SCBWI

Before the Storm

| stepheningram

This is one of three pieces I submitted for the SCBWI Narrative Art Award. I purposely left out the background to focus on the two characters, the bird and the girl. I am experimenting with a crosshatching technique for color which allows me to bring out textures that I don’t know if I could do with flat colors. I can also bring a variety of colors into the patterns to run the gamut of the color palette.

#storm #trees #birds #kidlitart #childrensbookillustration #childrensillustration #illustration #illustrator #illustragram #illustratorsoninstagram #kidsillustrations #childrenillustration #childrenbookillustration #picturebooks #picturebookart #childrensbooks #picturebooksillustration #childrenbookart #art #digital #digitalart #wacom #corelpainter #stepheningram #SCBWI

Whale on the beach

| stepheningram

As part of the SCBWI Hawaii Illustrators Intensive webinar with critiques by Illustrator Will Terry @willterryart  and Art Director Maria T. Middleton @mariatmiddleton.

I stretched and pulled this piece from a single page to an almost spread to a spread, changing, flipping and redrawing along the way. I used Corel Painter for the majority of the work with a little Photoshop as well.

Like all work, I can probably tweak this till the end of time. I think it is a complete piece though, telling a story and leaving a little bit of mystery, along with humor as well.

Enjoy the journey below

#kidlit #kidlitart #kidlitillustration #illustration #picturebooks #corelpainter #stepheningram #whale #ocean #beach #scbwi #scbwihawaii

Finished piece
Second attempt
First attempt

SCBWI Draw This “Secret Admirer”

| stepheningram

For the SCBWI Draw This “Secret Admirer” word prompt, I wanted to do a jungle scene. I thought that it would be fun to do all the leaves and plants of the jungle. Originally, the main character had only one banana with an ape looking longingly from a distance or hiding in the foliage. I tried several different angles, but if I wanted to tell a good story, I had to bring the action in closer. I increased the number of bananas, and had the ape trying to take one. I went for the 2 dimensional flat look but decided to keep a large area of white so the picture looked wide. Hope you like it.

#scbwi #scbwidrawthis #childrensillustration  #kidlitart #kidlitartist #illustration #illustrator #kidsillustration #art #digital #digitalart #wacom #corelpainter #procreate