Wendy Offield's first blog post

This is the first post I have ever made to a blog I hope it works. I'm at the very beginning of my journey to be an illustrator and I'm starting to put a portfolio together, so any suggestions would be helpful. In this illustration I'm trying to blend an illustrated space with a more pattern area, but I'm not sure if it is working yet.

Green Eyed Sue

Happy New Year everybody. This is an image I've been working on for a while. She's supposed to be about 14 yo and a pirate.

She will have a Jolly Roger waving behind her and a ship's wheel in her forward hand (which isn't drawn yet.)

I am toying with completing the image in Illustrator but may decide to do watercolor, which I use for most of my work.

Comment Posting

...it has changed. It was driving me nuts hitting the "back" button all the time. So now comments pop up in a new window. If this drives you crazy, so much that you resent opening comments, let me know before it gets worse. :P

My first Illustration Board post - Adelia and friends...

Hey there folks. This is a piece I finished about a week ago. I had very high hopes for it:

And I'd have to say that I'm disapointed with it. But I'm not sure why! I wanted it to be a piece that introduced the little pillow looking characters (that's what my wife calls them). On my blog I posted each element individually - which I liked, but all together, they just don't cut it. I tried adding more blue shaddow to the snowy ground, but...? I don't know.

The linework was done in Illustrator and then copied over as a vector smart image and colored in photoshop. Also - Adelia (the blue penguin character) usually doesn't have eyebrows, so when I rework this piece, that'll be the first thing to go...

So I thought I'd start with my worst piece and work my way up...any advice would be greatly appreciated!

My Illustration Friday Piece

"The Owl and the Pussycat are an unlikely pair -- they must meet in secret to avoid the stares!"
(If you click on the image it will show a larger version).
Okay, here's for my first post! I did this graphite illustration for the Clandestine theme, it's about 8x10". I wanted to do a watercolor version of it later so I'd love to see how I could improve it before I dive into that. I do know my boat-drawing skills need help! How about the composition? Anything I need to add? Take away? Re-draw entirely?

Public vs Private

Hey guys, wow, I'm just blown away at how fast this group grew. {sob} It actually worked!!!

Anyhoo (still on my morning coffee so bare with me here), I was wondering if anyone had a preference when it comes to the confidentiality of this group. So please leave a vote:

Public - it's open for anyone to view and read, yet they can't post or leave comments. They can follow the blog tho. My pro with this is it's helpful to those who are also striving but either not ready for a group or don't want to be a part of a crit group. The con is nothing is private, editors, art directors, etc. have access to our words and images visually.

Private - just that, the group would be just for us, no one else would be able to view it unless an author. No followers (I don't believe...not 100% sure on that...I'm guessing not because um, how would they follow it?! o.O).

So cast your vote my friends! We have a new member, Wendy, (oh boy, two Wendys) which makes 8 once she logs in! Whoo Hoo! But I'm not going to vote to make it fair. I don't want to be a deciding vote. :/ Oh, btw, HAPPY NEW YEARS! :)

Illustration Friday - Clandestine

{Watercolor, 2008}

I have a list of several things to revamp my portfolio. Some of those include spot illustrations. One of my other goals is to have a pretty solid watercolor portfolio. I think this piece is probably good enough to include in a watercolor portfolio if I work up some other little watercolor spots. Let me know what you guys think, because this is a seriously talented and eager bunch!