The day after thanksgiving, we went out to dinner with some family. Where did we go? Out for SUSHI! However, the wait to fill the big order was a little long and tedious so I am glad the kiddos at our table were provided with some crayons. Here's what I did with a little box on the waxy paper placemats. Maybe I could turn it into a restaurant side show...offer my services. What do you think? (Just...
Halloween Fun! Despicable Me 2 Characters Costumes: Gru, Agent Lucy Wilde, Minion
Just a quick post, post-Halloween. Maybe the costume links will help you out for next year or for Comic Con sometime. :-)
This year my little toddler wanted to be a minion for halloween. He LOVES the Despicable Me movies. So I followed suit...I dressed as Lucy Wilde, Agent for the Anti Villain League and made a lovely nose (click for instructions) complete with stick-on mustache eyebrows...
No Excuses...But I'm back: Hosting Erin and Philip Stead and more
Hello all. I'm so sorry I was absent all summer and for half of Fall. I won't make any excuses only say that family, work and life passes by quickly and sometimes the blog gets left behind.
But on to the now...
The book idea I blogged about last, the one that has to do with collecting (and something SOOOOO much deeper), is all dummied out and in the hands of a very dear copy editor friend, who loves...
Collecting
I'm working on another picture book manuscript and illustrations (a personal project that I hope to present for publication someday)...and I'm collecting. I'm collecting memories.
Last summer my dear Grandma passed away. She was such a sweet and lovely person, always trying to serve and love others. I can't deny that she was my favorite Grandparent. So I began collecting my memories of her, like...
Her...
12 tips on writing from Utah State Poet Laureate Lance Larsen
Here are my notes from Lance Larsen's Speech today
...
Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers- How to write
illustration by Julie Olson
Here are a few tips from Sharlee Glenn about writing picture books...
1. Choose a suitable shape for your story. Is it circular (start and then end at about the same place)? Is it linear? Is it an arc? Think visually.
2. Use ACTIVE not PASSIVE voice.
3. Use Concrete Language. Circle all your adjectives and adverbs and decide if they are really needed or if...
Creating Cute, Charismatic Characters
Yesterday I taught a workshop on creating picture book characters. I thought I would share a couple things here. When you are creating (writing or illustrating) a picture book character, think about these things...
Make sure your character is able to be "Indentified WITH." RELATABLE. You need to think about your audience, what they would indentify with, and put some part of that in your...
Signed a Contract for a new Picture Book!!! YAY!
So a while back (last September...almost a year ago) I posted this.... http://jujubeeillustrations.blogspot.com/2012/09/submitted-dummy-waiting-game.html, talking about the WAIT after submitting a picture book and what I do while I wait. Well, yesterday I posted a review of what I did during the last month of waiting. :-) But I have great news!!!
I signed a contract for that picture book! I...
Main Floor Renovation - Why I've been absent from the blog
This is my latest creative project which took 7 weeks and was only supposed to take 3-4. When we bought our house, we knew the main floor wasn't our style and that we'd renovate it someday. Well, after 8 years and a lot of planning and designing on my part, we finally bit the bullet. I am thrilled with the results.
Here is our kitchen before the remodel (well we had already taken off some drawer...
Wall Mural
I don't do these often...mostly painting fun designs or things on my own kid's walls every time we change their bedrooms around (see those pics here). And this is about as detailed as I got, for my boy's cowboy room way back in 2008.
But every once in a while I get a request from someone to do more of a traditional wall mural/painting. So this is what I did this week in a large basement "under...
Conference for Charity called Writing for Charity
Hope to see you at the WRITING FOR CHARITY conference this Saturday, April 27th!
LIVE Manuscript Critiques by published authors!
Writing workshops!
Silent Auction!
Pick an author's brain!
Lunch provided!
All proceeds help put books in the hands of less-fortunate children.
Saturday, April 27, 2013 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Followed by Book Sale and Author Signing
Utah Valley University Sorensen Student Center, Orem, UT(Park in the yellow student spaces in front of...
A possible new venture...Stylized Kid Portraits
So I did this portrait of my kids and decided I may start offering them on a commissioned basis...maybe on Etsy or something. They'd be an 11x14 print, $200 for up to 3 kids, $50 per additional child. What do you think? Worth the price? Worth the venture?
outline
full color digital style
full color final watercolor handpainted
full color final watercolor hand painte...
School Visit Demo
So today I did another school visit...I actually did two in one week. That is not usually what I do, but it just worked out that way. At today's visit, I enlisted the help of a student to video the presentation with my camera and then created this little demo so you get a small idea of what one of my general school visit consists of. This is a presentation for lower elementary grades. 4th-5th grades or Middle school age visits are much more in depth on the writing process and the illustrating process,...
On TV again...Fun Times!
Here's a video of me on our local CBS affiliate's show "Fresh Living" once more...teaching the hosts, Casey and Debbie how to draw a penguin. See more of my how-to-draw lessons and coloring pages under the printables tab above. If you want to become an illustrator yourself, I highly recommend attending Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference. www.WIFYR.com...
How to draw: Penguin, Puppy, Pony,...and Mouse
Today I'm appearing on my local news show, KUTV's "Fresh Living," again. (It airs at 1pm MST on channel 2). They wanted me to come back and teach a little "how-to-draw" segment. I've posted a few how-to-draw posts previously, and now I'm adding a few more to those. You can find all of my drawing printouts under the PRINTABLES tab above. Enjoy!
...
How to draw a face/head
People always say to me, "Oh I'm no good at drawing. I can barely even draw a stick figure." Well, just so you know, people are the hardest things to draw and if all you are trying to do is get the idea of a person across to communicate, a stick figure does it for our left brains. That's what I use in the game of pictionary just like everybody else.
People are hard to draw because we all know what...
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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