Process

I love it when illustrators and artists show their process of what they start out with to their finished product, so I thought I would share one of mine. Okay, first here's a rough sketch I did.

And here's the drawing I did in pen and ink that looks a little bit better. :)

And here's the final piece I have ended up with so far.

I colored the picture in with watercolors, and I LOVE the bright colors, but I need to make the girl with the flashlight's shirt a little bit darker since it's blending in with the 'monster' behind her. Still, I think it turned out better than I planned. I'm not sure if it's because I put more time and detail into it or because the watercolors are working out better than my other mediums. I'll have to do some more pictures before I know for sure. :)

Inspirations

I have had many inspirations for my art. I can only think of 3 famous artists who have made me the artist I am today. One is Thomas Kinkade. I love his work. The only problem, I could never do art like that. But his work has inspired me to be more creative and to try to paint things realistically. The second artist who has inspired me is Mary Engelbreit. My mother bought a calendar of hers a couple of years ago and I have been entranced by her work ever since. It was her work that actually pushed me into art. Before I merely twiddled my thumbs with it, but when I realized that I could use markers and colored pencils instead of paints, it launched my love for art. If I hadn't worked with those mediums first, I don't think paints would have been so easy for me. I learned to mix and create colors with colored pencils first and then I realized how to do that with paint.

Third, the artist who has inspired me for many years, is Bob Ross. I absolutely love watching his shows on the educational channel. He is the funniest artist I have ever seen and I wish that I could have met him. With his artist views of "Happy accidents" and "furry friends" he has played a huge role in the shaping and progression of my art. Recently I studied his work from one of his workbooks that I have and I loved how it came out. I've tried to imitate his work before, just for practice, but have never been able to do so. I always imagined that if I ever did anything close to his work, then I was a true artist. And now, at last, I have created something similar to his. Because it is based on his work, it is not necessarily my own ideas, but I did indeed paint this myself. Of course, if you love Bob Ross' work as much as I do, I'm sure you'll be able to tell the difference. I plan to give this painting to my mother as soon as I can frame it.

My Sketch book

I love looking at other peoples' sketch books because they always look as if the ideas just flow from their heads onto the paper. Mine hardly ever looks that good when I do sketches. Normally the rough draft I do becomes the final piece and there really isn't much sketching done in between. However, I got a new sketch book the other day and have been fiddling around on the first page for the past couple of nights, so I thought I would share my own page. I wrote several words on it as I tried out different styles of my handwriting, so don't pay any attention to some of the words. Some are labels and others are just doodles of the words of the songs I was listening to at the time. I really like my pictures on here though. Especially the elf and the crocodile hunter. :) The witch is an early idea for a poem I'm working on. This sketch actually gave me a new idea for the poem, so maybe sketching is more helpful to me than I think it is. :)

Where to begin....

Well, this is a first for me. I didn't even know you could do blogs for free! (I'm no where near being able to afford something like that on a professional scale!)
For now, I think this will do to let people know that I'm an artist and that I want to be a children's book illustrator.
If you would like to see more of my work, let me know. Now, about me, there's really not much to say. I enjoy spending time with my family and I love art! I love creating art more than anything. :) It's so much fun to get lost in my own world and to create a world of my own. So far, I don't have any formal art training or education, but neither did Mary Engelbreit, and look at her!