Borrow

xo

nessa dee

Revisions, Revisions, and More Revisions

I finally finished revisions on one of my picture books over the weekend. It's a simple story, wordless, yet full of surprises. It relies solely on the interaction between the two characters pictured above, and one object that ties them together in a unique way. The idea for the story came out of a conference workshop assignment to tell a sequential story in six or more images and attach them together, acpprdiban style. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I think I ended up with 20 images, and at the end of that breakout session, I was told that I should do something with the story. So I set to work, redesigning the characters and simplifying the entire look of the book.

When I first started attending SCBWI Conferences five years ago and heard writers and illustrators talk about revising their stories and pictures ten, twenty, thirty times, I was a bit overwhelmed by the thought of such a daunting task, especially having written stories and created illustrations which I loved. It's hard to want to change something you're so fond of, even harder when it took so much effort to finish it in the first place. Add to that a head full of stories and the time limits of being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, and having a finished dummy book meant I could jump into the next project.

Fast forward five years... to this project. It's a project I started over a year ago, not too long ago in the realms of publishing, but in that year, I've drawn and redrawn, and revised, and revised again, and again. I've redesigned the bear multiple times, which meant redrawing him on every page of the book. I've thumbnailed out this entire book, at least ten, maybe twenty times. In one of those rethinks of the story, I came up with an entirely new story, a sequel if you will, which has been revised several times.  I realized that it's not enough to just get it done, and move on to the next big project, it's about taking a project you love and polishing it, refining it, making it stronger. Yes, it can be a daunting task. There are some days that I swear I'll never draw another bear again, but then I decide his expression could be tweaked or his posture could be changed, and it's back to the drawing board. Am I completely finished with revisions? No. If it gets picked up at a publishing company, it will likely go through many more revisions. But I'm no longer overwhelmed by such a task. When I look back at all the changes this story has gone through from the initial sketch that sparked the idea to where it is today, I'm quite proud of what it's become. I know any future changes will make me love it even more, and hopefully, someone else will love it, too.

xo

nessa dee

Meet Nigel and Mr. Turtle

I met a couple of new characters yesterday. This is Nigel and Mr. Turtle. This wasn't our first meeting. Nigel popped up in my sketchbook last week, and Mr. Turtle joined him during church on Sunday. (I listen to the sermons better if my hand is busy...honest) They were so cute, I had to see what they would look like in color with their matching outfits. 

And now I'm introducing them to you. :)

xo

nessa dee

Materials used: Acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, glue, and embroidery thread.

The String

Here are a couple of images for a new wordless picture book I'm working on...

I'm still exploring with the final style, but I like the limited color palette and textural element with using actual embroidery thread.

xo

nessa dee

The Angel Guardian

For those who follow my little blog, let's put your cerebral cortex to good use and think back to the year 2014. If you can recall back in the fall of last year, The Angel Guardian, a lovely book I had the wonderful opportunity to illustrate, was funded on Kickstarter. Since then, the authors, Chris and Michelle Miller have been hard at work getting the hardcover books printed. If you took part in the Kickstarter campaign, then you are already reading your very own copy of the book! For those who didn't get a chance to participate in the campaign, don't fret...hardcover copies of The Angel Guardian will be available this month, AND in April, the angel doll to accompany the book will also be available! To order your copies of the book and doll, visit www.theangelguardian.com for all of the details.

Thank you, again, to Chris and Michelle for letting me be a part of this project, and thanks to all of those who have supported The Angel Guardian!

xo

nessa dee

Ballerina

Just another digital doodle.

xo 

nessa dee

Doodles

It's hard to find time these days to allow myself to explore with art. The time I do have to create is usually dedicated to specific projects. But I relish the moments when I sit down and draw with no real purpose other than to play. This little digital doodle was just that. I'm still not very confident in Photoshop, but as with anything, it gets easier the more I do it.

Now if only I was able to explore without the constant interruptions of a very loud two year old.

xo

nessa dee

Three Zombies and a Robot

I love this picture. I love it when my kids unknowingly settle themselves in order by height. They do this quite often, usually in age order. It's quite easy for them since there's 5+ years between each child. Their ages aren't relevant in this case, though, but somehow they've managed to stair step themselves into another perfectly posed position... a great opportunity for a photo, even if it is of mindlessly basking in the glow of a television.

