WIP Wednesday - Fare thee well (retreat time!)

I'm leaving in the morning for our annual autumn retreat. Much good food, good company and good art happens. I have great plans to make some serious headway on the troll book. Wish me luck! I will report upon my return.

Troll Tuesday - quickie preview

About a month ago, I posted my IMC piece both here and on facebook. It was so much fun to do, I definitely wanted to do more in the same vein. In a surprising and rather thrilling turn of events, the amazing and world-renowned author Jane Yolen took a fancy to it and was inspired to write a manuscript to accompany it (she has a brief blog entry mentioning it here) - which includes a number of other creatures in addition to trolls.

So, one of my objectives for my visit to family this past week was to utilize as many of them as possible as reference-creatures for this hilarious manuscript.

Here is my cuddly teddy-bear of a father being a terrifically good sport as the punk/goth-biker ogre character. :-)  More to follow anon.....

WIP Wednesday - Trolls

Yes, I know it's Thursday, and yes, I know this is really another IMC post, but let's just go with it, shall we?We had until midnight tonight to turn in a finished version of our IMC assignment - 

The was the sketch I submitted for our initial critique. (They suggested moving the dog up and the text down, but that was about it...)

After several days of heavy-duty drawing, here is the final drawing....

Ruth Sanderson paid us a surprise visit mid-week at IMC (wish I'd gotten a picture! But I spent too much time talking to her :-) - she talked to me about her process and suggested I try printing it out in sepia-tones rather than the color of grey-graphite, like she did her latest book. (so I did. It is a much nicer color I think).

This was how far I got at IMC...

And this is what I submitted tonight....

These ladies need to definitely have more adventures, I'm sure!

WIP Wednesday - rough mock-up

Rough sketch for IMC - which I leave for TOMORROW MORNING.

(The text will read: The Trouble with Taking Trolls to Tea). It's only taken me ALL month to even get this far... (how can one draw when the gardens are growing so enthusiastically?) There will be much drawing in the airport.

If I have time, I will post updates throughout the week. If not - see you in about 10 days...?