12WC week 6, part two

This is the second illustration for the Arab folk tale I described earlier.  Again, this is just the pencil stage; I haven't quite finalized things yet- for example, the flower-like scribbles will actually become flowerlike flowers.  I'm not quite sure yet about the position of the eyes- but I like the way in which they appear to be looking past us, past the boy, off to the distance (towards the wronged fiancee?)...I may return the solid wall (which I will texture when I paint it to look as though it is worn stucco) to the way I had originally sketched it, ending a bit past the shutters- this would necessitate another colour/background behind the boy and the eyes- but another colour might be good.  The inside of the room will be a darkened colour (still thinking about the colours for this one) with a small pattern on the wall.  I was thinking mustardy-ochry yellows/browns for the wall.  More progress soon to follow!

12WC, week 6, part one

Ok, so I'm giving up on pretending that it is still week 5, 'part two'... I could have posted the first very very rough pencil sketches of my Arab fairy/folk tale as week 5, but find that I am still unwilling to let anyone else see them... so on I go to week 6, which is this week, so that works out quite well.

First, a quick synopsis of the story for which I am going to be executing two illustrations; the title is "The girl who spoke jasmine and lilies".

 There were once three sisters.  The youngest replied to a question posed by their father with a rather self-righteous and contrarian response, which I assume is supposed to be interpreted as indicative of her goodness and piety.... her father casts her out, and she wanders out and marries the first poor labourer she encounters.  They have a daughter.  It is this daughter who is the focus of the story.  She is beautiful and good, and miraculous, too- when she washes her face in a basin of water, the water that has touched her skin turns to gold coins.  When she opens her lips, jasmine flowers and lilies tumble out.  News of her beauty, goodness and other special qualities spreads, and she is soon engaged to marry a prince in a nearby kingdom.

Her aunts hear of her good fortune, of course, and are jealous.  It seems wrong to them that the daughter of a poor labourer and their outcast sister should be so fortunate.  So they scheme.... they arrange it so that one of the aunts and her cousin (the aunt's daughter) should accompany her on the trip to the kingdom to be married.  On the way, the aunt deprives her of food and water, insisting that her cousin needs it.  She finally allows her a few drops of water in return for first one, and then the other, of the girl's eyes (which she cuts out, literally!).  Now that she has been blinded, the aunt turns her out of the carriage to wander alone, while they continue on.  The cousin pretends that she is the prince's fiancee, but he wonders about the lack of jasmine and lilies and the fact that she looks different, etc.  The cousin gives some inane excuses.  He remains suspicious.
In the meantime, the blind girl obtains some employment and disguises herself.  She fills a basket with jasmine and lilies and asks a flower seller to go into the kingdom and call out that he is offering jasmine and lilies for sale.  The wicked aunt hears this, and is eager to obtain them in order to allay the prince's suspicions.  The seller will only accept one eye as payment for the flowers.  What else is to be done?  The aunt cuts out her daughter's one eye and gives it as payment.  When the prince comes home, she shows him the basket and says, "look at the flowers that tumbled from my lips when you were away."  (keeping her bandaged eye turned away from him.)  The next day, same thing.... The seller brings the eyes back to the blind girl and she puts them into her eye sockets and she can see again... The prince follows ? the flower seller and discovers the girl, quickly realizes who she is, and all is put right.  The aunts and the cousin are not particularly punished, as far as I know, although the cousin does remain blind, apparently.

So:  here is the first pencil drawing, depicting the general state of things in the first part of the story- the loveliness of the girl, the scheming of her aunts and sisters:

The details of the drawing are not yet finished; I will elaborate the jewellery etc., also I will either draw the jasmine and lily flowers directly on the page or will do them separately to be added later...not sure yet.  The 'evildoers' corner' will be a darker blue, and the foreground will be a brighter, lighter colour- deep yellow perhaps?  Lilies and jasmine white, girl's garment bright pink.  I will add a background pattern but I will keep it simple; I do want to finish this someday soon....

The second illustration depicts the flower seller trading the flowers to the wicked aunt for the eyes.  I will post this soon.

12WC: week 5, part ONE

Finished this page, hurrah!  I'm fairly pleased with it.  I'm still considering changing either the leaves or the grass to a darker, brighter green- they are too close in colour.  However,  I really like the contrast of the yellowish green against the blue sky; more likely that the grass will change.  For the moment, though, I'm leaving it alone and have started work on something else.  That 'something else' is the next two pieces, which will be illustrations for an Arab fairy tale.  I'll post the first (first presentable!) drawings for that within the next couple of days (who knows, I may even post some of the 'unpresentable' sketches- we'll see).

new version of another page (first couple of stages)

I'll post more over the next several days... I may remove the blue bird as his angle is a little off (he doesn't look like he's seen from below like the others).  Also 'crib' may go. We'll see. Next I'll do the background pattern....

I've been working away at online promotional stuff.  Not only am I working my way (slowly, arrggghh) (I am so impatient with myself!  But I deserve it, dammit!  Get to work!) through Alex Mathers' ' 10 steps to powerful online promotion...' , I am also participating in zero2illo's '12 week challenge',  which will be a series of activities/exercises intended to turn fledgling freelancers into veritable self-promotion machines!  Cyborgs, perhaps!  Should be good.  More about that later.  So that gives me another reason to park myself in front of the computer.  Amongst the things that I have done as suggested by Mr. Mathers is create another blog!  To which I will provide a link after I do another post, a better one.  That first one was just an introduction.  The next will be much more interesting!  I have also finally set up my facebook 'fan page'.  Still, so much to do... I have the feeling that somehow,  there is an ever-increasing number of things that I must accomplish before I am 'ready' to do the next thing that I must do.  These preliminary things just appear, rise up, like dust bunnies.  The next thing that I'll do is install a 'sign-up' box on my blogs so as to accumulate an email list for 'news updates' and the like.  It's not currently possible for me to install html code on my actual website (something of a problem, but which can be worked around right at this very moment), so I'm looking around to change hosts.  (You see? Dust bunny right there!)  Anyhow.  I think that that's all for now, y'all.....

yes, I'm re-doing some pages...

