More Mail!

Wow, I can't believe it. I just found another box in front of my door. It's like Christmas. It contained fresh of the press copies of two books I finished illustrating just a few months ago: "Rain Forest Food Chains" and "Desert Food Chains". I have never had the luck of working on a book and seeing it published so quickly after I deliver finals - I like it!

What makes these two books very special to me is, one: that they are printed really nicely. They are hard cover and the outside feels velvety smooth to the touch. It's a joy just touching them.

And two: I feel over the past year I have made a huge jump in my capabilities as an illustrator. As you work and grow as an artist, one will find that for a long time, you'll just truck along and learn and try and what you do is OK, but you see so many flaws and often you just can't figure out how to fix them.
I have done many illustrations in the past, that were accepted and also liked by the people that had commissioned them and I still knew I could and should have done better.
Over the past year though, something shifted and things started clicking. All of a sudden I saw my finished illustration in my head before I even started with color, I felt more confident about color choices, as well as relying less on reference photos, my edges have become softer and I have a better understanding of where to show less and how to direct the focus.
It is funny that you get all of this taught in art school and for some of us it still takes years to sink in.

I am hoping to still go far beyond my wildest dreams in my journey as an illustrator. These two books are somehow the culmination of my efforts in the children's book market for me, for now - hurray!

At this point, I have to say a big "Thank YOU" to Will Terry, a fellow illustrator, who's is also an amazing teacher, writer and so many other things. Through one of his online classes at Folio Academy, I got turned on to using a textured brush in Photoshop. I love using my textured brush. It really helps me in giving my illustrations a more hand painted look - which I really like.

Thanks, Will!

I Got Mail!

When I recently came home from our summer vacation, I was able to find two large envelopes sticking out of the mailbox.
One of the envelopes contained samples from the Galapagos Fur Seal book, published by Soundprints and the Smithsonian.
I  worked on that one almost a year ago. Wow, time flies!
It is part of the Smithsonian's Oceanic Collection and thus delivers facts about the Galapagos Fur Seal's as well as the story of a two-year old Fur Seal, resting on the seashore, swimming in shady cave pools or hunting for food at night.
I have always liked delivering scientific facts in a way, that makes it fun for kids to read and learn.

The other one contained two booklets for a new musical (Dear Santa - A Musical "Tweet" for Christmas) . For this I only did the cover. This one had a really fast turn around - I think I did the art in February.
It was an interesting assignment, as the theme of the musical is our more and more technologized society and how we might forget about the true meaning of Christmas, while we text, e-mail, tweet etc.
The rough sketch I received didn't have much of a Christmas feel incorporated at all. I enjoyed embellishing the original sketch, giving it more warmth and a wintery feel, while at the same time having Santa sit in his office in front of his laptop and cell phone.

Eclipse Gum landscape - what a beautiful sight!

I was recently asked by Ryan Chicago to do 2 illustrations for a display to feature Eclipse gum car cups.

One was for the top portion of the display, showing the view through a car windshield  onto an imaginary landscape, where the middle line of the road was made out of pellets of gum - yum!

The other one was for the side of the display, showing another landscape with a big illustration of the car cup hovering over the road.

The side illustration was made into a lenticular (a print that appears to move when viewed from different angles) Pretty cool! 

I never saw the finished, printed display, but was told, it can be seen all over the US at different Walmart locations (it didn't make it to our local Walmart on Maui, unfortunately. I walked through every isle, but could not find it :-(   )

Working on this project for Ecplise gum was a lot of fun! 

I enjoy coming up with landscapes, with cute little houses, rolling hills, beautiful skies and puffy clouds. When I work on a project as this one, I get a feeling of wanting to be there myself, driving down that road, getting out of the car and jumping through soft pillows of grass and probably picking up some of the gum pellets to chew on while I am there.

What a beautiful sight!

I wonder if a lot of illustrators know this feeling: when working on an illustration, you somehow create a second reality for yourself. You are so focused on the project, that you feel you are there yourself. This is quite a wonderful aspect of being an illustrator.  I guess this is also part of the reason why I am not into creating illustrations for horror stories.

I got some beautiful feedback from the client:

" By the way, I would like to let you know that the illustrations were

beautiful, with everyone at the client and here at the shop oohing and ahhing over them. Anne did a great job! It's getting a lot of praise from both the Wrigley client and the Walmart folks, so well done! "  

It always feel so good to hear nice feedback!

To see larger images of the two illustrations, you can go to my portfolio at www.annewertheim.com, "Portfolio 2" and "Food and Product" gallery.

I only worked on the cup holder on this one, not the cup in it.

Ravensburger Puzzles

They are finally here!

Last year I worked on a series of different puzzles and toy boxes for Ravensburger Germany.
My samples finally arrived in the mail a few days ago. They had to travel quite a ways, across two oceans and one continent to get here.
It is certainly always delightful, to open a box and see your work printed and put to good use.

I am still waiting to receive the puzzle ball though.
I was able to find a product shot online. I love how my illustration wraps around the globe. It is looking great! It is still a mystery to me, how you can print something on a curved piece of plastic. Ravensburger did a great job!

 Here we have three puzzle kids/kittens hard at work:

Illustration Friday: Swamp

I haven't done anything in a while for Illustration Friday. 

Life has been busy with some great illustration projects, which I will be able to post here soon.

I  had fun with this weeks topic "Swamp" - creating it took longer though than anticipated. 

I have to admit, I struggled with creating the two faces. For a long time I could not figure out, if the faces should be darker, as the background is so light? or should they have a blue tint to push them more into the background and have the monster's eyes and head be the main focus? 

I had to go over the faces again and again. And I am still not sure, if they shouldn't be a bit darker?

Anyhow I just needed to move on and let it sit for now. I might go back to tweaking parts of the illustration  at a later date.

This is my "Swamp" for the week!

Illustration Friday: Prepare

I haven't been able to participate in IF for a while. I've been incredibly busy with several projects, which on it's own is great ( I  don't want to complain), but I miss having my Fridays devoted to IF.

Anyhow, I recently did this little illustration for Texas Co-Op Power Magazine.
It went along with a story titled "Dream Gardening", in which a woman dreams in the middle of winter about her garden and what to plant in summer. So, even though she isn't able to go and get her hands dirty in fresh soil at the moment, she is at least mentally preparing herself for all the wonderful things she will be able to plant in just a few months.