Intention

Intention

Squirrel and Beau are frozen in motion as the intention of the Big Bad Bear is considered by all.  

 I thought this really fit the word for this weeks Illustration Friday entry. :)

As you can tell from my previous post the bear on the cover was taken from this page.  I like to use bits and pieces of the interior images on my cover.  My favorite is to do the cover last so I have every glitch worked out.  Unfortunately this time the cover was needed way before I finished the interior pages.  In fact I am still working on them.  Sigh...   (The sigh is not because I have work.  I love that, it is because I had to do the cover first.)  

Big Bad Bear

Working on another book.  This is the cover...the bear was purple and now he is blue. The name of the book is Beware Beware of the Big Bad Bear.

Finished color cover art.

Sketch with title text

I am struggling a bit with this book.  I am not a blue person, so the color composition on this book is a challenge to me.  I had initially created the bear purple, but the last few book covers have had a very strong purple, green and yellow color composition.  So went out on a limb and made bear blue....not sure yet.  

Europe

Hello Everyone, 

It has been August since I posted so I thought I better give everyone an idea as to why.  

I have been traveling alot... and in October had the opportunity to go to Europe with my husband and daughter.  What a wonderful trip.  We really enjoyed ourselves despite the trials of public transportation. ha ha.  

We landed in Paris and spent a couple of days there, then by night train (something to really think about) we went to Rome.  I liked Rome, it was a bustling city, warmer and brighter.  We saw so many things, but one of my favorite was St. Peter's Basilica. 

 After a couple of days in Rome we took a train(by day this time...much better) to Florence.  Ahhh!  I fell in love with Florence.  It was smaller and just so much fun.  After a few days of shopping, eating Italian food, and watching people we headed back to Paris on one of those dreaded night trains. 

 We spent the last day in Paris...which happened to be my birthday...then came home. 

 So the unforgettable things about Europe is the art and architecture.  So amazing!

  In Italy I found great shoes( I already have a thing for shoes). 

 I enjoyed the food, but I live in the deep south and I don't think anywhere in the world can create  food like ours.  Southern and Cajun people just know how to do things with spices that others do not. Overall it was a great experience.  I loved watching other people go about their lives, seeing the similarities and differences.  

Yes, This is the Mona Lisa...I am not a huge fan of the painting, but if you go to the Louvre, you have to see the most famous painting in the world.

A beautiful sculpture in the Louvre.

(My favorite museum was the D'Orsay, but no picture taking.  So I have none to show.  I do have to say that Van Gogh uses the most beautiful blue I have ever seen, and blue is not one of my favorite colors.)

 St Peters Basilica...so amazing

 A hall in the Vatican Museum that leads to the Sistine Chapel

 The Sistine Chapel...very cool.

  

Street artist in Florence.  They had several groups, really lovely.

So that is a tiny tiny portion of the pictures I took.  I think I took over 1000. LOL 

I will be getting back into my routine and posting the things I am doing, teaching, and working on.

Dinosaur Mardi Gras

 

I am so excited!  This is the cover for Dinosaur Mardi Gras 

coming out Janurary 2012.  I LOVE how it turned out.  There 

is always that moment of nerves when you see how the publisher 

handled the font, the colors, etc.  This one is right on!!

Below if the complete cover jacket.  

You never get to see it all at once, 

but I think it looks great! 

This is such a fun book about the dinosaur Mardi Gras!  

It is a rhyming, chomping, stomping, good time

as the dinosaurs take over the parade.  Yea!

 

From the Sketchbook

 

New character in my sketchbook.  So I changed the focus of the blog to what is really going on "In the Studio".  Right now I am working on several projects at the same time.  This is a character for a story.  I decided to use a vaguely 1940's time frame.  I say this because he turned out really nice.  But....he was a little too perfect.  So I changed his shoes to be high top tennis shoes which would have really only been worn by a youngster in the 40's.  Now I like him even better.  Sigh...love it when a character cooperates.  Now Grandma is giving me trouble.  She is really bossy and she and I can't get her dressed just the way she wants.  Maybe when we get together I will let her make an appearance in my blog.

Art Camp

This painting is by a five year old. 

I love the expressive paintings of children.

 

This painting is by a six year old.

 These painting were completed by the students at the Walker Museum art camp.  

They are really awesome!  This is the alligator from my book 

A is for Alligator Draw and Tell Stories from A to Z.

The students draw with me and then I demonstrate how I would paint the painting.  After that I let the students go at it.  My goal as a teacher in a summer camp is for the student to explore how it feels to paint, the colors they like, and even when how it feels when things get out of control.  I am there just to be damage control.  When a student doesn't like how something is going, I step in and offer solutions for them to try.  This is a fun, no stress painting class. 

