Quick iPad Sketch

Did this last night to wind down a bit. I thought I would spend a relaxing day in the house with my kids yesterday, which actually, as usual, turned out to be a bad idea. I always have this perfect vision in my head of folding my Downey-soft basket of laundry, the curtains swaying gently in the breeze while my children play quietly on the floor. Well, that never happens. Instead, the laundry never gets done and my kids are trying to do flips off the coffee table. The day ends up being way more stressful than a trip to Disneyland on it's most crowded day in the middle of summer. So after the little ones fell asleep, I treated myself to some trash tv and sketched away!

Google SketchUp is the Bees Knees!

So I got this really fun assignment from a really great client, but the perspective was boggling me for some reason (SOMEtimes I tend to over think and create a bigger issue for myself).  Anyhooo, I remembered Google has a 3D modeling program called SketchUp which is perfect for this perspective problem I was having. I created a very simple 3D model of the basic components and...voila! Instant access to a skyward view from the bottom of a well!

Here's a video of me maneuvering around my little model to get *just* the right angle.

So I guess it's been a "short" while since I posted here...okay, more like 4 months or so.  But lately, I think the universe has been speaking to me about my blogging situation (or lack thereof). Over the past few days, I noticed a spike in visitors to my blog. I don't know why or how that happened, but it's always exciting to know that people are interested in my illustrations.  Then, last night a Facebook "friend" posted about Seth Godin and the importance of blogging every day. Another friend of mine, the awesomely talented illustrator Kelly Light, posted a little something on Facebook this morning about the importance of blogging. So, with all that said, my new goal is to post a little something EVERY day! It sounds like a lot, but my old goal of blogging once a month got me nowhere. My theory is that upping the expectations of myself will yield more results. I guess we'll see!

Anyways, since I last posted here, I've been super duper busy. Illustration work, house work, mom work...wow! Here's a little something I finished up in December right before our trip to Disney World.  It's a pop-up book about the Three Billy Goats Gruff, published by Top That Publishing. I can't wait to see it in person! I'm just including a little snippet of the background though since I don't know exactly how much I can post at this point.  Until next time...I mean, tomorrow,  right?

Steady Stream

As I typed the title of this blog post, I was thinking about the large number of illustration projects I have going on at the moment. But now in hindsight, the title looks like this should be a post about visiting your Urologist. Well, lucky for you, this post will be about the former, not the latter.

I currently have five projects I'm working on, thanks to my lovely, hardworking and brilliant agents over at Bright.  I am very excited about all of them and my fingers are literally itching every day to get drawing and painting.

I feel so lucky to be able to steadily what I love...and make some money at it!

So, I've got four educational workbooks I'm doing, and soon I'll be starting a fun pop-up book for Top That! Publishing which will be a comical take on the old story of Billy Goats Gruff.  Will be super fun to work on!

Here's a little snippet from one of the early reader projects I recently finished about bats: