A Book I've Been Working On....

These are character/environment sketches for a book I'm writing and that I've already scored one rejection on. We learn by our failures right? But in the publishing world you need many many failures, rejections, refusals, disapprovals, and disasters in order to be a success right? I've written many a book my friend and it's publishers 15 - Will Terry 0. Enjoy it while it lasts publishers - for one day I shall laugh at you for buying one of my manuscripts...MWAA HAA HAAA!

Paint Pallet

So I'm feeling bad because I can't post any of the images I'm working on right now because my clients feel wierd about letting the cat out of the bag before the projects are published - go figure right? So I was looking for something I could put up and then it occured to me - my pallet! This mound you see before you is constructed out of all of the acrylic paint I've used since 1990! It started out as my friend Carl Wayne's masonite oil pallet which he thought was too big so he cut his in half and tossed it (the piece you see) in the trash. Way back then it was just a flat piece of 1/4 inch board but when I pulled it out of the trash and started using it as my acrylic pallet it began to grow.


There was a time when I was going to discard it - it was growing out of control and I thought it would be easier to work on a new one. But then I looked at it again - all bumpy, lumpy, and full of character. There there lil fella don't you worry - daddy isn't going to abandon you like Carl did. (can you tell it's 2:00am?) So here he is - I figure he's probably middle aged like me - lots of miles but many more ahead. He's been to Maryland, California, technically Nevada and idaho, but mostly he's lived here in Utah. Like I said before of the thousands of paintings I've done he's got parts of all of them in him. Oh, and that arch you see was at the request of my children constantly nagging me to sculpt some form into him - that took about 9 months. I think I'll name him Benjamin since I never had any run-ins with anyone with that name.

Sketchy

Because of my involvement with the California Teachers Association and the school visits I've been doing lately my mind is often on reading and it's importance in the development of the lives of children. This was a little doodle I did while my wife was at the doctor's office.

Texas Library Association Conference

I just got back from Houston and had a great time at the TLA conference. I never got tierd of hearing those southern accents! They make you feel like you belong even if you don't say "yall".


Even though this is a state conference it feels like a national one because Texas is so huge - most publishers and vendors treat it like it's national.


This was the first time I met Helen the author of Armadilly Chili and our new book The Three Little Gators - what a nice woman! It was so much fun signing books with her! We sold out on the second day and had some really fun conversations over dinner.


But how well do you really know someone after a few dinners? - in order to get to really get to know someone I suggest getting into a car crash with them. :) One of Helen's friends took us to dinner at a publishers party and on the way back we got into a really fun wreck! Her poor friend was driving and wasn't used to downtown Houston - Helen was so nurturing and kind helping her friend stay calm and get through the hard time.


Luckily there were no injuries and we had to leave before the police could finish their reports because there was a guy shooting a shotgun just down the street and they told us to get in our cars and get out of there. Exciting!

Yuba City School Visits

Just got back a few weeks ago from Yuba City CA - giving assemblies on reading and illusrating for picture books. This was me barely making it over Donnor Summit before it got really bad.


I got to visit my sister Beth and her husband Michael - Beth is a famous blogger in the Bay area - her blog: fakeplasticfish talks about living life using less plastic.


I gave about 4-5 assemblies each day for 4 days - it was really fun watching kids get excited over my work. It's hard for me to get a reaction from my own kids - they've seen behind the curtain.


At the end of each assembly I painted one of my characters in photoshop on the screen - kids got really quiet watching a drawing come to life.


For some of the older classes I gave some drawing lessons.


We took some goofy pictures...


This is Craig and Leslie Reading - Leslie set up all the schools and made all the arrangements - She did so much to facilitate these presentations - I can't thank her enough!


I even made the local paper!


Donnor Summit was kind to me on the way back.

I've been a bad blogger :(

I feel bad for not posting anything for 3 weeks...I've been in California doing school visits and teaching, writing, and working on a few projects. I'm not allowed to post the work from the projects because my clients don't want them visible before their products release.

So I dug this out - a scratch board I did a few years ago for my R.O.P. art class in California. I liked the piece but it never saw the light of day - it was a demo.

Illustration Friday - breezy

This was a painting I did when I thought it would be fun to sell work in a gallery...then I realized that finding a gallery that wanted my work was going to be tough...and I would have to frame everything on my dime...and then there's shipping...and wearing an earing...and pretending to be be tortured ...and I would have to eat peyote ...plus I couldn't think of anything else I really wanted to paint...then I was glad I had an illustration career...and I took a nap.

Amazingly Creative

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

A friend sent this to me and it is sooo fresh I felt I needed to pass it on.
Check it out.

BYU Demo finished

This is the finish - it was a lot of fun working on it and talking to students. I was happy that they thought it was funny...or at least didn't beat me up for poking fun. I worked on it in class for about 4 hours and spent an additional 2 at home putting a few finishing touches on it.



This is the digital stage where my main concern is getting everything no lighter than about 50% value. Using photoshop I spent about 20 minutes laying in shadows and color and then printed it on watercolor paper - then I stipple a layer of acrylic gel medium over the print and it's ready to start painting.

