Archive for March, 2015

Springing Off From Here

Filed under: Illustration,Lessons of an Artist | March 26, 2015
"Charlotte" by Shanda McCloskey

This is Charlotte. A techie, gadget-loving girl.

 

It’s Spring! (Here in GA anyway :) A time for the renewal of many things, including me. I feel energized and extra committed to my goals and dreams this year. My baby is 9 months old, and for now, things are good. I am getting more sleep at night, and I’m trying to take good care of myself. I have a wonderful mother and mother-in-law who help SO very much with my girls! I’m so grateful.

I’ve been working with the incredible, E.B. Lewis, through a Skype mentorship! It’s cool. He felt I could do better and more interesting artwork if I used real art materials rather than my self-taught, flat, lack-luster attempt at digital coloring.  (He wasn’t quite that mean about it, thank goodness). I felt the same way, deep down.

"Charlotte on Yellow" by Shanda McCloskey

So, the illustration you see at the very top of this post is my best attempt (so far) at applying watercolor and oil pastel to one of my characters. Seems simple enough, but I was at war with myself for a week just trying to get the paint to do what I wanted. I finally painted this, and I feel like it was successful … so I’ll try to spring off from here … no looking back.

-Shanda

Egg Drawing Challenge!

Filed under: Art Lessons | March 18, 2015

egg

I’ve recently been facilitating an online drawing course for a high school age home-schooled student (my nephew). One thing that I’ve noticed is that learning to shade and add value to a drawing is difficult. You must learn to SEE it first, then you can draw it. For example, my nephew sent me a drawing of his white car.

tims_car

It’s a nice drawing, but he has left white/blank every area that is painted white in real life, so it appears flat. Even “white” objects have many different greys in real life to show the form. So, I’ve challenged him to draw a white egg!

This is a video I found that shows and names all the different shadows and lights that you might see on an egg:

And here is a time lapsed demonstration that I made (using a 2B pencil, kneaded eraser, and my finger):

It’s harder than you think! I had to shade, then erase, then shade, then erase, and shade again to get it just where I wanted it- where it matched what I SAW. Give it a try! Go draw an egg!

Love,

Shanda

Shanda McCloskey, Children's Illustrator & Author