I decided to be brave

I emailed Adam Rex, who gave me a super nice and thorough reply. I asked for general advice on putting a portfolio together, particularly for children's book illustrations, and here is what he said: 

So if you're interested in doing kid's book or similar work, you'll need a portfolio that features nothing but kid stuff.  You do not want to make any editor or art director have to use their imagination.  You don't want to show them your skillfully painted self-portrait and essentially say, "See, here's proof that I paint well, so you should trust that I can you whatever you want well, too."  Kid's art is its own ballgame.  I think you understand that based on the kid's stuff I see on your blog, but it's worth saying anyway.
You definitely want pieces that feature kids, and hopefully some that feature multiple kids interacting.  Show them that you can do backgrounds.  Environments with mundane objects like cars and electric mixers can't hurt either.
And of course, try to show as much storytelling as possible, even if it's all within a single contained image.
You might want to give yourself an assignment in which you complete two or three illustrations from the same story, featuring repeating characters.  Being able to carry a likeness across multiple renderings of the same character is a rarer skill than you might expect, and it'll set an editor's mind at ease to see that you can do it.  So write your own story, or work up some samples from a story you like–maybe even one with which the editors and art directors will already be familiar, so they can see how you're handling it.

And he also said:

Are you interested in seeing some of my and David Christiana's original paintings?  There's an art opening tomorrow evening (the 29th) at the Tucson High art gallery.  By which I mean literally the gallery they have inside the Tucson High Magnet School on the southwest corner of 6th st. and Euclid.  It's from 5-7:30 if you feel like coming by and reintroducing yourself.

Karla and I did go to the show opening today and we basically hoarded Adam the entire time, but he didn't seem to mind. It was awesome hearing about his experiences, receiving advice, and just talking to such a nice person. David Christiana joined the conversation for a while, too, and also shared some experiences and advice. It was such an awesome night!

We saw some beautiful illustrations by Adam and David. Most of the work was new to us, since it was different from the work they displayed at SUVA over the summer. There were also lots of other artists featured. Some of the artists were authors who were best known for their writing, but who were also artists. I mean, did you know Sylvia Plath was into drawing? I didn't.

I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in art and/or illustration to visit the gallery. They told me it'll be up through January and it'll be open to the public during normal school hours, so 8am to 4 pm on week days. The school really needs support from the public to keep their gallery. For some reason they're wanting to close it down! So please visit if you're at all interested. Sign your name on the log sheet by the entrance and leave a comment about what you thought of the show.

Additionally, I would like to say that Adam looked at this blog and said he liked my Dia de los Muertos poster and my Poison Ivy, which made my life.

...

And now some school work!

A caricature of Emma Stone in Easy A for Illustration Concepts.

My finished master copy exercise for Digital Painting.

Our first assignment for Digital Painting. It had to have some mechanic or architectural element.

The second assignment for Digital Painting is a landscape. Don't be alarmed! I'm still working on it. 

(stolen from Anouk)

Have a nice weekend y'all!

Mostly digital paintings this time

Halloween was so fun this year. I dressed up as a man and sported my very own beard, courtesy of Karla's makeup magic. I also carved my first pumpkin ever! I submitted it to a contest at school. 

His name is Maorice and he's a sailor cat. 

......

Today I turned in my Dia de los Muertos poster for Illustration Concepts class. It's 13 x 19 in.

I'm not completely satisfied with how it turned out, so I'll have to fix it later. 

And here is the assignment we did before the poster; A black and white newspaper illustration.

My concept was the e-reader (Nook) trumps old fashioned books.

(For the record, I love old fashioned books and don't truly believe e-readers are better).

Here are some exercises I've done for my Digital Painting class, in chronological order. 

Ex.1 edit brushes to create different styles

Ex.2 Pen tool

Ex. 3 Portrait using a "glazing" technique

Ex.4 Landscape using at least 3 different brushes

Ex.5 Non-organic object

Ex.6 Master copy (still a work in progress!)

And finally, a logo I made for my team in Computer Applications class.

Happy November! Maybe now we'll get some cooler weather or something.