Work, work, work on the book project. Working right now on finishing a few pages that I started a while ago; I have also gone back and started new versions of pages that I was not satisfied with. It took me a little while to get the style right, and now some of the pages that I finished earlier are less than satisfactory. To be honest, some of them were never satisfactory- I knew even as I was finishing a couple of them that I would be back sooner or later to do it again. This is the first of these most recent overhauls that I have completed- I am much happier with it. I increased the scale of the girl/window and also made the 'sky' pattern larger. I also put a pattern behind the girl that looks fine even if the pattern doesn't line up in square with the window frames. Many more to come! I have been urged just to move on and start more pages, but I just wasn't happy knowing that these existed in such an unsatisfactory state. I want all of the pages to be good, dammit! No, just good isn't good enough!

I recently received a request for a quote for a series of illustrations for a children's cookbook- which would have been a fun project, I think- but I had to write back asking for further information before I could give a quote (they had given me no indication of size, colour or not, time frame, etc.). They never responded. It might well be for the best; I may have been wrong, but I had a strange feeling about the correspondence. Alas nonetheless!

I'm working on many things- besides the book, I'm also making a new postcard for my next series of mailings and writing emails to potential client after potential client. SOON I will also, finally, begin my 'Montreal' card series! Cookbook or no cookbook, I am always busy...

Ernie Zelinski, proponent of the good life and wearer of many t-shirts

This book appeared to me quite by chance, unbidden, and completely fortuitously, a couple of years ago. I was, at the time, working at a to-be-unspecified job for a very small chain of independent Canadian bookstores that shall remain nameless. It SHOULD have, been a good job, it COULD have been a good job; working for someone else, it might have been. But it wasn't. It made me miserable, completely miserable. Not only was I not left with sufficient TIME for any of my various art projects, I was so completely consumed by how much I hated my job that I was hardly even inclined.

I had been thinking that I would like to pursue illustration. All of my interests and predilections seemed to point to it. But I didn't know how, and all of my time/mental energy seemed caught up in work. I had no time to work on a portfolio. I wanted to do it, but how? I would think about it longingly , but week after week after month slipped by. And then Ernie Zelinski appeared.

Real Success Without a Real Job arrived at the warehouse as a 'freebie'- it was accidentally sent to us, unordered. Since it was not sent in PLACE of anything, it wasn't sent back in return for another item. I saw it on the shelf where such things wind up, and snatched it up. It seemed clear that that book was FOR ME!!!

His main points: many, even most people, are unhappy and unfulfilled working for someone else, and most likely wish that they were doing something that they cared about. That real success is what you make it, not living up to the traditional view of success, and that real success is living life in your own way, pursuing things that have meaning to you. That working at an 'unreal job' (something, ideally, that you would want to do even if you weren't getting paid) will give you a sense of freedom, satisfaction and fulfillment that a 'real' job can't.

He tells his own story, which is not a tale of miraculous luck but rather of dogged perseverance and dedication to pursuing his dream. He is not, as he readily admits, a particularly 'good' writer in terms of style or elegance, but he IS a good writer in that he writes clearly, expresses his own unique point of view and his inimitable personality. As he so succinctly put it, " I may not be able to write a book by Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me." Oh, did I mention? He is FUNNY.

Clearly, I had long ago joined the choir. The book served for me more to confirm and elaborate what I already knew or intuited. It is more inspiration and pep talk than a step-by-step guide to achieving your particular objective (although he does suggest numerous other books to consult to help you figure out your path). But WHAT a pep talk... I have re-read it countless times, and it has joined the ranks of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, and A Confederacy of Dunces as a reliable remedy for times of discouragement or depressedness.

He has also written books entitled The Joy of Not Working, How to retire Happy, Wild and Free, and The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness.
His official website: http://www.erniezelinski.com/

p.s. it seems that the edition that I have is no longer available; I suspect that the new book Career Success without a Real Job is probably the same book, essentially.

another page of my book...

Another page of my book-in-progress. I'm thinking of adding some more leaves on the bottom right instead of the sort of strange continuation of the pattern on the house... but for now, I've had enough of fussing with this and will do it later! LATER! I have a lot of work to do; no doubt I'll want to start some pages over again completely by the time I'm finished (in fact, there are already a couple that I have in mind, sigh...).

Crow Toes Quarterly!

Hay, I have three illustrations featured in the brand-new, just-out-this-week edition of the darkly quirky and beautiful B.C.-based children's literature magazine Crow Toes Quarterly. I have not yet received my copies (I am excited to see it!) but it should be available in stores near you! Ask for it if you don't see it. Clamour very loudly! Or better yet, click here to visit their site for a subscription!

Illustration friday for this week (Feb. 6: 'flawed'

This is my second posting on Illustration Friday. So far I've received about 40 hits total from the posting last week; most were on the Friday itself... So this week I've posted it earlier, so that it will appear on the home/opening page of Illustration Friday for a few more days.
I decided this week to spend three hours in total on the illustration friday drawing and just use it as a tool or opportunity for practice, a pretend assignment (good, as I'm not getting any real ones). I think that I will adopt this approach in a more general way, giving myself 'assignments' that will hopefully add to my portfolio if they turn out well, and not take too much time if they don't.

Hay, check out my website, why not?

Illustration friday for last week, January 30th. "Climbing".

This was my first posting on Illustration friday! (This is also my first 'blog' entry!)