BYU Demo

I was asked by Greg Newbold to do a demo in his illustration classes monday the 23rd...so I racked my brain to come up with something that would be fun but non-offensive to the students. I really like this sketch and I'm going to paint it but I'm concerned that student's might not like that I've decided to portray a BYU alumni overweight. :) Check back next week - I'll post the finish.

All my BoOks!

I made an image of all the books I've done so I can show it during presentations. I'm hoping to be able to fill in all the black spaces over time.

Illustration Friday - Celebrate

Here's an image I did for Harcourt last year - lots of fun trying to fit all the animals they wanted in.

Illustration Friday- Time

I'm pulling this from the dark corners of my archive - just want to be part of the I.F. party :)

L.A. Trip (CTA)

So here are some pictures from my trip to Los Angeles where I got to sign "Read Across America" posters for the CTA. As I mentioned a few months ago I was chosen to be their illustrator for a few years. I was also able to take my boys and we enjoyed a warm weekend sans snow.


The conference was held in the Bonaventure hotel - where they filmed part of the chase scene in "True Lies" - the first five levels was mall style shopping.


Then it was time for me to sign posters for the teachers to take back to their schools. My hand told me he signed about 800 but I told him to stop complaining.


Rick and Ryan Zeeb wrote a great book - "Snowpeople" and they sold over 550 copies - behind them is Sheri - the brains behind it all - Diana in front of me the "barker" -and then there's me with that really stupid look on my face - I think that was before I fainted.


My kids had to entertain themselves while I was doin my thang - They didn't get into too much trouble - although they got "told" to leave the 35th floor - only L.A. Prime guests allowed!


On the way home we snaped a few picts at some abandoned roadside dives - and drove into a snowstorm around Beaver - welcome back.

BYU Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers Workshop

Here is a link to the BYU Writers and Illustrators Conference coming up in June. I was fortunate enough to be asked to teach again this year and they used some art from my new gator book for the promotion. If you're thinking about or planning to write and/or illustrate for children's books this conference is great! The list of published authors and illustrators who have attended this conference continues to grow each year.

Storyworks

Just finished this piece for Scholastic's Storyworks magazine cover. I think it will release in May. It was fun to illustrate a fun assignment: "Kids having fun with a reading theme" This was produced 100% in acrylics as my printer has finally given up trying to please me - we are no longer friends and I have banished it to the garage....when there is room in the trash can it will beautify the bottom of it...sense any hostility?

Illustration Friday - Climbing

Dug this up from over a decade ago - originally printed for Hispanic Magazine.

Not Forgotten

In the interest of keeping new stuff uploaded here's a wizard I did a little while ago that was never used by my client - Klutz. I liked him but he didn't fit into the project so the poor guy got scrapped. Enjoy your 15 min little sorcerer.

Another Illustration Friday - "Pale"

I feel bad for not posting anything new but isn't uploading old better than nothing?
I've been working hard but I can't post anything from my big project because I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement which prevents me from letting the cat out of the bag.

I did this image in a high school art class I was teaching in California. I enjoyed working on the same assignments I gave my students - that's why I gave the assignment - so I could play along too! This assignment was simple - create an image for a T-shirt for our class that would represent what we do.

Illustration Friday Contained

I did this image a while ago but I thought it fit.

Blue Plate Diner

So my son Aaron and I were watching the food network show - Diners Drive-In's and Dives and we just happened to catch the episode where they featured the Blue Plate Diner in Salt Lake. We both love Guy Fieri and when we saw him interview the owner of the Blue Plate, Johnny Chopper and saw the love and attention to the food we both knew we had to go.

So we googled the Blue Plate and put it on our "to do" list. One day when we found ourselves downing some Blue Plate goodies, Johnny Chopper just showed up and my son says, "HEY Johnny Chopper showed up" and so after the meal when we struck up a conversation one thing led to another and yada yada I walked out with a trade agreement - food for art - I highly recommend it....the food for art thingy....and the Blue Plate.

So I told Johnny I would send him a sketch of an idea I got while stuffing my face with his food. I just thought it would be cool to do this painting of a blue plate that might be a flying saucer but might only be a blue plate flying in the air - perhaps someone threw it like a frizbee (a satisfied customer of course) but I wanted to keep it ambiguous.

After he saw and dug the sketch I wasn't happy with the way the cars were in front of his place and even though you can only parallel park I thought It would look cooler to have all the cars pulled in. So to make my job easier I just nabbed a bunch of cars off the net like the one above and tossed them into the sketch using photoshop.

After I got all the cars distorted the way I wanted them I changed the mode to grayscale to get rid of all the color. This allowed me to not only add my own color but with the distortions texture and color changes I'm safe from copy right infringement. Next I printed this out on watercolor paper and added texture to prepare it for acrylic paint.

Here's another car that should be up with the Cadillac but since I put it in the wrong place and don't know how to delete and move it you'll have to imagine that it's up with the other one.

And here is the final painting - It was a fun diversion from my regular workload

So I loaded the fam into the car and we headed for Blue Plate heaven to deliver the painting.

It's funny how enthusiasm for food changes in about a half hour - while waiting for your food to arrive it's sometimes hard to maintain your train of thought as you struggle to control salivation - after you're stuffed you're wondering what you were all psyched about? Well now we have a bunch of gift certificates and we can enjoy Blue Plate whenever we're up that way. YAY Blue Plate!!