Baby & Goldie

Here's a little study of Goldilocks and her friend Baby Bear. They had some issues in the past, but they've moved on and have become fast friends!

French Weenie

I'm thinking of changing the header on my website and am considering this image I just created. It's always a challenge for me to decide on what to use for things like headers and even marketing postcards. Anyone else have this "problem"?

Thanks for any feedback of comments!

Ahoy there mates! revised

So, I decided to just remove the boarder :o). I think it's cleaner that way and doesn't distract from the illustrations. Good decision?

Thanks!

Ahoy there mates!

Hi!

My husband and I take our son to a really fun music class called "Kindermusik". I was inspired by one of the songs to create this illustrated spread for it. I think I'm still deciding on some aspects of the illo, like the boarder. Do you like it? Should I take it out? Expand it so it travels all around the edge? Too busy? I'll play with it a bit more, but wanted to post it for some feedback :o)

Thanks for stopping by!
Joy

Here is the painted version of the sketch I posted earlier for "Hey Diddle Diddle". I think I like it, but feel like I could push it farther especially with the pose of the cat :o/. The treatment of the text could use some work as well. Push on!

Have a great weekend and thanks for any comments!
-Joy

Cowa Bunga!

An image for Summer!

Boy & Goldfish

I'm playing with color here and paint treatment, using a more subdued palette. I think I like it. What do you think?

Thanks!
-Joy

Some sketches

Here are some sketches I've been working on and will soon add some color. I'm really enjoying time in my sketchbook and just trying to add to my portfolio of work. Thanks for any comments or feedback! I'd love it if anyone had any requests for images they want to see me do. Make a suggestion and I might do it!

-Joy

New friend

Here's just another little spot illustration playing with characters and paint.

Thanks!

The Owl & the Pussycat

The Owl and the Pussycat is always a fun poem to illustrate. I'll probably take it further by adding the copy and another spot illustration to put it together as if to publish it. Not sure how I feel about the painting of it, but it's not too bad. I drew with blue pencil then did a black pencil line, scanned it in, adjusted the line to push the blue to grey and painted digitally in Photoshop. I should experiment with the paint technique more I know.

Thank you for any comments!

-Joy

A study of line- Opinion please?

Above is a sketch I did and scanned into Photoshop. Have I mentioned that I love blue col-erase pencils? Anyway, I'm hoping to ask some opinions on what people like best for line treatment here. I could tell you which one I'm leaning toward, but I want to know what appeals most to others. I could spend more time cleaning up all of these, but want initial feedback. Soon, I hope to experiment with different painting styles on this as well.

Thanks so much for taking time to comment!

Friends

Here is some more of the lined style I'm working on. Just a study of a couple of friends having fun together.

Back to the line...

Hi everyone!

I've been rethinking the approach to my illustration style lately. Well, longer than lately. Here is a piece I've been experimenting with. I start with blue pencil and go over it with black to give it a darker line. This version I scanned in and using Photoshop adjusted the filter so the blue line is pushed back to gray. I guess I just really like the sketchiness of it. I may try just dropping out the blue completely and using a final clean line, but we'll see.

I used to illustrate in a similar way, where I would keep the pencil line, scan and color it in Photoshop. We'll see where I end up. I'd love any feedback, so please feel free to comment. I'll be posting more soon as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Newfoundland & Labrador Lullaby board book!

So, here it is. Finally, a post from me on my blog!!!

I figured I'd share a few of the pages from the first book in a series I'm illustrating, "Newfoundland & Labrador Lullaby". Hot off the presses and ready to promote! It's a charming lullaby composed by Mary Jane Riemann and produced as a book by Lynn McCarron. Check out the Facebook page and give it a "Like" if you don't mind :o). There is a fun video showing the interior of the book along with the beautiful lullaby NewfoundlandAndLabradorLullaby

I love working with Lynn! We've just completed the illustrations for "Alaska Lullaby" and are starting the next book "Hawaii Lullaby". I'll post from those books when I can.

Thanks for stopping by!
-Joy
 

Elephant Ride

I'm trying to add some new work to my portfolio, focusing more on variety in my character shapes and showing different emotions. I also want to work more on my story telling. This was just an idea I had and went with. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by!
-Joy

Thought I'd share...

 

Sooooo, here is what I HAD been working on for about a month and a half. It isn't complete because the project is "on hold" for now :o(. If you can't tell, it's a board book about New York City! I figured I'd share some of the images that I'd completed. Hopefully next year it might get picked up again! Good news is, I am starting a couple of other projects very soon.

This was fun and quite a challenge. I hope I get to finish it some day!

I'll share my next projects when I can! Hint on one of them, it's a collection of poems and I'm doing them black and white as ink drawings! New for me, but I'm looking forward to it!

-Joy

Room Art for boy

Figured I'd post some art I did for my Boy's room. It's been up for a while, but I forgot to share :o) The palette is pretty much the colors in his room. I printed it 11 x 14.

Have a great weekend!
Joy

Quick sketches

Yesterday I was hanging out with the boy and thought to myself, "Hey, I could be sketching him in my sketchbook!" Sometimes we forget the sketch subjects right under our noses. I have a dog and a cat I could be drawing, too!

Have fun sketching!

Paper cut out on canvas

I actually did these a couple of months ago to change up the bathroom. I still can't get decent photos of them to show the details.

These were really fun and something I've wanted to do for a while. I used different scrap booking papers and cut them out to form the characters. The text is some adhesive letters I found and thought were pretty fun. The background sky and water is actually colored tissue paper. I kept the tissue paper folded to cut out the waves, like making snowflakes. Everything was adhered with a glue called Collage Pauge onto 1.5 inch thick canvases.

I liked how they turned out! I especially love when my son looks at them with a huge, happy smile on his face and laughs.

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think.

Cozy

I don't usually do this, but I'm double posting! This is the image I'm putting up on The Sketchables tomorrow.

Like I will mention there, I haven't been drawing as many animals lately and I really want to get back to it. I LOVE drawing animals and especially animal characters. Kids and people are fun, but how fun is it to get to make an animal convey a personality that makes you think they're almost human?! That there's definitely a spark and thought process there?

If you've seen Disney's "Dumbo" than I think you can see my inspiration. One of the sweetest scenes in the movie. Man, those animators knew their stuff!

Anywhoo, I hope you like it and thanks for coming by!

-Joy