I've mostly been working with digital art for the last several years. I use Photoshop, Corel Painter, and most recently, Adobe Sketch and Procreate on an iPad. I decided to get back into acrylic and introduce part of my thesis work as narrative fiction accomplished in acrylic as I don't want to 100% be dedicated to Children's Book Illustration and keep YA/Fantasy/Fiction work in my repertoire as well. Well, my first attempt to paint in years has been humbling! I need to relearn how to mix a color palette, lay down values and draw out depth! It really is a disaster of a learning curve right now. Sometimes I worry that I lost my touch but I remember a quote from my last class, "you can never lose your talent." It's buried in there somewhere. I just need to work to find it.
Writing now
in Writing
Yesterday I started writing the manuscript for my Master's degree thesis project. It's something I've been postponing for awhile. I've had an idea of the story but not confident in my ability until recently. I suddenly had an epiphany yesterday to change up the perspective to the dog's perspective--something I enjoy in books I read now like The Art of Racing in the Rain. So I've been doing lots of googling "how to write a children's book"! Here are some of the best tips I've found:
1: identify the age range and learn how to tailor the writing style for them. This is very similar to illustrating but instead of color theory and shapes, I have to think about vocab, sentance and story length and complexity.
2: eliminate unnecessary words.
3: don't talk down to kids. This includes overt "lessons" and morals. I just finished reading the book "how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk"' and the bottom line of the books is that kids (everybody for that matter) only want to be respected and not dismissed. So have the kids in the book solve their own problems. Kids can even solve adult's problems.
4: related to the above, keep parental involvement minimal. Kids in the books should have greater independence than what may be realistic.
5: the protagonist should make some bad decisions or get in trouble. Then get in more trouble. Then overcome it all!
I can't wait to see where this new journey will lead!
First blog post!
in Aviation
Welcome wayfaring web travellers. I hope this blog finds you well. My intent is to reflect on maintaining a military aviation career while freelance illustrating and the unique challenges that provides. In many ways I am an outlier in my job--I am a woman (currently about 4 percent of military pilots are women, and less in the combat air forces), and I am getting a fine arts degree. I have met many pilots who have interesting hobbies including music (many who have played for professional bands) but only a few art hobbyists. Those of us that do seem to think a different way. We see the big picture harmony when things go well and the dissonance when things don't. We appreciate moments for what they are.
