I think this is the hardest piece I have worked on for me. I guess perspective is not my strongest side. Thank you for everyone who has helped out along the way - you guys made my process so much more fun and engaging.

When I was an interaction designer, there was a saying in the industry "celebrate your failer". I did not really understand why, but now I really like that approach. SO I am going to celebrate my first "No" from my editor.

Yesterday, I submitted my first completed picture book dummy to an editor (we had good work experience in the past, I just finished illustrating a book for her recently). Within 2 hours, I received a rejection via email with an in-depth critique on the dummy. I was so excited and I almost said "fantastic" out loud.

I was excited because:

1. I finished a picture book dummy for the first time (a huge milestone for me).
2. Someone professional actually read it and cared enough to write a thoughtful crit during her working hours.

Now I am back to the drawing board with revisions to do. :-).

Here is my entry for this month. So glad I made it.
For the first time, I did my svs monthly challenge with traditional medium. I did not have access to a big enough scanner for today. So the image is taken by iPhone and I did a slight re-touch on photoshop.

"Love is magic."
I got lots of help from the SVS family in the forum with this piece. Learned a lot. Thank you so much.

I enjoyed this and it also drove me a bit crazy. Thank you so much for the critique along the way. Always making my image so much better when I share the process on the forum. Love seeing all the submissions. The variety is wild this month.

I also revisited my piece, and could not resist to touch up a bit more of the muddy color. Sorry for my re-submission.

Am I too late?

Than you so much for so much constructive feedback I have received so far. I did not get to completely finalize this piece. So I submit what I have so far, and will continue to work on it in 2020.

Happy new year, everyone! I hope you get to have time to dream big and silly dreams in 2020.

Here is my submission.

@MelissaJacie I can not decide which media to use.
I made a quick ink wash test on my sketch book. I like the texture and the feel of the environment, but I never know what to do with the character when painting with inkwash. If I go with ink, I have to figure out how to paint the main characters somehow

@Mara-Price hehe. I would love to share the process of making that piece. But right now it is a bit challenging for me to do live demo or video recording with that piece. The piece is done with ink and lots of water splashing and I need access to my studio to do that. I have taken some photos during the process. What I can do it make a slide show and talk through what I did step by step if you are interested.

I am a slightly disappointed that the case studies are not more in-depth. I completely felling love with Anuska Allepuz's art work. But I have a hard time finding out more about her process on Internet - the content in the book does not give enough information on how she actually produce these gorgeous images.

@LauraA wow. it looks like it is worth to have both edition, since case studies are the core of the book.

I know this is very late. I came across an aritst today and would love to see/hear her process a bit more.

I found Anuska Allepuz's arwork in the book " Children's picturebooks - the art of visual storytelling (2rd edition) by Martin Salisbury. The book has a short description on how she works with mxing printmaking, stencil, and handmade stamps, and assumbling the image digitally to create her art. I would love to learn more on how she work, but the internet search does get me far. I am so facinated about how she makes images like this with printmaking and stencils.

My second edition of children's picturebooks has arrived. Below is the table of content, for those who are interested.
I have not read the 1st edition, so I could not answer the question about how different they are.

@ArtofAleksey wow. cool. I would love to learn more. I use procreate, but I do not digg very much - I stick with things I knew, and explore very little by myself.

@jdubz To be honest I have no clue what rubber cement is (I am Chinese, it might just be I do not know the English word), but I am so wanting to try. I googled that I might be able to get it here in Norway (Where I live). I will get it the first chance I have visiting a hobby shop.

@burvantill I love your process images from the bear. I would love to see more of your process.
@Braden-Hallett I would probably do the same as you, have a photoshop file set up, and turn on/off layers to talk about the process. I would very much like to share if the event is not happening in the middle of the night in my time zone (I think I am 7 hours ahead of EST time zone )

Talking about show casing process, I just want to share this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHP70B56EGc

Daniel Miyares is an artist I have been following for a while. He inspired me to pick up Sumie brush for painting. I did a bunch of ink wash painting for last inktober, and I looked his sketches carefully, and always wanted to see him live painting. Now he started a youtube channel, showing exactly that :-).