posted by: Lesley
I love Friday’s, philosophy and quotes that inspire. So here’s my first Philosophy Friday. Enjoy!
-To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do. ~Bertrand Russell
©Gartner Greetings
(Art from a Mother’s Day card I illustrated for Gartner Greetings)
posted by: Lesley
©Lesley Breen Withrow
I got re-inspired to create more patterns the other day while visiting a local sewing store with my mom. I loved seeing all the fabrics and patterns and COLORS! So fun and beautiful. Here’s a fun pattern I recently made of some circles with different textures and patterns.
Posted by: Lesley
©Gartner Greetings
I illustrated and planned the subject matter for this religious greeting card collection called ‘Sharing the Faith’ from Gartner Greetings (an imprint of Gartner Studios ). It’s a beautiful collection that has a soft natural look, lots of textures and patterns and art that ties in nicely with its up-lifting verses. It’s a 40 card collection that I shared with another fabulous illustrator and was a joy to work on.
posted by: Lesley
©Lesley Breen Withrow
Today I woke up to a ton of snow on the ground. What a surprise it was! Unfortunately, it turned over to rain and now it is a slushy mess. But, the snow has helped to put me in the holiday mood. Well, the snow and the Christmas tree we just put up! There are no gifts under it right now and I’m not sure if we’ll ever has as many gifts as those under the tree I illustrated. Ha! But that’s okay.
Posted by: Lesley
In this post I thought I would show you a bit how I work from sketch to finished art.
1. Here’s my sketch
2. Next I lay down the foundation colors and start to fill in different elements of the art.
3. Once the initial art colors and characters are painted, I like to bring the art into Photoshop where I add lots of the details, textures and patterns. I have a large library of textures and patterns that I have created on paper using paints and scratchboard and pen and ink, etc. I have also been known to scan fabrics, newspapers, buttons, really what ever I think I can use in my art. It’s a lot of fun creating those different textures and patterns and once I scan it into the computer I can use it multiple times because it’s now a computer file.
4. And here is the final art with all the details, textures and patterns added in in place. But wait, there’s one more addition to this piece!
5. I decided to add a border all around it. This was a border I created by hand and scanned/manipulated in the computer. Hope you had fun seeing a bit of my working process!
Posted by Lesley
Steve and I recently received our first advance copy of Illustrating Children’s Picture Books from Roto Vision in the UK. It was great to finally see it in print and to hold it in our hands. It’s a nice square shape and size and is well designed. It will be available in December but you can place pre-orders on Amazon.com already. Here a few sneek peaks!
Posted by Mary Beth Cryan
The RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) student and alumni craft show last weekend was the BEST I have ever attended. It spanned 3 blocks and was packed with amazing art. Here are the beautiful objects that I acquired at the show. Fellow Licensing Nook artists Laura Fry and Liz Dubois were also in attendance.
Posted by Liz
Yes! I finally managed to get up to Brimfield for the fall show. If you’re not from these parts, it’s a simply gigantic antique show that sets up 3 times a year. Sprawling. Hundreds and hundreds of dealers. If you’re into vintage, retro, etc. you WILL find something interesting here. I did not come home empty-handed!
I saw this cute guy on patrol in his owner’s booth at the beginning of the day. Sure enough, he was still there when we headed to our car at the end of the day!
First thing I found was this wooden/paper litho target game. LOVE it. Vintage games from this era are a big favorite of mine.
Posted by Lesley
©Lesley Breen Withrow
What a beautiful day it is again here in New England! Here’s some art I created for a greeting card that reminds me of the wonderful weather we are having. I hope it stays like this for a little while longer.
Posted By: Lesley
Today is my daughter’s 4th birthday! We had a wonderful birthday party for her yesterday and she got all the Smurfs and My Little Ponies that she had been dreaming of! (Including Papa Smurf and Smurfette). It’s funny, because those are the same gifts I dreamed of getting back in the day. Gotta love retro!
©Lesley Breen Withrow