This past summer I illustrated the story The Boy Who Wanted Wings for the magazine Angels on Earth. Angels on Earth is owned by Guideposts, which creates spiritual magazines. This is an inspirational Christmas story written by Patricia Gaddis-Clark, and is well worth the read. It was a joy to illustrate too! I know it was intended for print, but I am glad to see it on-line as well. Enjoy!
Header
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Boy Who Wanted Wings
Labels:
angels,
boy,
Christmas,
Christmas tree,
holidays,
inspiration,
ornaments
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
The Holiday Mood
©Lesley Breen Withrow
Today I woke up to a ton of snow on the ground. What a surprise it was! Unfortunately, it turned over to rain and now it is a slushy mess. But, the snow has helped to put me in the holiday mood. Well, the snow and the Christmas tree we just put up! There are no gifts under it right now and I'm not sure if we'll ever has as many gifts as those under the tree I illustrated. Ha! But that's okay.
Labels:
Christmas,
christmas leaves,
Christmas tree,
gifts,
Greeting Cards,
licensing,
ornaments,
Patterns,
presents,
product design,
snow,
star,
Texture
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
My Process of creating Mixed Media children's art
In this post I thought I would show you a bit how I work from sketch to finished art.
1. Here's my sketch
2. Next I lay down the foundation colors and start to fill in different elements of the art.
3. Once the initial art colors and characters are painted, I like to bring the art into Photoshop where I add lots of the details, textures and patterns. I have a large library of textures and patterns that I have created on paper using paints and scratchboard and pen and ink, etc. I have also been known to scan fabrics, newspapers, buttons, really what ever I think I can use in my art. It's a lot of fun creating those different textures and patterns and once I scan it into the computer I can use it multiple times because it's now a computer file.
4. And here is the final art with all the details, textures and patterns added in in place. But wait, there's one more addition to this piece!
5. I decided to add a border all around it. This was a border I created by hand and scanned/manipulated in the computer. Hope you had fun seeing a bit of my working process!
Labels:
animal,
cat,
children's art,
children's book art,
mixed media art,
photoshop,
tutorial
Monday, November 30, 2009
Profile of my husband, Steven Withrow, at Seven Impossible Things!
Jules Danielson has invited Steve to contribute monthly "Fieldnotes" to her amazing children's book blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. He'll be posting a regular interview/feature with a children's publishing professional -- starting December 15th with art director and book designer Susan M. Sherman.
Here's the fun profile of Steve -- with plenty of pictures and a poem -- up today. Check it out!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Illustrating Children's Picture Books Arrives!
Steve and I recently received our first advance copy of Illustrating Children's Picture Books from Roto Vision in the UK. It was great to finally see it in print and to hold it in our hands. It's a nice square shape and size and is well designed. It will be available in December but you can place pre-orders on Amazon.com already. Here a few sneek peaks!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
R. Michelson Galleries - 20th Annual Children's Illustration Show
On Sunday, Steve and I went to the R. Michelson Galleries in Northhampton, MA for the 20th Annual Children's Illustration Show. The R. Michelson Galleries is a beautiful place and the show features incredible children's art from some of the top illustrators. We got to be in the same company of some wonderful people in the childrens book field. Jane Yolen, Norton Juster, Barry Moser, Leslea Newman, Mo Willems, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Mordicai Gerstien, Richard Michelson, Jane Dyer, and Anna Alter to name a few. They were also auctioning some original children's art for Reader to Reader, a public charity dedicated to bringing books, free of charge, to needy schools and public libraries across the United States. The Children's Illustration Show will be hanging until January 31, 2010 and it's definitely worth the trip! We got to explore downtown Northhampton a bit too. What a cool creative community it is there!
R. Michelson Galleries - Northhampton, MA
20th Annual Children's Illustration Show
Jane Yolen receiving the second annual Norton Juster Award
for service to the world of Children's Literature.
Illustrators and writers line up to take the annual picture!
Mo Willems art in the exhibit
What a great day!
Labels:
artists,
children,
gallery,
illustration friday,
writers
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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