Like my previous post, this was another let’s-color-this-in-Photoshop-at-the-last-minute-because-I-need-a-new-portfolio-piece situation. I’ll likely go in and play with the color a bit in the future, since I like this character. Maybe he could get his own picture book.
So I drew these animal characters ages ago for some Daily Doodle prompts on Twitter, but didn’t color them in until last week when I was desperate to find new pieces to put in my portfolio for a children’s book conference. It wound up being one of the strongest pieces in my portfolio since I haven’t completed many kid-appropriate illustrations in the past few years. I’m going to see how this style works with my new picture book dummy, because I need to figure out a color solution that is not terribly labor intensive. I have over 30 characters on one particular spread, so for the sake of my sanity I’d like to keep it simple.
It’s become a habit for me to make birthday cards for my immediate family (you can see a handful of cards from past years here). Each year the cards get weirder and weirder since I don’t want to illustrate the same thing over and over again. This year was no exception.
First, for my fashionable sister, a card featuring everyone’s favorite controversial elderly German: Karl Lagerfeld. The way he half-heartedly throws neon rainbow confetti gets me every time I look at this.
For my EDM-obsessed brother, a card featuring the disembodied head of Dillon Francis (since the pillow featuring his face was unavailable when I looked). His 2014 album is titled Money Sucks, Friends Rule, so it wasn’t difficult to come up with card copy.
Now I want to make a line of snarky greeting cards featuring doodles of fashion designers. And also use my neon colored pencils more often.
If you’ve seen my single page comics, you know I’m really into the idea of a cat who is also a dad (or a dad who is also a cat). Maybe he’ll make it into more comics or a children’s book at some point.
I threw some color on him, just because. Lookin’ good, Cat Dad.
I went to my first non-family weddings this summer. Here’s a card I made for my friends Liz and Travis. (Liz is a superb illustrator – you can check out her wonderful cut paper illustrations here: http://lizabethgoss.com/)
I made a halfhearted attempt to get onboard the #inktober train this month. Managed to produce 3 drawings so far, based on twitter @Daily_Doodle prompts.
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| #cowboycat |
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| #matadormouse |
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| #teachertortoise |
Continuing the week of cuteness, here are more cats (if you need more cats drawings, just scroll through past blog posts). I was supposed to have a finished spread for the SCBWI-Oregon conference, but grad school got in the way, so I only finished the line art. This summer I need to color it in. Of course, nothing I do is going to compare to Jon Klassen’s work, but a girl can dream.
Initial sketch:
Here’s something I did a few months ago for the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) in Portland. They needed a half-sheet sized catalog cover to promote classes and events offered in February and March of this year. To the surprise of no one who has skimmed through this blog, it features cats.
The Valentine’s Day image was the front cover and the St. Patrick’s Day cats occupied the back cover.
Here’s how the final pieces turned out! If you’re in the Portland area, you can check them out at Gallery Mini on SE 8th and Main St.
I definitely created the “cartooniest” work on display in the gallery. I’d like to go back in and work on these pieces a bit more because I really like the concept. I was just a bit rushed to complete them (which was entirely the fault of my time-management skills).
Erika Schnatz 