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.

The Great Turtle Makeover

Revisions, revisions, revisions!  It has been a year since I worked on Ollie And Logger In The Deep Blue Sea, the early reader book that I illustrated (and my mother wrote) for my first semester senior project.  I love the story and feel good about the pacing of the sketches as a whole. But as I look back, I was deeply dissatisfied with a couple of things. The characters seemed awkward, stiff and bloated, their faces falling short of the natural cuteness I was going for. And on top of that, all the color work I did wasn’t working either. Try as I might last fall, I was not getting the lightness and fluidity of underwater scenes, and all the pieces look overworked.  That’s the hardest part about watercolor – knowing when to stop, because once you go too far there is no going back, just starting over.

Despite my self-criticisms, I am confident that we have something marketable with Ollie And Logger – it’s just a matter of revising.  So I spent my three-day weekend reworking the characters and the first color piece . . . and here are the results of the makeover!

Turtle Sketch-Card Now Available!

An original turtle watercolor of mine is now available on the Ripple sketch blog for a small donation!  Be the first to contribute to one of the worthy charities helping the gulf oil spill (per her instructions on the blog), and I’ll be mailing you the 4″x5″ sketch-card – for keeps.

It’s just $10, and you should be donating anyway. I mean, come on, that’s like the cost of a sandwich. Now go buy some art and save the sea turtles!!

Sneak Peek – Turtles Everywhere!

Blog friends, take a first look!  Here are some sketches from my latest book project, senior thesis and first collaboration (of hopefully many!) with my madre (author Jennifer A. Ericsson) . . . Turtle and Logger!

Okay, well, the title in progress.  It’s gone from Turtle In Love to Turtle and Logger and the Not-A-Jelly… but we haven’t settled on one that works.  Any suggestions??

The book is an early reader, so with 48 pages, it’s longer than the average picture book, but is still full of easy language and bright pictures on every page.  Think: Henry and Mudge, Frog and Toad, and any book with an “Easy To Read” Level on it.

The story centers on Turtle (name suggestions??), a happy young sea turtle who loves the world around him, especially his dependable rock ledge.  But when he starts running into pieces of litter, and his hungry friend, Logger, almost chokes on one, the two turtles have to find a way to return the things to the land, where they belong!

Right now, I’m deep in sketch phase – I’ve got everything drawn out, but am trying to solve all the “issues” that came up.  My main issues are: 1) trying to get more sea, and less turtles, so that each page is new and exciting, and 2) to rework Logger so that, even though they are similar turtles, they look VERY different from each other.

Well . . . enjoy the sketches, and any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

-ABE