Re-Seussify Seuss Challenge

In case you missed it, this week’s results for School Library Journal’s Fuse #8 Re-Seussify Seuss challenge were in, and they were pretty spectacular! The mission, as set forth by children’s lit guru Betsy Bird, was to draw a spread from a Dr. Seuss book, but in the style of ANOTHER famous picture book artist. I was inspired by the fun mash-up idea, and pulled off the image of Yertle The Turtle in the style of Arnold Lobel, above.

The idea for the image itself came to me pretty easily. It’s no surprise that I love drawing turtles, and Yertle The Turtle is a family favorite. The reptile vs. amphibian factor – Yertle crossed with Frog and Toad – was amusing to me as well. In particular, I wanted to try my hand at Arnold Lobel’s style. I thought the limited palette with textured graphite would be fun, and his characters and watercolors lend themselves easily to my own style. Plus, he’s a fellow Pratt alum!

I learned a lot about Arnold Lobel’s creative process from this video with his daughter, Adrianne Lobel.  She sought to replicate her father’s paintings when she colored Arnold Lobel’s unfinished The Frogs and Toads All Sang:

I am very interested in Lobel’s use of color separations to make the Frog and Toad illustrations, and I wish I could find more on the subject. While Adrianne went with full-color in her recent interpretation, I wanted to imitate the 2-color (and black) separations by sticking to a green layer, a brown layer, and dark graphite.  I’m pleased with the result and think it was rather successful, if I do say so myself.

Now go check out Betsy’s post for the other mind-blowing creative Re-Seussification mash-ups!

Calling All Interested App Folks

Things have been bustling here at the newly-founded Smart Cookie Studios, where our first app is almost ready to be revealed to the world!  We’re going to launch our website and social media soon (Twitter, Facebook), and are prepping for pre-release so we can finally show you all the final art, music and interactivity we’ve been working so much on.

That being said, I want to know – WHO should we tell about our app?? Do you want news and updates about our new venture yourself? Do you have a great app reviewer we should know about?  Know of someone in the industry we should follow on Twitter?  Are a fan of another great app studio? Or blog? Or developer?

I’m looking for any and everyone under the sun, so send me Twitter handles! Facebooks! Websites! Emails! Smoke signals!  I’ll love you forever…

 

My Bunny Valentines

My impulse to spread bunny cuteness started before Valentines’ Day, but I didn’t finish up these little spot illustrations until last night.  It’s only a week or so late, and hey, who doesn’t want a valentine all year round?

New “Ollie And Logger” Painting

Finished revising one of the color pieces for Ollie And Logger, which is the first dummy book I’m polishing up for submission (my New Years’ resolution due date: April 1st!).  And… well… it’s an improvement.  I’m happy with Logger, the brown turtle, since he’s in the style of the first color piece I revised.  But wow, painting a plastic bag floating in the ocean is CRAZY hard!!

I heard a quote recently of an artist who wouldn’t accept any manuscripts that contained “horses or bicycles” (smart move).  Well, from now on, no more stories about amorphous objects in water, either.  Just say no.

BRR. It’s Cold In Here!

Happy Winter!

Just a note to say that cold is here, and it’s time to make like a polar bear and hibernate/snuggle.  I’ve actually been doing a lot of drawing-painting-crafting these days, but as they’re presents… it’s mostly TOP SECRET ’til after Christmas (except for a sneak peek of this little watercolor, above).

That’s all the news that’s fit to print – for the moment!