Henry Hudson and the Mermaid-FINAL

I finally finished this piece!

Starting Over

I recently attended the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (NESCBWI) conference in Springfield, MA. One of the activities that I participated in at the conference was a portfolio critique. This is an opportunity to show your work to an agent, editor, or art director. You get 15 minutes of face to face time. My critique was with Martha Rago, a creative director at Random House/Golden Books. The critique seemed to go well. Martha was open, friendly and easy to talk to. She seemed to like my work, she said it was obvious that I knew how to draw and paint, but she seemed a little indifferent to it. It lacked that"special sauce", that extra ingredient that would take it from competent to really special. And than she came across this piece in my portfolio.

This is one page of a series of sketches I had done for my friend Sarah Riddle. She had taken a stab a writing a children's book titled "Bon Appetite" and asked if I would be interested in doing some sketches for her. Her story is about a little girl named Kate, who is having liver for dinner. She hates liver, so she escapes from her home and travels to the faraway land of Bon Appetite, where the only food served are ones that kids like, and anyone who prepares or serves anything like liver, is banished from the kingdom forever.  My sketch was inspired by Sarah's note in her text — (Illustration shows the people are all children wearing dress-up costumes and Bon Appetite is made up entirely of kitchen utensils and items).
Martha Rago really, really liked this piece. In fact she probably spent more time looking at this sketch that the entire rest of my portfolio. A sketch. One I almost didn't even include in my portfolio.
 Why did she like it so much? Good question. I asked her.
She said that she found it to be playful and imaginative . If you follow this blog at all, you know that most of my work is fairly tightly rendered...one might even say... a bit stiff. I have a certain working methodology that seems to work for most things, but children's books is apparently not one of them.
I always sketch a thumbnail of the idea, but then I use a lot on photo reference to compose the final piece. As could be expected, the reference sometimes takes over, and whatever life or energy it had, is blanched out of the final work. This was not easy to hear, but on some level I knew it was true. It confirmed something that I have suspected about my work for a long time, but was afraid to admit. So what to do about it?
Martha suggested having a glass of wine before I sit down to draw. I think she meant it half-jokingly, but the point was well taken. I need to loosen up a bit. Draw out of my head  and out of my heart more. Trust my instincts more. She said "You know enough, have enough experience to draw convincingly without relying on photo reference." 
So, I am starting again, going back to the beginning. I am learning to draw again, or really un-learn, everything that I think I know about illustration. Trying to make it fun again and draw naturally, like a child.
By the way, here are the rest of my sketches for the story, in order.

NESCBWI - Illustration Challenge

My wife Amy and I are attending the Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators New England conference in Springfield, MA this April. I just joined SCBWI this year and this will be my first conference as a member. I have worked as a graphic designer for almost exactly 30 years, and although it pays the bills (mostly) my first love has always been illustration. To that end, I am trying to jump into the illustration field.
In keeping with the conference theme, "Think Outside the Crayon Box!", and to "get your creative juices working" SCBWI holds an illustration challenge. Your artwork is displayed at the conference all day Saturday for everyone to see. It is a great portfolio building exercise and a wonderful
promotional opportunity. The Challenge for this year was:
We would like you to illustrate this single line of text for a double-page spread of a picture
book: “Don’t worry–I fixed it.” Interpret in any way you like.
So first, I did some thumbnail sketches.

I like to work small, really small. These sketches are all about 3" x 2". I drew them in pencil and then colored them with ink and watercolor. I did (8) sketches total. I showed the sketches to my illustration critique group. They felt that some ideas were not appropriate for a children's book, and some were not that clear. The two they liked the most were the "Alien Garage" (upper left hand corner) and the "Mermaid Patching Job" (right hand top), but they had suggestions for changes on both of them.
"Alien Garage" shows an large orange alien mechanic finishing up repairs on a flying saucer belonging to a young girl astronaut, and her blue-skinned companion. The repairs have not gone well, and the saucer is definitely not space-worthy despite the alien's assurances.
Some issues pointed out for Alien Garage: it lacked context. Where was it located? What made it alien? Also; the body language of the children was not clear. What were they feeling?
"Mermaid Patching Job", shows a mermaid just finished repairing a hole in a rowboat that has struck a submerged rock, by covering it with a large starfish, and giving the "OK" sign to the little girl in the boat, while her father examines the strange patch. Issues with Mermaid Patching Job were mostly with it not being clear what the mermaid is doing. Is she finished patching the hole or is she assisting the "captain" figure with the patching? They wanted to see more context, more obvious damage to the boat, more clues as to what had happened. They also wanted the mermaids head farther out of the water, and her hair to cover her "side-boob".
I couldn't choose between the two until I had done some more work on them. So I took the two selections and reworked them.

