Sunday, July 25, 2010

Double Trouble

1.
2.
3.
IF:Double
This was difficult for me for some reason. I am on vacation in the mountains with nothing to do, but draw and for some reason I am feeling extra mentally stagnant....maybe I should go take a nap down by the lake. I have a hard hard life.
(I like the first one the best)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Tip for Tat


Tip Jar cards for work! Yay.

Sally's Room










The mural for Sally's room is complete! JJ took some pictures, but there are no windows in room and its pink so everything looks a bit blown out in photo form. Anyway, it is the first mural I have done, yay! It was fun and I hope to do more.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Balanced Breakfast

IF: Breakfast

Winnie's Sweet Tooth Sketches


Here are some sketches about Winnie and her sweet tooth. I did them when we were away in Heath. Yay, candy.

Day in the Park



Park popsicle party yesterday was fun, but there is something about being unable to go swimming that makes me catatonic as seen in the exhibit above. (Photo courtesy of Ester)



I am very excited to go up north, Canada to me exact, to max out on water times. There will be some dogs there, which will be nice...but not as nice as if they were mine. Right now I am trying to get through the week without having a meltdown. I need some drawing time for sure. I hope to tackle the IF theme in a bit and maybe that will help. (Stolen from JJ)

(ps- changed my layout and still working out the bugs as I am very slow at html editing)

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The weekend of awesome

I did not have time to comment on the weekend of awesome in Heath, but it was so amazing. I stole these shots from JJ and her amazing photo skills.
I found my true love, and of course, it was a goat.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Amazing purchase

Just call me Charrow the Impulsive. I have been considering getting a better scanner because alas the new one I bought is already banding. It is no ones fault. It was originally a 24 dollar scanner and it has been "fine," but not "amazing," until now. I need something that can handle being "amazing" for me and for JJ's photos. Illustrations can handle an "ok" scanner, but photos suffer. So with that being said last night, a little too late to make thoughtful decisions, I went on to Epson and bough a refurbished Epson Perfection v600 Photo scanner. Not only does it do regular scanning, but is a negative scanner. I know nothing about this, but maybe it will be helpful to JJ. I assume, and maybe wrongly, that with a negative scanner one can scan and digitally develop negative? Is this correct? I do not know, but anyway I hope it is worth it because I sent an "excellent" amount of money.
I would like to say that I bought an oversized scanner, but that price is a little too "excellent" for my blood currently. I am ready to spend good money on equipment, but 2500 dollars is a bit too rich for my blood.


Thursday, July 15, 2010

A taste for the muddier things

I have not had as much time as I thought I would. These past couple of days I have been meaning to scan in the art work I did over the weekend, but I had another freelance job. I have been painting the mural in Sally's room (my bosses daughter). I will have images on Monday when I am done. Other than that I will try to post more work from the weekend and some images from the last freelance job I did.

yay.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Bouquet of totes

The complete new tote design! Bags have been ordered and shipped to screen printing shop I use in NJ and an order has been put in at the screen printing shop. I think it will take about 2 weeks as it usually does. I should have done this a week or two ago to ensure they would get here before Canada..oh well.
Honestly, I have spent the past three weeks working on a big freelance project that kept getting bigger. the client and the design team were not on the same page, which made my life harder. It's difficult when the client does not know what they want because it means more work for me; however, I got paid for extra work because of the amazingness of a thing called a contract. The awesomeness of the contract is that you can dictate terms. So, if the client has revisions that exceed the number included in the price in the contract they have to pay for it...and they did.

This to know:

1. Always make a contract and have the client approve said contract.
2. Always include thumbnails- the thumbnails are your first safety net. You can basically say "I will do 7 thumbnails of ideas you get to choose one of them for the final." If the client exceeds that number it will cost extra
3. Once you have fleshed out the thumbnail into your fully detailed sketch the client has (however many revisions you decide are included in the price) in my case it was one revisions, but if there were little details to be added it was fine. By revisions I mean major directional changes and for that they got one.
4. color palette and color palette rough comp.- Once the sketch is complete I drop it in illustrator and do a palette of general colors. This gives the client a general idea of palette, how much of each color will be used, and tone. They must approve this before I go to gouache.
5. Once all these things are approved I go to final. If, for some reason, the final is not what they want it will cost them more. 1-3 are the safety nets for the client and the artist. If the clients idea changes once the final is complete it is the clients decision to pay to have the illustration changed.

I felt a bit uncomfortable with this in the past, but I have more confidence in my abilities now. The client is hiring me for my style so they know what they will be getting. If they do not like something it is not my style that is at fault, but rather, it is something they have not articulated before.

That is my two cents on the matter of contract and freelance. Money is never something I like discussing, but its very important and too often artists get swindled because they undervalue their work or their time.

I did not mean to make this a rant...but oh well.

Onward:

This week I am doing a bedroom mural, yay! I also have some more illustrations for the next book.
I was in Heath Mass. for the weekend and had some time to draw and veg out...I love vacation.


Monday, July 5, 2010

Winnie's Cake Love

Monster's Picnic

It's a bit hot for a picnic right now, but at least someone is having a grand time.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

I Did it.

Featured on They Draw and Cook! Yay. I am actually going to cook that amazing soup right now.


Friday, July 2, 2010

Giant Winnie


Giant Winnie and giant dog.
IF: Giant

Winnie the Mess Maker