Julie Olson Books - Author/Illustrator

I'M FINALLY FINISHED!

When I near the end of illustrating a picture book, I'm done with it...I mean DONE! In the beginning it's exciting, it's fun, it's fresh, it gets your creative juices flowing. By the end you've thought about it, dreamed about it, spent hours creating it, and more hours changing it, and the ever-nearing deadline just looms over your head until you put on that last brush stroke. Then you have to send it off quickly before you start agonizing over whether or not you could have done ONE more thing. If you don't, you'll keep doing ONE more thing forever. It is fun to see the whole thing finished and imagine it in print...but until it actually IS in print, it's nice to have it out of your mind and off your plate. I don't usually work with an author too closely but this book was different. Luckily the author is wonderful and gave me complete creative freedom. It was nice to work that way for a change. If you want to pre-order the book, go to www.mightyauthors.com and click on CONTACT US and just call. It's fun to see Annie come to life again.

Here's one of my favorite illustrations in the book.

Art Lessons

Someone asked me how to teach someone art lessons and whether or not they should do it. Here's what I told them.

I taught an 11 year old girl in my home for a year (before I moved to Michigan) and this is what I did.

I started with the basics. I taught her the elements of art (line, space, color, texture, shape, form, value, balance). I taught what each one was in different lessons and she did drawings to incorporate each element.

line- line drawings, how thick line comes forward, thin recedes. vertical line means firm and stable, horizontal means peace and rest and diagonal means movement.

space- foreground, middleground, background; perspective; tension points by objects too close, how to measure with the eye and a pencil an object you are drawing

color- color theory lessons, mixing color, colorwheel, monochromatic, polychromatic, achromatic

texture- show how to paint a texture or draw a texture...fuzzy towels, furry animal, smooth metal spoon etc. explain how texture becomes less in shadow and more in light

shape- positive and negative shape drawings, basic shape lessons

form- lighting lessons and shadow lessons, basic drawing an egg lesson, cast shadow, form shadow, reflected light

value- grayscale, tints, shades, monochromatic painting

balance- symmetrical, asymmetrical, positive space, negative space relationship

These lessons take a long time because you may spend more than one lesson on each element. I usually spent a months worth of lessons on an element. Then come up with an assignment where they incorporate a certain number of the elements of art in one work. Following all this, just begin on technique and practice and maybe human proportions etc. My student was a great girl and it was fun to watch her talent develop. I really liked teaching one on one rather than a gaggle of disinterested classmates. There were much better results.

So anyone thinking of teaching, go for it and good luck. It's fun to get back to the roots of art we take for granted. You really start to think about them in your own art again too. Just as Picasso, Monet, and Vangough, you have to learn the rules before you can break them. Only after a solid foundation can you truly express yourself well and show the emotion you desire in your work.

Illustration Friday: Multiple

My "multiple" is MULTIPLE BOOKS. This is the cover I just finished (without the title of course...and red stitched edging...the graphics team does that) for the second Annie McRae picture book I'm finishing up. I think it'll be out this Fall. I really like how it turned out. Author and illustrator names go in the lasso. The book is called "There's Always a Way, Annie McRae!" (my flatbed scanner isn't quite big enough so it cropped in tight and cut off some edge decoration)

Doodles on notebook paper

Well, I haven't posted a ton of ACTUAL drawings or art recently because I'm trying to finish up the sequel to the first Annie McRae book I illustrated. I'm about 2 weeks away from finishing. I also illustrated 2 workbooks on the side during this last month of the painting palooza. But the other night I went to a little lecture at my church which was supposed to teach us how to help gather information for Family History records across the world so it can be accessible to everyone (via the internet at www.familysearchindexing.org). They need people to read the old manifests and records and enter the data in a searchable database. Well, there wasn't much instruction, just inspiration to do it instead (which was great and inspiring as it was meant to be...just not so informative as I had hoped it'd be). So, I doodled. Here's the result.

Already Asleep Video Trailer

So I just found out this cool new advertising thing from another illustrator...a video trailer to promote your book. I put it on Youtube too. But here it is for you...

This is for "Already Asleep" by A.D. Tarbox, illustrated by me and published by Moo Press (Keene Publishing).

Speaking to Kids

Part of being an author or an illustrator in the publishing world is speaking engagements and book signings. This past Saturday I spoke to a great group of kids and a few adults at the Nebo Young Writers Conference. It was for aspiring authors etc. ages 9-17 and a few of their parents tagged along. I spoke along with 2 YA writers and an editor. I taught the kids the process of making their own dummy picture book. It went over well and I enjoyed it. I only had trouble with the resolution of my images on the projector but nothing too detrimental. After the conference I signed books and sold all that I brought. Here's a picture one of the kids took of us together after the signing. It was fun for all and I hope I helped to inspire a new generation of artists and authors. (notice how short I am compared to this 7th grader, and she was average height of them all...it was kind of funny)