My website started out around 1999 as a personal site. I was learning HTML at work and wanted to try out new ideas on my own terms. I had redesigned the site a few times, but always kept the content intact. Fast-forward to this past summer, when I rethought the whole darn thing. I realized that what I really wanted to do was to change the direction and focus of the site and make it more of a showcase for my illustration work. I recently took a CSS class through Sessions.edu and used it, along with the practical work knowledge from my job, to overhaul my 8-year-old website. Since then, I’ve been a finalist in the Bloggies for Best-Designed Weblog and a Blog of Note on Blogger.com. (more…)

I’m thrilled to be guest-blogging here on Notes on Design! I’m an art director by day, illustrator by night, and hands-on-at-all-times Mama to three preschoolers. This means I am very good at organizing, but I’m ready to get creative at a moment’s notice.

I’m a great believer in keeping your creativity alive by always trying something new to spark your interest. That could range from painting with unusual materials, like wine, or coffee…

Doing fast-and-fluid portraits with your kids’ art supplies while they draw too: (more…)

First, I think of an idea. In comics, no matter how good your illustration skills might be, your comic will still be a flop if your idea sucks. I carry around a Moleskine notebook for my ideas (whether illustration or writing).

For multi-panel strips like Will Write For Chocolate, I’ve created Corel Painter templates of 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-panel strips.
I’ll usually type in the text first, then create a new layer and sketch in the art using a variant of the Smooth Round Pen, using a light grey.

Then I do the b&w drawing on a separate layer, colors in other layers. I usually keep colors on different layers so they’re easier to work with. When I’m happy with the result, I’ll delete the “sketch” layer, flatten everything into one layer, shrink it to the required dimensions and convert to JPG before uploading.

I have several online cartoon strips. My style was pretty rough when I began a few years ago with http://www.waitingforfrodo.com, but I’m constantly working on improving my craft as well as reading lots of other online comics. My semi- autobiographical strip,
My Life In A Nutshell, is all over the place in terms of style. In Will Write For Chocolate, I’ve attempted to settle on a style throughout; I’ve actually (*gasp!) made some money with this strip.

In my last blog post, I’ll talk a bit about my own online comic creation process.

Some illustrators are paranoid about posting any images online in case their work is stolen or copied. While this fear is (sadly) not totally unfounded, so far I’ve found the risk well worth it. Nearly all my illustration clients have found me because of cartoons and illustrations I have posted online.

Here are some useful resources:

How to protect your online images

How to protect your digital photos from being copied

You can also apply a Creative Commons license to an image to give away specific rights with restrictions.

Flickr used to focus exclusively on photos, and even had a policy early on making non-photographic content unsearchable.

Flickr has since acknowledged the popularity of its service with illustrators, however, and recently introduced filters instead; users can mark their content type as non- photographic images.

This change will also make it easier for potential clients to come across an illustrator’s work. The cartoon above was one of my early cartoon sales; a publications company found it via Flickr.

I was delighted to be invited as a Guest Blogger on Notes on Design. I’ve been a freelance writer for quite a while, but doodled on the side. A few years ago, however, people started offering me money for my doodles, and I began to take illustration more seriously.

I experiment with a number of styles; I’m sure I’ll eventually settle on one longterm, but for now I’m having fun. Working with the digital drawing and painting tools in Corel Painter makes this possible.

Some illustrators sketch on paper then scan the drawings into the computer. My illustration and cartooning process is entirely digital from start to finish, using my Wacom tablet and pen.

I created today’s illustration with Corel Painter 9.5 using various digital brushes such as Sponge, Croquil Pen, Airbrush and Leaky Pen.

After the painting is completed, I scan it in and adjust in photoshop (my style is kind of grungy and I can correct little mistakes a bit this way). This also allows me to send you the final digitally, so it’s easy for you to just plop it down into your layout.

Hopefully you love it, and you email back to say so. And then I’ll send you an invoice. And after it’s in your layout and officially printed, you’ll send me some tearsheets. (Sharing!) And we’re done. You then reflect on how nice was to work with an illustrator and get another creative mind on the problem. And I reflect on how your good design helps the illustration look great (and in turn, you look great… and more importantly: your client looks great). And then I go back to drinking my coffee.

The End. (See? Wasn’t that fun?)

Read Penelope’s previous post

So I emailed you my sketch ideas and gave you my rationale behind them. (Being an illustrator doesn’t mean I just paint pretty pictures… I also need to help you communicate the idea and solve the problem visually. And, at the same time, draw a viewer in by the image. It’s not that difficult, but this illustration needs to pull a lot of weight.)

You looked over the sketches and discussed them with your partner or editor and then got back to me with your choice, and any changes you think would strengthen the image. And I am happy you picked one (hopefully it was my favorite of the bunch) and we move on to the final. This is where I get to paint and be messy and play with color (my favorite part).

For my illustrations, I stick really closely to the approved sketch. I do this because I don’t want to surprise you with something unexpected that leads to you being unsatisfied with the illustration or require tons of changes. And I want you to know what to expect when you hire me back for future projects (you’ll do that, right?… ?cause I’m so nice…)

So here are finals for the sketches in the previous posts:

On to the last phase.
Read Penelope’s previous post| Read Penelope’s next post

After I do some extremely loose sketches to jot down and work out ideas, I can see that some of them have legs and others are total floppers. The ones with legs (doesn’t that sound insect-like?) get a more formal sketch… more thought-out composition, etc. Maybe you sent me an initial layout pdf… I love it when I get these because it allows me to put my sketch into context and think about how the type will fit around the image. Being from a design background, I like to design my illustrations to the allow the reader’s eye to move smoothly around the layout.

Like this (see how I have the hummingbird directing you to read the title?):

So finally I email about 2 or 3 tight sketches to you. (I like to work it all out in the sketch stage and have fun painting, but other illustrators give really loose sketches and then transform it in the final stage.)

Here are tighter sketches from the roughs shown in the previous post:

We’ll continue in my next post.

Read Penelope’s previous post | Read Penelope’s next post