I painted the last two pictures for Uncle Carl Has a Chicken on His Head today! I will go through each one and try to check for little fixes but, this is a personal project and the goal was to finish painting by the end of June..finally did it. I did it in my new fifth wheel home in my front yard at the kitchen table (which conveniently has just enough storage underneath for my art supplies ) Husband retires June 29th and july 1st we hit the road for our new adventure! Still have lots to do but wanted to get these to this point. No need to critique (yet...maybe later). I just wanted to be accountable. Have a great day (or night)

I have been practicing drawing on a tablet and figuring out Krita a little. I only had three layers. I added the words on top of the dog so they could be read. I do know that that layer would normally be underneath the dog layer but then you couldn't read the words. I guess I will learn that fancy stuff later. Anyway, here's a beginners experimental digital dog. Lots to learn still! No critique necessary. Just wanted to share. Thanks.

Decided to try a salty old lady mermaid. I've never seen one before. I wanted it to look old and crusty. She's worn a place in the rock over the years

This is just for fun This is my husband's worse fear, I think
I just want you to know that I realize this isn't the best quality drawing but I thought I'd just play around with it for fun. Working on other things right now....

I have been sick and sometimes when I am sick I get feeling very low. This morning I woke up ready to quit everything. I decided to start watchng the Third thursday videos. I haven't been keeping up on them. I watched How to Do Art School. It was so great and really lifted my spirits and made me feel more hopeful in so many areas. I had pretty much decided to trash my book project because it will never be good enough but, whether it is good enough or not, I'm going to push through just to be done. It will be good enough for some friends and family to appreciate. I don't have to publish it. There are so many other thngs like getting out of the house, focusing on learning what I am weak in, etc.

Thanks to @Will-Terry ,@Lee-White , @Jake Parker, etc. for all you do to help us along in our goals to become better artists. Thanks for Third Thursdays , video classes, art challenges and personal contact on the forums. I'm not really trying to build a career but I do want to progress..maybe someday I will be confident enough to actually want to be paid for my work If and when that happens I will know where to look for the how to videos.

Just wanted to say thank you and..if ther are any other discouraged artists out there, maybe the Third Thursday videos will give you a boost

@Lee-White

Every time I post things on facebook-usually quickly done doodles, etc. I hear Lee White's voice telling me to spend more time on it. I'm hearing him more and more so, maybe he's getting through! My family and friends like them but I know that , if under more scrutinous eyes, there would be LOTS of suggestions for improvement. I'll come around slowly. Quality instead of volume.

I forgot to sign my name but I will just post it anyway.

Had a great day at the event. I had a dummy critique and got reat feedback. Mainly, I need to cut out a lot fo the text as it was dragging on too much and I need to remove a lot of unecessary parts of the images. I am looking forward to looking at it with new eyes.

Dan Santat was there and had some great points to make. One was that design is equal or even more important than drawing skills when creating a book. I do want to improve my drawing skills but I really want to improve my design skills. He said also that he doesn' follow trends. He doesn't have a style. He does what will serve the book to make it the best it can be. He gave examples of how his books have been designed. Why he did certain things to increase tension, etc. He actually illustrates and then adds teh story which isn't common.

Serve the Story

1 Show, don't tell.
2 Art tells the story
3 Text delivers extra emotion
4 Color used to iterpret mood/feeling
5 Pacing in final scenes to build tension.

Book Design

1. Artistic Style
2. Narrative
3. Pacing-the page turn

Clarity of communication-Strip all unecessary parts.

Symbology-words attached to an icon. You can draw simple symbolic pictures (ex. lollypop trees) and still get a message across. They are recognizable.

My Dummy Critique
(I know these are all things that are well known but sometimes you just have to hear them more than once )

Brian Bowes was my critique guy for Uncle Carl Has a Chicken on His Head

Take out anything that isn't necessary to the story. (Do 50 1 minute thumbnails for each composition).

Find books that I really , really like from the library and copy them.

Cut the story to it's simplest form.

Study Design.

Value Studies.

I can crop out a lot of information.

He gave me his post card and told me to e-mail him if I had any questions. I'm going to take him up on it.

He saw the book I made and my dummy and said that the fact that I have done books and don't give up shows that I can handle that part so, that made me feel good.

The girl to my right, Jung Chen, (Lulu) came for the first time. She won the portfolio show so that was cool! She did some beautiful gouache paintings, very colorful. She had a small sketchbook full of them. I was very happy for her.

As for the First Look Prompt, I did much better than last year. I had more than I needed in those too. I definitely need to learn to simplify but, I felt really good about what I learned. I will never be as good as I want to be or the best illustrator, and that's okay. I do know, however, that I will improve. I'm glad I went!

Not very well hidden but, they are hiding!

October begins my 4th Monster Project! I'm asking any of you that might have kids that would like to describe a monster for me to participate. I will draw one monster a day using the kids descriptions. I am collecting descriptions on my Marsha Ottum Owen facebook page or you can put them here on this thread. If your kids have participated before they are welcome to do so again. Thanks!!!!!!

Here are some samples from last year (sorry, no descriptions included).

@Miriam I am praying for California. My son is in Campbell and sister in Carmel and ofcourse all my friends in the Bay Area. All posting the pictures of orange skies. I really hope it rains.

I have some self published books on Amazon.com under my name, Marsha Ottum Owen. I'm not sure how professional they are but Uncle Carl Has a Chicken On His Head! Looks pretty good and little kids seem to enjoy it a lot I have two in progress. One is under review but I would say your best bet is the Uncle Carl Book if you want the best quality. I still consider myself as a budding author illustrator, not a master.

@Sara-Nilsson Du är så snälla. Jag vet inte vad är en Swedish Fika. Jag måste titter på google :-).

@korilynneillo unfortunately we aren't in CA anymore. Just our 30 year old son. He lives in Campbell. I'm old :-). We are presently heading west in our fifth wheel and are in Minnesota. I hope the air is clearing up for you!

@korilynneillo I lived in San Jose for 25 years! In Cambrian Park area. Right by Leigh High School if you know where that is.

@Gary-Wilkinson Konnichiwa, Gary! I lived in southern Honshu and Shikoku man years ago+over 35! I can remember a little Japanese. I'm sure it's changed a lot since I was there.

@korilynneillo I lived in San Jose for 25 years! In Cambrian Park area. Right by Leigh High School if you know where that is.

@Sara-Nilsson As soon as things open up for us, my husband and I will be going to sweden for a year and a half ! Nu, lära oss svenska med Duolingo. Vi ska bor i Stockholm där.

2020 Update. We're now in Grand Rapids, MN moving westward through the northern states