And here's a little guy I've been working on. He's not quite finished, but I'm growing fond of him, so I had to share. I bought some old Bingo cards from my favorite store, Cherry Tree Creative, and I've been searching for an opportunity to use them in my paintings. He was one such opportunity.

I think I'll call him Bingo, Original, I know.

He'll be available for sale soon, so if you're interested in him, leave me a comment.

Have a great weekend!

xo

nessa dee

Be Happy

Playing around with handmade text in photoshop.

xo

nessa dee

West Austin Studio Tour

I'm about to bid farewell to this little girl for a couple of weeks. She will be a part of the “Austin SCBWI Illustrators & the Art of' Children’s Books” display at the Twin Oaks Branch Austin Public Library from May 2-17. This is one part of the larger West Austin Studio Tour exhibit going on this month.

I'm a little bit nervous letting my baby go, but I know she'll be in good hands, and she'll get to mingle with all of the other fantastic pieces from a group of very talented artists.

And if you get a chance, stop by and see what is sure to be a wonderful exhibit!

xo

nessa dee

Experimenting

I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to illustration.  I like to get my hands dirty. I like physically creating textures, layering paint, and making messes. I like the imperfections and happy accidents that I discover in the process. When digital illustration became more mainstream, I shied away from the idea partly because I didn't like the flat look of digital art, but mostly because I was technologically ignorant. This day and age, though, it's hard to tell digital art from traditional, and over the years I've become aware of the benefits of painting digitally as digital processes have slowly been seeping into my artwork. I mostly use Photoshop to touch up my illustrations and tweak colors, and just knowing I can "fix" something in Photoshop has eased my mind just a bit.

As my Photoshop skills are improving, I decided to experiment with an upcoming project. I am doing the whole project digitally. It's a big stretch for me because I'm still a dummy when it comes to computers, but I have my trusty friends Google and YouTube to guide me along the way. Here's a sneak peek:

I have to admit, I'm love, love, loving digital! I know I still have so, so much to learn, but I'm excited about the progress I've made in such a short amount of time, and am looking forward to learning more.

 I won't be giving up my traditional methods anytime soon, though. As much as I'm loving exploring this new [to me] medium, I miss getting my hands dirty.

xo 

nessa dee 

From my sketchbook...

 

Happy Friday!

xo

nessa dee

From my sketchbook...

xo

nessa dee

Chicks Run Wild

Back in April, I attended a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators [SCBWI] conference in Houston, and learned so much about different aspects of the children's book industry from the great speakers, which included the Caldecott Honor Medalist, Peter Brown. By the way, if you haven't bought his new book, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, you should. It's brilliant.

Peter Brown was one of the main reasons I wanted to attend the conference. I'm a big fan. But I didn't want to spend the money, and make the trek to Houston with two kids and a baby, and celebrate my middle child's birthday in a hotel room just to become some illustrator's groupie. I wanted to have some individual time with an illustrator, art director, or an agent to review my portfolio to see how I could improve it, or if I'm on the right track. The problem was that by the time I decided I could go the conference, the portfolio critiques were filled. So I called to see if I could weasel my way into one. I couldn't. But I did learn that there was a breakout session with an art director, Lucy Ruth Cummins, with an illustration assignment. Sold. I signed up that morning, and received the assignment a week and a half before the conference.

The assignment was to either illustrate a page from a picture book, Chicks Run Wild. This book had already been published, so I vowed not to look at it while I made my illustration because I didn't want it to influence my work in any way. I received the manuscript and started to plug away. After a lot of preliminary sketches, I finally settled on this:

I also made a color study in photoshop:

 At this point the sketches were emailed to Ms. Cummins, and I waited for her critique before I started on the final illustration.

I received her feedback the Monday before the conference, and I was thrilled. It was very good, and very informative. She loved the little chicks and their dot eyes, the colors and textures, the skewed perspective, and the dynamism of the swirled composition. She said it felt energetic, chaotic, and fun. She said the feathers looked more like leaves, she wasn't sure about the pink chick's hands, and she made note that I should avoid details that seemed overly digital, like the highlight on the chick's glasses. [Since I don't render my pieces digitally, I knew this wouldn't be a problem in the final].

