I’ve just finished up my Apples & Birdies sketchbook (by Ecojot,) it lasted me almost the year, am sad to put its worn pages away. From Adelaide to Ottawa to Toronto to Chicago to LAX, this sketchbook has been with me half way around the globe. My sketchbooks usually become a bit of a hodge podge as love saving ticket stubs, cut outs from magazines, old to-do lists, stamps… and what better place to stash them all than in my little sketchbook. And Hera’s got her hands on it more than once, defacing various sketches which has been a challenge! Here are a few spreads I scanned (you can click on them to see larger images), heh, looks a little crazy… better on paper than in my head I say!

My second go using Sketchbook Pro (my first go being to digitally colour this scanned pen illustration) was fun, just did a study of my feet while watching the tv (yes, they are bare in the winter, yes I am pregnant!) This is the first time I’ve done something painterly with digital medium and was pleased with how it turned out… but was a bit more awkward this time around using my finger to draw with, especially for finer details, so am looking forward to picking up a stylus.

We often go camping on the Murray River in Berri, SA at Bookie Cliffs… the water’s as brown and murky as can be, but being the only fresh water to swim in around here, not to mention the beautiful red and yellow cliff face, it’s a welcome change of scenery. Last weekend when we made the trip again, I brought along my watercolours and managed to squeeze in an hour long study of the cliffs. I don’t get many chances to study landscapes on site, was fun making the most of Hera’s naptime! After that, Hera was very keen to “paint” with mommy on the beach, and that I paint “e mama bear e baby bear” holding “hands.” I even had a bit of fun sketching her while she enthusiastically flipped through my Australian bird guide…. until she noticed that what I was doing was more interesting than what she was doing and insisted that I draw her “hand,” which I was all to happy to oblige.

There’s something really satisfying about finishing up a sketchbook, cover to cover. I use mine for to-do lists, scribbling, and as a general hub for all the bits and pieces of 2D inspiration I collect. I’m five pages short of the end, and am scribbling away in anticipation of cracking open my new ecojot sketchbook! But first, thought I’d share a little of my madness from this well loved spiral sketchbook… be warned, I’m an obsessive list maker, like to rip pictures out of magazines, collect stamps, and write very small. And, um, gasp, I don’t do a lot of sketching in my sketchbook unless it’s for a project! (And clicking on them will bring up a larger image.)

Am about halfway through digitally colouring my pencil illustrations for Spotty & Eddie’s latest adventure by Lisa M. Chalifoux… wanted to share a couple before and afters of my illustrations (clicking on them will bring up a larger image). The colouring has been going very quickly thanks to my new Wacom tablet… I bought my first one this summer and taught myself how to use it, so this is the first big project I’ve used it on. And I LOVE it. Also, here is a snapshot of how the layout is turning out in the InDesign file… I find it helps dropping in the colour illustrations into the layout as I go so that I can make sure the colours balance nicely.

I’m delighted to be working with Lisa Chalifoux on the sequel to Spotty & Eddie Learn to Compromise… in this adventure, Spotty & Eddie travel with their owner to visit Percé Rock in Quebec. Having never visited Percé myself and now living in Australia, I am relying heavily on photographic reference for the surrounding areas. While inspired by Bill Guffy’s use of Googlemap’s Streetview, unfortunately I can’t use it to get a feel for the town as Google has yet to “do” Canada yet. Sigh. Anyway, here are a few snapshots of the rough sketches generated from these thumbnails and ideas. By the end of this week I will have finished the revisions Lisa has requested on the rough sketches. The final illustrations are to be done in plain old graphite pencil with digital colour applied afterwards in Photoshop… stay tuned!

I have the pleasure of working for a second time with Diane Cantrell, author of Mom’s Choice Award winning picture book, Good-bye Baby Max. The title of our latest picture book is yet to be set, but I can tell you the story is about three pups who don’t quite grasp the concept of the Tooth Fairy and try in earnest to find their owner’s first lost tooth. I’ve just finished up the sketches… here are a handful to have a sneak peek at! The finals will be in watercolour & pencil on Arches paper. I transferred the sketches with an Artograph a couple nights ago, so once I’ve taped the paper down to masonite boards I will start painting, yippee!

I really enjoyed reminiscing while drawing this illustration… it’s from a photo Ben took of me in India being guided by an old widow through the Abhaneri wells in Rajasthan. Illustration is done with a graphite pencil, white pencil, and light blue pencil on a piece of warm coloured scrap paper, which really makes the blue of her sari pop out.

I’m taking a little break from my pen & digital colour drawings of Hera’s stuff and doing some sketches from photos we took on our trip to India last year. This sketch is of a bunch of different memories of our time in Udaipur.

I managed to sqeeze in 20 minutes of sketching from the couch yesterday for SketchCrawl 18, while holding my 6-week old daughter. Sketching babies is one of those things you have to do really loosely… they just wriggle around too much to get too focused on the details, so quick gestural drawings are all I really had time to do. Was fun though, will be keeping my sketchbook closeby to do more scribbles of her cuteness.

Be sure to check out some of the fabulous sketches up on the SketchCrawl forum, such as the one above by Marc Taro.

We also had a nice time for Earth Hour last night… hung around with family and chatted in candlelight for my birthday. Was kind of fun not having the lights on, with the occasional cheeky comment from brother-in-laws about the fridge light being on whenever someone went for a snack!