I did this illustration for a 3rd and 4th grade reader. I had to leave a lot of room for text. But I like how it turned out.
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Illustration Friday: Fortune
My mother-in-law loves items with a history. She's great at finding old pots, benches, books...things with a story. Put them all together and they are worth a fortune. She only wishes she could have a fortune to buy all the cool stuff. Don't we all. Anyway, here's a picture of a girl in her grandfather's antique shop. The lady wants to buy the grandpa. This was a spec illustration done for a publisher for a manuscript called "Not For Sale." I didn't get the job but I loved the finished piece.
Sending out mailers
Well, I ordered my spring promotional mailers. I'm trying out a new printer. I'll let you know if the quality is as good as Modern Postcard. The price is better for sure. I love Modern postcard, but we'll see how this works. Here is the front of my postcard.
Illustration Friday: Green
Well, I went out to Guy Francis' blog and saw this cute little pixie looking off to the side. That made me wonder, is she just day dreaming or is she flirting with a pixie boy. So, I came up with this kid. I thought he went with the illustration friday theme of green pretty well...leaves, spring, etc. Check out Guy's girl here.
I sketched it with a brown pencil and painted it in painter with my computer and wacom.
The projector and School Visits
Well, I've used the projector I wrote about a few posts ago for over 3 school visits now. I'm not a know it all on this projector and maybe if I new a little more I wouldn't have listed some of these cons, but here's my initial review.
Here are the pros...no laptop needed, thumbdrive holds all the presentation, bright display, easy operation, can place it close to the screen and get a large picture, has a button to blank out screen if you need to just talk with no picture up for a minute.
Cons...the initial upload of images is a tad slow (all depends on file size) but this can be negated by arriving early to set up; the lag between when you push the remote's NEXT button and when the picture changes can be unpredictable (depends on file size too); some images get the halo effect around the edges; there's not a great zoom differential on this projector...can't zoom image down too small if you're far away.
The Cons list looks larger but it is really only 4 things (explained) as opposed to the 7 pros listed. So, for me, the pros outweigh the cons.
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Here are the pros...no laptop needed, thumbdrive holds all the presentation, bright display, easy operation, can place it close to the screen and get a large picture, has a button to blank out screen if you need to just talk with no picture up for a minute.
Cons...the initial upload of images is a tad slow (all depends on file size) but this can be negated by arriving early to set up; the lag between when you push the remote's NEXT button and when the picture changes can be unpredictable (depends on file size too); some images get the halo effect around the edges; there's not a great zoom differential on this projector...can't zoom image down too small if you're far away.
The Cons list looks larger but it is really only 4 things (explained) as opposed to the 7 pros listed. So, for me, the pros outweigh the cons.
Illustration Friday: Snap
This is an illustration of a mother about to SNAP! ...it's always at dinner time...everything comes crashing down. Drawn from a little personal experience here obviously. Luckily, I have a husband who's great to take over for me at these times. Thanks, sweetie!
Here I show the sketch scanned in and tinted brown. Then I painted in in Painter. I'm still trying to get more used to it and make it look more real. I think the real thing (watercolor) still can't be matched.
Conference sketch
During the Children's Lit conference, I'd sketch now and then. Here's one colored in Painter.
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- Julie Olson
- I'm a freelance illustrator working in the children's book industry. I love kids and raising my own 4 children. They are the inspiration and the passion behind all I do in art and in life. See my website at JulieOlsonbooks.com