I quickly began painting to get the final perfected before Saturday's conference. For times sake, I painted each element separately with plans to assemble them digitally. On Thursday night, I scanned everything into photoshop, but no matter how I adjusted the settings, the scans were overexposed. I tried to adjust the colors digitally, but they didn't look quite right. Frustrated, I gave up for the night.

So I hauled all of my art supplies to the hotel the next day, and armed with a pair of scissors, glue, and a dear mother-in-law to watch the kids, I set out to put my piece together, Kindergarten style. I painted in the details of the swirls and feathers and called it quits, with mixed feelings about the final.

At the breakout session, everyone displayed their pieces around the room, and Ms. Cummins gave her critiques one by one. When she got to my piece, I explained my plight with the scanner and that the picture would have been put together digitally. And her answer changed my whole approach to illustrating:

"WHY?"

She went on to add that she loved the dimensional effect, and would emphasize it even more. I can't tell you how relieved, excited, encouraged I felt at the end of the session. Since then, I've been physically assembling all of my pieces by cutting and gluing. Here's my final illustration:

 It's hard to see the dimensional effect here, but it's there. Except for the feathers and swirl, everything was painted separately and glued on in layers.

A funny thing, though, while making my preliminary sketches, I voiced my fear that I would create something that looked too much like the actual book illustrations. I didn't want to look like I copied the original work. Here's the actual cover:

I swear I never looked at the actual book until months after the conference. Ms. Cummins showed this picture at the conference, but it didn't even dawn on me that this was the actual book cover. When I did finally look at the book, I was shocked. It looks like I used this book as inspiration for my character designs. Oh well, what can I do?

Well, that's it for my novel about my new approach to illustration. 

xo

nessa dee 

Embrace

I posted this painting last week in a series of pictures, but I wanted to give you a little more of her story. This is a concept for a page in the book I've written. I'm currently shopping for a publisher who's willing to take on this little project of mine, and in the meantime, I'm trying to paint a few more final illustrations.

What I'm sending out is a dummy book of my story which is a mock up of what I envision the words and pictures to look like published. The dummy book isn't a full color print out of final illustrations, but rather a small black and white book of detailed sketches. I've completed several of the final illustrations from my sketches, but I don't want to complete all of them yet because if it does get picked up, the book might end up going through a lot more changes. That being said, this illustration is one that's already gone through a metamorphosis. It started out looking like this:

I liked the close up of the mom here, but the scan was bad, and I thought it needed a bit of photoshop magic, so it became this:

[Just to note: The huge blank side of the page houses the text.] 

I liked this enhanced version, but I started to wish I could see the baby's face. I also wanted to soften the mother's appearance a bit. That lead to this sketch:

Which lead to the final:

I create my backgrounds and page elements separately, and put them together later, not in photoshop, but with glue, or tape. This way of making my illustrations came about as a fluke, which I'll tell you about in a different post, but it's been a time and sanity saver. It also creates a neat dimensional effect with the shadows. 

I'm not sure if she's completely finished, but she's mostly there.

xo

nessa dee

Prepositional Phrases

on the easel:

in my head:

upon the drawing table: 

 outside my window:

inside my drawer:

without shoes:

against the wall:

around his little finger:

[as in I'm wrapped]

Happy Friday!

xo

nessa dee

Exciting News!!

Would you like to have one of my prints in a larger size? How about on canvas?  Matted and framed? On birch wood? Or you might just want to go browse this site and see the name Nessa Dee. [Okay, maybe that's just me.] For everything else, you can visit Gallery Direct.

Gallery Direct is now offering high quality, limited edition prints from Nessa Dee Art! Each piece can be printed in several different sizes on a variety of materials. Right now there are seven different paintings to choose from, but more will be added in the weeks to come.

You can also find my work over at New Era Portfolio.

How cool is that? 

I'm so excited to get to join the family of talented artists at New Era, and am so thankful to those who've given me this opportunity. 

xo

nessa dee

From my sketchbook...

xo

nessa dee

A new illustration

Happy Friday!

xo

nessa dee

IF: Robot

These are from a project I'm working on...

xo

nessa dee