The winner is....

I want to thank everyone who participated in the Will Terry 'How To Illustrate Children's Books' Giveaway!
And of course, big thanks to Will Terry for offering such a wonderful prize!

All the names went into the box......

and then there was a whole lot of shaking.
(Good thing I was wearing my wrist brace. ;P)

Our winner!!!
Congratulations Debbie Meyer!

Illustration Friday: Chicken vs Penguin

 This spring chicken says this winter penguin has overstayed his welcome. 

I already submitted some chicken sketches to Illustration Friday this week, but my contempt for this cold winter weather helped inspire another idea. Also, the extra inspiration came since thanks to Jannie Ho it's chicken week! Who wouldn't be inspired by chickens!

I'm thinking I might want to do more Chicken vs. Penguin illustrations. These arch enemies might make good adversaries.

There's also still time to put your name in for the Will Terry 'How To Illustrate Children's Books' Giveaway! Leave your comment on the Giveaway post to enter for your chance to win his 7 helpful video tutorials!

Will Terry 'How To Illustrate Children's Books' Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY!

When Will Terry contacted me about holding a giveaway of his video series on my blog I jumped with excitement! I had already viewed his sample video on Character Development, and found so many useful tips. I found myself wishing I had an instructor explain these concepts as clearly as Will does back in my college days.

Will Terry's "How to Illustrate Children's Books" video series includes 7 videos:

Lecture #1: Book Design
Lecture #2: Storytelling with Pictures
Lecture #3: Character Design
Lecture #4: Illustration Design
Lecture #5: Rendering
Lecture #6: Working with Color
Lecture #7: Success in the Marketplace

For a chance to win the entire series leave a comment on THIS post between now and midnight of Jan. 24th, 2011 and a winner will be chosen randomly on Jan. 25th. Please make sure I can link back to your site to find your email contact info.

Good luck and please help spread the word!

Illustration Friday: Chicken

I had to be sure to participate in this week's Illustration Friday since the super-chick-tastic Jannie Ho, aka, 'Chickengirl' suggested this week's topic, 'chicken'!!! It didn't take long to discover that chicks and chickens are really fun to draw. I noticed my chickens tend to stay egg-shaped, and I couldn't resist outfitting some in turtlenecks and pants. That fella on the top right is an especially big Chickengirl fan.

As I've had picture book writing on the brain and have been busy reading tons of children's books and books about how to write books for kids, some of these guys jumped right into my stacks of books and helped themselves to their favorite stories. I've decided to take on the Kidlitart Picture Book Dummy Challenge. So far, I have 1 very very rough draft finished, and the beginnings of a second story. Since I'm not interested in writing just any picture book, but an amazing spectacular one, it is an extreme challenge to study all the aspects of a great book. All the writing stuff is a bit overwhelming, so it was quite refreshing to pick up my sketchbook again to draw these chicks.

In other news, I'm hosting an exciting giveaway! See details on how to enter in the next post.

Blueberry Muffins for They Draw & Cook

My blueberry muffin recipe has been posted on They Draw & Cook! Or, I should say, my mom's recipe which was clipped from the newspaper years ago. My mom often makes these after we go blueberry picking.They're not your ordinary blueberry muffins. The batter is super dry and crumbly so when they bake the bottom turns cake-like while the top turns into a type of streusel. I attempted to make these over the summer, but messed them up by trying to use Splenda. You really need to go with the real sugar in order for them to turn out as perfect as my mom's muffins. I mounted this illustration on a wood painted plaque as a christmas present for my mom, as she is a cat lover and these blueberry kitties are a tribute to her.

I sort of lucked out in the parents department. (In actually more ways than fit in this blog post.) My mom taught me the skills of following a recipe, and I have my dad's love for experimenting in coming up with my own recipes, like my They Draw & Cook holiday entry, Cinnamon Mango Frappé.

Many thanks again to Nate & Salli for creating and continuing to maintain a great site for us creatives to be inspired. Go check out all the wonderful illustrated recipes posted daily!