traylorillo

I can’t believe it’s been 3 months since the last quarterly issue of the Highlighter for SCBWI Mid-Atlantic. Time really flies. I just wanted to showcase a couple of pages from this one. Perhaps the powers that be will eventually make the download open to anyone and I can post a link. Until then, I must be content with images of the spreads. I act as the art director/designer for this publication. We have a regional readership of around 600.

Here’s a tiny little spot illo I originally created for a tea party invitation. Just a little frothy, frilly fun.

She’s been converted and colored in Adobe Illustrator and is now a scalable vector.

I recently finished an illustration for an African folk tale called the Lion and the Hare.

Hare, in African lore, is a trickster and in this particular story, he manages to convince the large, but easily outsmarted, Lion not to eat him.
I’m sharing my process, again in this illustration, starting with the initial concept sketch.

To the final rendered pencil that will become the base for the final work. This gets scanned and cleaned up in Photoshop for the final piece.

Once that happens, I begin using “paths” in Photoshop that will allow me to isolate and work on regions of the artwork.

All this finally leads to the final piece. Yay!

I’ll share this cover illustration in context on an upcoming post!

Cheers!

I’ve been busy this summer. I’ve found it’s a lot easier staying in the cool air conditioned studio when the temperature is around 100°F every day. I’m posting the first of several pieces I’ve been working on in the last month.
This is a fall themed spot illustration, “pumpkin pickin’” and, IMHO, it’s been refreshing working on this, thinking about the cooler weather when harvest season rolls around.

And just for fun, here’s the original line drawing…

Until next post…stay cool!

It might seem odd to have a taxidermist next door but for me, an artist, it’s a great source of animal reference. My neighbor, the taxidermist, is also nice enough to allow me to come over and draw from his menagerie and that’s where I found myself a few days ago. My two kids and his son, Cody, joined me for a little sketch party for about an hour at the shop. We drew from the creatures in the showroom. The wood duck pictured above is a permanent denizen of that wood-lined room.

My 6 year old son, Drew, didn’t care too much for drawing dead animals, so he decided to sit on the 4 wheeler ATV and draw that. I’ve posted his drawing, below because, frankly, I was astounded. You can see the handlebar detail down to the screws and the clutch lines and ignition.

Of the evenings sketches, this one is my favorite. It’s not an animal but rather a tiny toy robot my son’s friend, Cody, had in his pocket. Boy’s do keep loads of odd bits in their pockets, don’t they?