A is for Alligator

Click to Purchase

     This is my newest book.  I co-authored this book with Dianne de Las Casas.  This is a book for teachers, parents, and even children.  It is a "how to draw book".  So, what makes it cool?  In each exercise I start with  a letter of the alphabet and create a animal out of each letter. The part I worked the hardest on  is making sure the letters disapear when the drawing is complete.  It is fun to have other students, parents, or friends try to guess what the letter was( the animal name matches, so that not to hard) and where it is in the drawing.  

     There is a story to go with each drawing. (Teachers this is really fun for your students.) As you tell the story you draw the next step.  Dianne is responsible for this part and it is quite impressive.  Why?  Usually an illustrator gets the manuscript(or the words) for a story and draws the picture.  In this book Dianne and I picked out the animals, then I created all the steps, and then she wrote the stories from the steps. It was the opposite, she had to write her stories to go along with the steps. They are very fun stories.  In my mind that is really cool!

      I created a book mark to showcases one of the stories.  It is above.  Because of space issues on the book mark I had to shorten the story just a bit.  But hopefully you will get a good idea of how cool and fun this book is. 

Shadows

     Hello all.  I have been in the shadows of too much going on. But no excuses,  it has been a very long time since I last posted.  I  created this blog for Illustration Friday and to create sort of a portfolio for  illustrations.  Since then I have created a website for the illustration part of my life. www.maritagentry.com   That being said, I am going to change the focus of the blog.  It will more of a reflection of the title, IN THE STUDIO.  

     I am a fine artist, teacher, and an illustrator.  I group all those job titles under one heading of Artist.  So the blog will be a weekly(hopefully), if not more frequent reflection on what I am doing In the Studio; painting, illustrating, creating lessons plans, student's work, ideas running rampant in my mind, bad ideas, sitting and staring into space, you get the picture.  I enjoy all the aspects of my artist life and hope to share them with you.  I am still posting this picture today to match the Illustration Friday word for this week.

Shadows

Dewey the dragon lurked in the shadow of the shelves waiting for Max to visit the library.

     
The illustration is the title page to There's a Dragon in the Library written by Dianne de Las Casas.  It is my most recent book.  It was released earlier this spring. 
     I love this page.  This page grew from a childhood memory of the library in Springfield MO.  I was an avid reader and by the time I was eight or nine years old the books in the children section no longer held my interest.  So, I began to sneak away after my mom would deposit me in the children section and see what other books were in other parts of the library. If ever I had seen a dragon looking back at me all my fears would have come true. I might have melted on the spot without him even blasting me with his temper.
    In There's a Dragon in the Library, Max (the little boy in the book) discovers the dragon, but also discover the dragon has a penchant for eating books.  It is a fun tale that brings back many memories of trips to the library.  What was lurking beyond the next set of shelves?  Was it a dragon eating all my favorite stories, the librarian that knew I was in the wrong section, or just a really great story that would hold my interest for the afternoon? 

Chicken

Dandy Dude...I guess he really is a rooster.LOL

Drippin-with-Diamonds

Chicken

Don't be a chicken, wear bright clothes and 

try to fly even though everyone says a chicken can't fly.

The bottom two painting are from a chicken series 

I did several years ago.  They are long gone and 

all sold, but I keep all my images forever on my handy

dandy computer.  So the author of

Madame Poulet and Monsieur Roach saw them

and wanted Madame Poulet done in a similar style.

The top picture is Madame Poulet leaning out her

window first thing in the morning before the city awakes.  

I like how sassy she looks.  She belies the label...Chicken!!!

Winter

 Winter

The word winter brings a lot of memories and thoughts to mind.  

I grew up in the Missouri, so I enjoyed plenty of winter.

Snow men, snow fights, snow forts.  All great memories,

but I was a child.  I did not have to wash all the mittens, 

coats, wet socks that comes with winter and snow. Now I live in 

southern Louisiana, where there is colder weather, 
but not a true winter. 

I LOVE IT!

A couple of years ago a strange thing happened down here

we got 6 inches of snow in Baton Rouge, now that is strange.  

Thankfully it melted by the next day. (Phew)  

I had enough after about two hours.

BUT...the children around my neighborhood had the time of thier lives.

They had never experienced snow.  This illustration was inspired

by a friends photo of her little boy enjoying his first 

experience with snow.  There is a wonder to winter, 
especially if a person has never played in the snow...

I am just glad it doesn't come too often down here.

By the way Merry Christmas!