The Comfort Zone by Sheralyn Barnes

This week I want to sing the praises of my online children's illustrator community. I can't imagine living the life of a freelance artist without the amazing people that I have gotten to know here in cyberspace. It's magical. It sustains me. It all started with sitting next to our own Hazel Mitchell at the 2010 New York SCBWI conference illustrator's intensive. Who knew?

Since that day (and thanks to Hazel's wonderful go getter personality), I have had a constant stream of inspiration and education from other writers and illustrators all around the globe. Here again I sing the praises of the SCBWI conferences, for every one person I have met at a conference, there has been many many others I have met through them. It really is amazing. On those dark days when the freelancing life seems a bit overwhelming, encouragement is just a click away.

 I want to mention another illustrator, Will Terry, who I've also met online. Will just recently launched a really cool site called http://folioacademy.com. At this site you can download art instructional videos made by both Will and other artists/illustrators. I've mentioned Will here before after watching his "How to Paint in Photoshop" video and finding it very insightful. This video helped me to make the big leap from oil to digital painting. Will is a tremendous illustrator with lots of experience and he is incredibly open about sharing his techniques and professional experiences. Even more, he offers all kinds of insight on his blog for free. Being a really big fan of his use of color, I recently purchased his "How to use Color" video and found it (again) incredibly helpful. It's not my normal self to sound like an info-mercial, but I share this because I feel his videos have helped me to fill in the gaps of my knowledge about book illustration. My college Drawing degree didn't address many things that an illustrator needs to be aware of, and these videos are a great help.

So for my posting this week, it's another exercise in painting in Photoshop and trying to add a bit of the advice on color that Will demonstrates in his color theory video. I have by no means, mastered his stunning use of color. In fact, I found myself still straying back to my usual choices. It will take a little while to understand, but it's a start and an exciting new challenge.

Many thanks to all of you out there in my cyberspace studio! 

Thanks again for checking in and checking Pixel Shavings out.

It's an honor to be here among these great illustrators. Look for another great post

from John Deininger next week!

www.sheralynbarnes.com

Off to join the Circus by Sheralyn Barnes

I've spent the last month continuing to hone my computer painting skills and getting my portfolio updated for the upcoming LA SCBWI conference. Although I feel as if I've been going at a snail's pace for the last few months, it was incredibly inspiring to pull out my portfolio from last year at this time and compare the work in it to the work that I am doing now. It makes all the long hours of learning and fussing at the computer worth it.

On my last post, I left you with a couple of digital paintings of my newest characters of a little girl and a bear. Well, at this point, at least the bear has a name (Simu) and both of the characters personalities are starting to come together for me. I've been doing more sketches based off of Illustration Friday's weekly suggestions. 

Here is the sketch that I did for the week that the topic was "Swept"....

And here is a portion of the re-worked digital painting of the Shadow puppet piece that I posted in my last post. I've been working on adding color and making the characters a bit more personable. Still have some tweaking to do, but it's been fun to experiment. I've really grown attached to these guys and look forward to getting to know them better!

 Thanks again for checking in!
Tune in next week for more fun and inspiration from Hazel!

www.sheralynbarnes.com

A Daring Adventure by Sheralyn Barnes

Spring is finally here and my thoughts have turned to greener pastures....and my portfolio. We are less than two months away from the incredibly exciting LA SCBWI conference. Which also means that I have been spending all my extra time since the conference last year trying to tighten up my portfolio with all that I have learned and absorbed from so many wonderful people in the children's book world this past year. It seems that all the valuable information and commentary that I have received has finally begun to sink in and I've had some major epiphanies about my work recently.

One of these epiphanies is just how few children (and human beings in general) there are in my portfolio. As many of you well know, it is filled to the brim with sheep. So, I decided to set a challenge for myself this month and pursue drawing children and other animals with renewed determination. 

I've made a point to hang out at the local zoo on school field trip days so that I can study and draw them both. This has been incredibly enlightening, fun, and a great excuse to get out of the studio.

Here are some sketches of some of the kids....

I also decided that I would use Illustration Friday as my catalyst for making up scenes for my mystery child and mystery animal. For anyone who isn't familiar with Illustration Friday, it is a site that gives you a new topic on which to draw every Friday and you have one week to post an illustration that embodies that topic. 

Of course then I had to come up with a child character and an animal or animals to interact with her/him.  I'm a bit of an over-thinker and like to build special relationships with all the beings in my two dimensional world, so that took a little time. Thanks to the Natalie Merchant song "The Dancing Bear" coming on my Itunes shuffle one day, I discovered my characters and their premise for meeting..... A little girl who has run away to join the circus and a performing bear who wants to run away from the circus. Then I let Illustration Friday call the scenes.

For this first one, the topic was "Asleep"

For the second...."Shadows"

I can definitely see the character development take shape in the second. I'm amazed how much my confidence in drawing the little girl grew in just one week (which is pretty apparent in the illustrations... although I am also drawn to the simplicity of the first). I love having a deadline to work within thanks to Illustration Friday. It's making me work and learn at a faster pace, which is also helping me to hone my computer painting skills. Most of all I am very excited to see what journey this little girl and bear (and Illustration Friday), are going to take me on!

Thanks so much for checking in! See you here next week when Hazel takes the stage for your incredible enjoyment!

www.sheralynbarnes.com

www.illustrationfriday.com