First of all, now that I had two fairly solid ideas, I would need to rework them to the proportion of the final specifications, which was 10" x 16", the equivalent of a 2-page spread. Since at this point I was leaning heavily towards the mermaid idea, I extended the mermaid in watercolor, but only did the alien garage digitally.

I showed my group the revisions. They thought they were an improvement, but still thought they both needed additional work. Especially the mermaid. I did further sketches/revisions.

I changed the position of the "captain" figure, and adjusted the position of the mermaid so that her head was farther out of the water, and her hair was covering her upper torso. I added broken pieces of the boat to the water, and made the starfish "patch" larger and brighter. Although I liked it, I decided I liked the alien garage better.
I started to work on the finished piece. I added a lot more detail to let the viewer know that the spaceship was having issues. More broken wires, leaks, sparks flashing, essential-looking components strewn about. I had done sketches of various spacecraft components to populate the area around the ship.

Here is the final pencil sketch on Bristol board with all of the major elements in place.

I then started laying in the values using Payne's Gray acrylic paint.

Finally I started adding the color. Here is the color version of the painting.

I scanned the final illustration, did a bit of touch-up and color adjustment in Photoshop, brought it into InDesign and set the text. Here is the version that will be on display at the conference.

The Return of the Pioneer Village Map

Back in January of this year, i got an interesting e-mail from one Ian Cooper.
 " I was looking at your blog as it refers to Pioneer Village which I have visited and enjoyed thoroughly (more than Plimoth because of its intimacy and informal atmosphere). I am about to publish a new travel guide following the Pilgrim fathers from the UK to New England and I will include Pioneer Village as I believe that it's not to be missed if we want to gain a real picture of life when the 1630 ships arrived at Salem.
I am about to produce my own map of the village for inclusion in the guide - or I would happily include yours with appropriate attribution depending on your agreement and any conditions you might want to put forward". 

Ian wanted to use my map of Pioneer Village in a UK guidebook!

The guidebook is one of a series of travel guides following the lives of prominent Christians or places of Christian interest. (See www.dayone.co.uk/collections/books/travel-guides?page=1) They are unique in that they tell the story as well as provide travel information.
Here is the original map, created in Adobe Illustrator:

And here is how the map appears on the guidebook page.

Welcome to Salem:1630

Some of you may know that I am an avid history buff, and that I have on occasion, worked as an historical interpreter at Pioneer Village at Forest River Park in Salem. Pioneer Village is a recreation of what Salem would have looked like in 1630, shortly after it was settled. My wife Amy and I have been extras in several historical films that have been shot at this location over the years. I came across a photo of the two of us in early colonial costume and decided it would make a good illustration.
Here is the original photo.

First I did a pencil sketch of the scene using the above photo as reference.

As you can see, I have changed some of the details of the pose and of the outfits.
The scene looked a little empty to me though, and some details were either missing or incorrect. First off I decided the scene needed some animals. I considered adding goats, geese and cattle, but it seems that the animals most likely to be present and running loose would have been hogs and chickens. Both were allowed to run free to find their own forage. The hogs were particularly fond of raiding Native American stores of corn. Now not just any breed of hogs or chicken would do either. they needed to be contemporary to the Puritans of the early 17th century. After some research, I discovered that the breed of hogs that the New England colonials would have had were known as Tamworth Hogs.













The chickens were a breed known as Dorking Fowls. Luckily both of these breeds are still in existence today and there were photos.

I also added in a wooden barrel, some tree stumps and a man cutting a tree with an ax.

I also needed to make my footwear more period-correct. I actually really enjoy researching this kind of historical detail.

I transferred the sketch some Bristol-board and started to rough in the values using burnt umber and black. This work went very quickly. I showed this version to my illustration critique group, and they actually thought I should stop there. They liked the energy and the rough quality. So I did a scan of the piece at that point.

However...I really like color, and had intended to add color from the beginning, and so I moved on to adding in color. Using glazes of color over the monochromatic underpainting. Here I am after my second session of painting.

Here is the final piece. The original is about 8" x 10".

Artspeak:IMAGINE

What the gate looked like this winter.

Artspeak (www.artspeaksalem.com) is an annual concert, artshow and auction, planned by our church, Highrock Northshore. This event is one way for those of us with an artistic bent, to take a stand against injustice and to use our creativity for good.  It is a meeting ground for artists and community members, a celebration of beauty, and a way we can be part of restoration and healing.  At ArtSpeak, local artists from within and beyond our church community come together to work, to give, and to serve. All profits from the event go to fight human trafficking here on the North Shore by supporting Amirah.  Amirah (a-meer-ah) is a Boston area non-profit dedicated to providing “transformative whole-person care for survivors of commercial exploitation.” Amirah does this by mobilizing the greater community to create safe spaces that provide opportunities for healing, restoration and reintegration and by utilizing individualized approaches to address physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and vocational needs of each survivor in their care, cultivating engagement with community. www.amirahboston.org.

