely should. They give you a word every week and you draw something related to it. The word for this week is Mirror. Everyone can participate, artists of all skill levels and now they have a section for kids to participate too, which I think is a wonderful idea. 

Don't be shy and give it a try. :o)

Illustration Friday: Hurry!

© copryright Alicia Padrón

Illustration Friday: Puzzled

© Copyright Alicia Padrón

It's been ages since I participated in Illustration Friday.

I thought I would post one just for fun. :o)

Auntie Lou, on the go

Hooray! I finally finished my little painting - the first one I've done in an embarrassing stretch of time. I was really tempted to make this a bit more 3D as I had been working, but the canvas texture was sort of a dominating factor, and I didn't want to put myself off to just plain finishing it. I can't wait to hang it in my daughter's room and move on to my next project. There are so many little 'fun' projects to choose from if you aren't burdened by actual deadlines. Here's what I'm mulling over working on next:
They Draw and Travel
They Draw and Cook
Undercovered Cover Art
Illustration Rally
or maybe just a good ol' Illustration Friday

A long time ago

© copyright Alicia Padrón

colored pencil

People ask me how I got to be a children's Illustrator and the answer is never a short one. Truth is sometimes, specially in crazy deadline days, I get a glimpse of me as if I were a third person, and I always ask myself, how did I get here? I'm still amazed by that and so grateful.

I always knew I wanted to do something creative. I knew I could never be a lawyer or an accountant. Nothing against lawyers or accountants, they are much needed in this society, just not my thing.

I really need to create something in order to feel alive.

I studied graphic design and that helped me realize I wanted to focus on illustration rather than design. I started illustrating more on my own and that made me realize I didn't feel pleasure rendering realistic objects or scenes. What was the point of copying something you could very well accomplish with a photograph? It made no sense to me. I wanted to create more.

Until one day I was sitting down on my living room with a huge belly, pregnant with my first baby, and it hit me. I wanted to be a children's illustrator. That was it. I finally got to where I needed to be. A moment where I could clearly see a finishing line. I just needed to start running towards it.

From that moment on, that thought never left my mind. I knew that is what I wanted to do with my life. Of course once the baby was born, all my focus went to him and then came the second baby and it took me a while to get where I am today. I worked on a sort of a portfolio during all that time which helped me experiment with mediums and styles. More importantly the thought of being a children's illustrator never left my mind, if only the desire grew stronger with each passing day.

Until one day, I realized my kids had grown to a good age where I could finally go for it. I did and here I am today.

The thing is, life hints you. Life is like a maze full of corridors with different possibilities. We are in it, blindfolded and wondering around. Destiny watches us, it can give us clues along the way but can't really tell us which path to take. We have to figure it out on our own.

Once we do, the hardest part will be over.

We just have to follow that path to happiness. :o)

© copyright Alicia Padrón

Multi-tasking Friday

©2010 Deborah Melmon

Since I am on big deadline for work, I thought I would multi-task and post my Illustration Friday post here on the PBJunkies blog. The IF topic is "duet" and I couldn't help think about Sarah and Carly from Picnic at Camp Shalom. Ok, ok, I'm sure you're all hung over from our celebration last week of this book, but like I said, I'm on a deadline and saw the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and took it :)

In the story, Sarah and Carly have a misunderstanding and are not getting along. But, unfortunately, they are thrown together during music practice to sing a duet together. I had a lot of fun creating the tension between these two with their body language and expression.

Although I can't really show you what I'm working on right now for my deadline next week, it is a very fun project. I'm illustrating a picture book for Parragon UK. The book is actually coming out in two versions - one for broad distribution, and an exclusive version for Marks & Spencer, which is a large department store in the UK.

The covers of the book are different, but the interiors will be similar, if not the same. It is a combination of my art on photographic backgrounds. I am putting the backgrounds together with high-resoluation images from a stock photo company and super-imposing my ink and watercolor illustrations of the characters on the backgrounds using photoshop. It's actually quite fun working this way.

Have a great weekend everyone and thanks for stopping by this week!

Illustration Friday: Dusty

© Copyright Alicia Padrón 2010

Looks like someone forgot to take off his dirty shoes

and wipe clean his toy duck before

getting in the house.

Oh, hello again PBJs!

I'm so happy to say hello, again! My name is Gina Perry and I love to illustrate children's books! And since we all said farewell last January, I've become a mother - to a now 1yr old boy. I spend even more time looking at picture books, and with a really good little critic to make me think differently about images, page turns, reading aloud, etc. I may not be showing as much new work as reviewing books, but I hope you'll enjoy my posts all the same.

The above illustration also fits this week's IF theme of propagate, no?

Illustration Friday: Resolve

Piggy resolved to the cake after tossing and turning 

without getting any sleep. 

He thought if maybe he just had one tiny piece 

he'd be able to dream wonderful sweet dreams... :o)

Illustration Friday: Resolve

Rizzy was resolved to find out what was making that noise in the attic....

This week we're continuing the theme of New Year's Resolution, and something that nags at me EVERY year around this time, is to get over my fear of the unknown... in my sketchbook. I've been really bad about doing any free/fun sketching the past few months and I'd like to get back to it!

Illustration Friday: Primitive

You know, I started to do a bunny sketch for the theme this week (IF's "Primitive") but, ya know, it just wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. I switched gears and took Roz's lead, and thought I'd post one of my ancient, "primitive" pieces! I figured it was okay for me to copy Roz's idea if I gave her credit for it from the get-go. (It is the most sincere form of flattery, after all..)

This piece which I call "Greek lemons" is primitive in more ways than one, so I thought it really fit the IF theme for me on a personal growth level, anyway.

Over ten years ago, when I had my own little (but very passionate!) greeting card business, this was one of my best-sellers. It was also one of my very favorite designs. I just never seemed to tire of it, and I still love it today. (The original scan is black-line pen and ink, but today for this post, I painted it in photoshop to emulate the way I used to sponge-paint each individual card). This is also the same color palette that I used for this particular card, as well - mediterranean blue, a bit of dirt brown to ground things, and a few juicy citrus brights!

The illustration (as well as the final paint on the cards) was textured and had a very rustic, old-world feel. It's true that I named the piece "Greek Lemons", but this illustration also always felt very Italian to me. I loved (and still love) doing borders and carrying on the old tradition of illustrative, intricate ornamental borders while trying to bring something new to the party, too.

Hope you enjoy the piece, and ultimately, my wish is that it stirs the desire in YOU to take a lemony-fresh vacation somewhere more "primitive" than where we are right now. (In front of our computers. ;))

Illustration Friday: Primitive

I like to imagine that back in those days they knew how to have good ol' fun!

I have to admit this was a tough topic. But I don't think it gets more primitive than Dinosaurs, right? :o)

Illustration Friday- Primitive

Here's one of my "primitive" felt illustrations. This was from a few years back when I was using the felt you buy in sheets at the craft store. Now I use Holland Wool felt which is much easier to work with and I prefer how it reproduces.