Friday, October 9, 2009

October, the month it could happen!



Despite my lack of posting on this and my personal blog, this has been a very exciting month! I was contacted by a start-up publisher to begin talks for actual paid book illustration. The publishing author has been a great person to deal with. I've been paid for spec work and will receive advance plus royalties in the contract! Yeah, I said contract and advance! Everything is very legit! No contract has been signed yet, but I'm confidant that those negotiations will be taking place soon!

He found my art via the scbwi illustration portfolio section, so if you haven't uploaded yet I would soon. Apparently people are checking it out.

Sorry for being a bit absent.

Here's my most recent illustration. It was completed on Friday (too late to post) for the IF word, "welcome." My interpretation was for "welcome to dreamland."

I've decided to bail on the canvas paper (which I used on this one) ... too many holes and I don't like the idea of building up the paper before painting...I'll stick to illustration board or watercolor paper.

6 comments:

pete said...

Forgot to mention this would be my very first book...hence all the excitement!

Christy/Tiddly Inks Digitals said...

Hi Pete, Now that would be so exciting. I hope you get all details worked out and it is a success...Of course, you will do a great job with it. :)

I think this concept...sailing through your dreams. Very cute. It is a little different than you normally do though...is that due to the paper?

pete said...

Yeah, and I'm not very happy with the photograph. I know I'm guilty of not "building up" the canvas paper so that its smoother, but I wanted to see what happened if I left the texture pretty raw. I won't be doing it again. If you look close you can see tiny white dots where the paint never contacted the paper. I also blasted through this one at breakneck speed - that might be showing.

Unknown said...

I like your illustration! Great little dreaming sequence!

And congrats on the contract! You have a great style - it's nice that someone noticed! hopefully this is just the start of many great things to come!

Carmen Medlin said...

Congratulations on the contract so far, I hope it all works out! Very exciting indeed.
I love this illustration and how the invisible landscape sort of takes over the room transparently. That's what imagination ought to do!
You know, the paper texture doesn't bother me that much. I like to work with smooth paper too so I understand how you wouldn't like it, but really it doesn't look bad here. You could probably go into Photoshop (or whatever program you use) and go in to fill the white dots where they are more distracting.
I think he might be dreaming of pirates. ;)

Unknown said...

Congrats on the book deal. Just don't stress out too much and have fun with the project and it will come out great. Nice painting too.