Art 1400 at UVU

I started taking art classes at UVU in September.  Classes might be a bit misleading.  I am taking one class at a time until my youngest is in school on a more full time basis.  At the rate I've mapped out, two years of coursework will only end up taking me 7 years.

I am loving the class this semester.  I'm learning how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.  You can see most of my work at:

http://pamelahanks.weebly.com

Scbwi 2013 Top 10

The power of the scbwi conference is the difference between gossip and getting the facts from the source.

I have just gotten the most up to date information I can have on my craft and the market.  And here are MY main take homes that I gleaned from observation, listening, and interpreting what that means for me.

Here's my Top 10 from SCBWI 2013

10. Keep your Illustration Logo simple.  Use the letters from your name but make the font your own.

9. Quirky characters need quirky illustrations.

8. Instead of a daily schedule, try a weekly goal.

7.“Strong Book with a Strong Hook”. Editors are looking for Strong and Fresh stories.  You can't afford to be sloppy.

6. “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

5. Be you. Find you. Develop you.

4. You can’t draw from life enough. We draw from observation and research, not from memory.

3. Work on your craft First and everything else will follow.

2. Draw your characters over and over again until you are drawing them in your sleep. 

And finally, the most important take home I have from this conference is: 

 

1. “It’s all about how hard you work when nobody is watching you.”

Nuggets of Wisdom I've Learned From Richard Peck

I first fell for Richard Peck when I went to a writing conference at Utah Valley University several years ago.  He gave the keynote.  Today I got to meet him and I'm reminescing over tips I've heard him say about life and about writing historical fiction.

1.  Learn a second language other than Spanish.

2. Go to the source for the best research.  Using the internet isn't enough.

3.  Research begins in the library.

4. He said that when he is researching a time period, he will make a list of all the phrases or products that a person from that time period would be familiar with.  Then as he writes the novel, he crosses it off the list when he uses it.

5.  He writes with a typewriter instead of a computer.  When he goes to edit, he tries to take as many words out as possible on each page.  Success in editing is retyping the page and having empty white space at the bottom.

6.  He will type up the book and when he gets to the end, he now knows what the book is about.  So he throws out the  first chapter and writes it all over again.

7. Nobody but a reader ever became a writer.

8.  All art is performance art because it descends from storytelling.

9.  We write from observation and research--not from memory.

10.  Edit, Edit, Edit.  How much better a book Harry Potter would have been if it had been shorter.

11. Take acting lessons. (ok, he was just agreeing with another author..he attributed it to someone else.)  But I think I might need to try that idea out. 

I was struck by how he is aging.  I don't know for how much longer he will be with us here on earth.  He is one of the greats: Fred Rogers, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak and Richard Peck.

Illustrating During General Conference

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and every 6 months, they have a two day conference.  We watch it on the internet or listen to it on the radio.  In April this year I sketch while I listened.  My sketch book has quotes in it along with a few sketches.  Here's the tape measure that was sitting on the floor under the computer desk that day.

Here's is my daughter's foot.  It was so inspirational, that I drew a conference quote on the side.

I had just gotten some Peerless watercolor papers.  So I colored some of the faces I had drawn from the choir and then I painted a scene. 

The next day, we went to my husband's parents house and I sketched their bookshelf during the afternoon session.  Note the quote in the corner.  The General Authority who said it was quoting his wife.

An Illustrated Life: well for the first few months of 2013

                              I decided I needed a pick me up. So I went through my sketch book
                            scanned in everything that I thought had promise.  I haven't posted for
                            a year so I had lots to choose from.  This one is of a father and child I
                          drew at the doctor's office (probably Jan or Feb 2013).

                         While at my daughter's maturation program, I drew the boy sitting in front of us.
                         Kids don't move much when your talking about important stuff like maturation.
                          hmmm...It looks like I might have drawn a third leg.  Maybe he moved more than
                           I noticed.

                       Every few months, I finally am successful at bribing my 14 yo son to get a hair cut.
                      

                          After reading An Illustrated Life , I went on a sketching spree and sketched
                           lots of objects around my house.  This is one of my favorites.

                                 I was so inspired by the book, I began sketching everything
                                 everywhere I went.            

Young Girl at Children's Museum

For our family Stay-cation, we took frontrunner (local wanna be bullet train) to Ogden and went to the children's museum.  I tried to sketch as much as possible.  Here's my best from that trip.

Soccer Camp Sketches

Here a few sketches from my sketch book.  My 8yo went to soccer camp and it gave me lots of time to sketch kids in action and moms relaxing. (Heads up, little soccer boy, a soccer mom)