This year’s theme, IMAGINE, came from the words of the Apostle Paul: “Now to God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever...”
(Eph. 3:20-21).

I had a lot of different ideas for what I was going to do for the show, (with Imagine as the theme you could literally do anything) but I eventually chose to do a painting of a dark gateway leading into a bright, green and gold landscape. This was based in part on wishful thinking, we had a very difficult and long winter in New England this year, and spring seemed like a very distant concept when I was working on the piece. It was also based partly on Song of Solomon 4:12. "You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain." And lastly, it was based on one of my favorite places to go for a hike: Bradley Palmer State Forest. There is a stone entry gate on the Hamilton side of the park. There is a beautiful little stone gatehouse that has been abandoned for years, and a large wrought iron gate. Over the years it has become very overgrown with vines.
Anyway, here is my progress on the painting by session. Sessions would be 2-4 hours long.

Session 1
Roughing in the volumes and basic values in burnt umber and gray.

Session 2
Adding in color to the sky and background. Refining color on the stones.

Session 3
More detail and color in the rocks and texture for the foreground.

 Session 4
Adding greenery and vines, refining values.

 Final
Refining the lighting, detail, adding signature.

 Popped it into a plain wooden frame painted metallic gold.

 On display at the event.

Rachel's Island

 I joined the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) this year. They have an annual conference of the New England chapter in the spring, which I am hoping to attend. In anticipation of their illustrator's portfolio review, I am working on adding to/updating my portfolio of work. I have been an illustrator for a long time, but my work has not been specific to children's books, so I am looking to fill up that gap.
I have notebooks full of story ideas that I have been hoping to develop, but rather than work one of them into a book dummy, I have decided to produce a series of covers for "books that never were" (but might someday exist).
Kind of like a teaser showing what I can do.
One of my favorite books is the "Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg. The main conceit of the book, is that an unknown  and mysterious illustrator drops off his portfolio at a publisher, and then never returns. Not only is his dissappearrance mysterious, but so are his somewhat enigmatic pictures and story fragments. The book is comprised of a series of single black & white illustrations accompanied by a story title and a fragment of text. They are intriguing because the the illustrations show odd or compelling moments, and the text is only a tiny glimpse of an implied larger story, so your imagination runs wild with the possibilities. I am trying for a similar effect, showing what I hope are provocative moments from stories as yet unwritten, that will intrigue the viewer and leave them wanting to know more about the implied story.
My first one is called "Rachel's Island". The story is set in Maine in the early part of the last century and is about the relationship between a Native American girl and a local boy and an island that they "discover" and explore together. It is an idea that I have been kicking around , in one form or another for more than 20 years.
My first version of the image above, was a thumbnail sketch I did in one of my small sketchbooks.

I started doing some research for the individual elements that would appear in the composition. The first step was finding a suitable island location. This is a photo of an Island on the Maine Island Trail, a route for kayakers and boaters. I loved this image, not only because it fit the composition, but also because the water looks beautiful, like something you might find in the Caribbean.

Next was to find an appropriate-looking rowboat. Something classic-New England looking. I considered using a dory, which is very common in New England, but I loved the white-and-wood look of this sailing dinghy. She is of clinker construction, also termed lapstrake: the planks overlap to form ridges along the hull, outside and inside. These ridges are termed "laps", or "lands", and are fastened with clinched copper nails or rivets. Steam-bent ribs inside the planks, thwarts, a solid keel, a stem, and a transom provide the supporting framework. Clinker sailing dinghies were used in near-shore fishing and carrying, and were carried on ships for harbor-going boats. These strong and fairly simple boats had to be able to carry a load and to stand some rough conditions. Besides being better-looking, its design predates the dory. It can also be rigged to sail.
 I now had my setting and my major prop.

I worked this into a black and white sketch. Among other elements I pulled together to use as reference or inspiration:
Pictures of mill-working children from that time period (1900).

A portrait of Lena Cayuga, a beautiful Seneca girl, also from about the same time period (1904)

And an American river otter.

I put all of these items together in a black and white sketch. I then transferred this to a piece of 3-ply-bristol by tracing the original sketch and putting a piece of artist's wax-free graphite paper underneath. I added some refinements. You may notice the "transparent" otter. He was originally much farther to the left, and not standing on his hind legs.

Working in watercolor, and guache, I started with outlining the main shapes in black, waterproof acrylic ink with a fine sable brush, then roughing in the color, working from lighter washes to darker ones, adding and refining details as I went.

I finished up the details with colored pencil. I varnished the final piece with watercolor varnish.
Here is a shot of the nearly-finished painting.