Illustration Friday-CLIMBING

I'm off to a strong start at accepting the weekly IllustrationFriday.com challenge. This week, the theme is 'Climbing.' I'm not sure why, but aliens have been popping up in my art lately, so I kept that tradition going this week!

"She soon realized that climbing up to get a look wasn't the best idea."

How To Draw Star Wars

Have you seen the latest installment of The Clone Wars series, Jedi Crash? These new critters are the CUTEST things since Ewoks! I love them! I was really excited when Lucasfilm asked me to put together a drawing tutorial to show young artists how to draw the peaceful beings! You can see my tutorial on Star Wars.com!

Star Wars Trading Cards

A couple weeks ago I finished illustrating 97 sketch cards for the new trading card set from Topps, Star Wars:Galaxy IV. Illustrating Star Wars cards (this was my 5th set for Topps) always brings out some massive creativity in me, and this set was no exception! I approached these cards a bit differently than I have in the past. I really wanted to show my love of the films through humor in my cards and by including a bit of storytelling from my own perspective. A small portion of the cards were portraits, but even with those, I tried hard not to make any of them look like another copy of another still image we've seen a million times already. The cards are going to be released early this year. My sketch cards will be available in hobby boxes only (not retail packs). For more information, visit www.topps.com.

Illustration Friday-PALE

Poor little alien caught a bug on his interstellar travels and is looking rather pale.

Illustration Friday-VOICES

I've been spending the past four days catching up on Illustration Friday challenges. "Voices" was the theme back in early December. There's more so keep reading!

Illustration Friday-CLANDESTINE

Back in December, Illustration Friday.com had a theme that really spoke to me! The theme was "Clandestine". I sketched it out yesterday and finished it up today. I find the IF challenges a great way to get the creative juices flowing, and right now, I'm quite hooked and plan to choose a 2 or 3 more themes to illustrate. Check back on Friday for THIS weeks IF challenge as well! I also submitted my suggestion for this weeks theme: Assemble. Fingers crossed it gets chosen!

Illustration Friday-RAMBUNCTIOUS

I've decided to tackle the challenge of a few recent Illustration Friday themes. This is for "Rambunctious", originally challenged on December 12, 2008.

SCBWI Spot Illo Published!

My submission to the SCBWI bi-monthly bulletin was published in the Jan/Feb. 2009 issue! This was a nice moment of validation as I spent all of 2008 focusing on learning the craft of writing and illustrating for children. I have been drawing a LOT of mice lately, so it was even more special to have one published!

Illustration Friday-CONTAINED

My goal is to complete each illustration within an hour before noon every Friday. This measures approx. 4"x6" and I used Copic Markers with colored pencil and white ink. Just felt like drawing a little froggie.

Illustration Friday-RESOLVE

Well, today I resolved to do the weekly challenge at IllustrationFriday.com. Coincidentally (or not), todays word is "resolve". I did this in about 1 hour. Just a little something to wake myself up out of the holiday funk.