Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art

It's off to Tarpon Springs I go. I learned from a few members of the Miniature Art Society of Florida that the Collectors' Preview of the annual exhibit is a "feeding frenzy" of art buyers! Can't wait to see for myself... with camcorder in hand. They exhibit over 900 paintings in this one venue and sell roughly 40% of the work, mostly during the preview. Pretty amazing. If this pans out, I intend to make an extra effort to paint more miniatures. Apparently there is a viable market out there for these lovely little gems.

Wish me luck fighting my way through the snowy mountains of West Virginia on our drive south. I will post photos of the exhibit when I return. Happy New Year!

Sketching with Painter 11

I love this program! Painter 11 is so powerful. I have only scratched the surface of what it can do, but I'm having so much fun doing it. I'm playing with pencil sketching. I love to work in graphite anyway, so doing it digital is great. i like being able to move elements around if the composition isn't working out.

Things are Brewing!

November was a terribly busy month. Aside from the usual holiday hubbub, our family had dealings with the swine flu. But on a better note, I won an illustration contest and won an award in a national art exhibit! Also, my husband and I started a new hobby... wine making!

The contest was to develop three Gypsy Cob horses into an Anime format using colors requested by the sponsor. And it looks like I will be working on future projects with these horses and the products their images adorn.

The exhibit is with the Miniature Art Society of Florida. "Hutch Bunny" won Best Work By a First Time Entrant. The opening is January 16 in Tarpon Springs, Florida at the Leeper-Rattner Museum of Art.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving... there is so much to be thankful for!

WPa SCBWI conference results

I have to say that the conference was wonderful. Bruce Colville, a terrific author, gave a wonderful presentation. I got to spend a lot of time with Kelley Cunningham, art director of High Five magazine. She was very frank and quite helpful in her critique of my portfolio, yet very easy to talk to. She seemed surprised that I had done my illustrations entirely in Painter 11. That 's a good thing! And she thought a lot of my work was very strong. She and editor are now reviewing a submission I sent them recently. Cross you fingers.

I also got to spend some time talking with Steve Meltzer, editor of Dutton and Dial Books for Young Readers. What a great guy. But he liked my surrealistic oil paintings (pictured above) much better than my picture book illustrations. He suggested working up some redo's of novel book covers done in the same manner. I'm thinking about it.