Chicken in color.

This is part three of Creating Characters for a Children’s Book. If you’ve missed parts one and two here’s a quick recap. I’ve been working on the characters for a new children’s book. One of the characters is done, another is in the color stage and one still needs a little bit of work.

Last night I finished up color on the chicken and completed the new model sheet sketches for Carl (the boy). As I was working on the story my alter ego Bob the Art Director (super nice guy) reminded me that Greg (the monster) loves donuts. It’s a pretty big part of the story. Taking another look at the logo I thought it might be a cool idea to get a donut in there somewhere.

So today’s post is going to be short and sweet. Homework for next time: Work a donut into the Greg the Monster logo.

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Here I am with my canvass. Not quite finished yet but getting there. Rocking the glasses look for this demo.

Had a great time at Jerry’s yesterday. As usual I met a bunch of great folks and had a lot of fun painting. The theme for the day was Bats so I chose to paint one of my favorite super heroes.

I was using the Matisse Primary set of acrylic paints. I’d never used this brand before but they were great. I really enjoyed working with them and would definitely use them again.

I’ll be down at Jerry’s again for my cartooning class April 14th from 4 – 6pm. If you are interested please contact the Raleigh store for more info.

Our theme for the last class was Under the Sea (I thought it would be fun to do a snail). We used acrylic paint, sharpie markers, clear gel medium, sand and glitter.

It’s a great little project. Super fun, super affordable…and I’m hooked. Here how it works. First we sketch our creature onto the mini-canvas (The one shown here is 4″X5″ and goes for about 3 bucks). The next step is to paint in the image using acrylic paint. Once you’ve finished painting it’s time to add some texture.

I added clear gel medium to the bottom of this canvas everywhere where I wanted the sand to be . The trick is to really lay it on there thick. Once I had it coated I took some beach sand and sprinkled it over the top of the canvas. Then I shook it over a garbage can to remove the excess. Any where there was gel the sand stuck… everywhere else it shook off.

My students did the same thing. Some of them used sand, some used glitter, some used both. The gel starts out translucent white but dries clear so its easy to see what you’re doing. Once it’s dried you can outline you character using a sharpie permanent marker and it looks fantastic. You can really get creative with a project like this. I highly recommend it for kids 5 and up.

One word of caution. Acrylic paint and sharpie markers do not wash out of clothing so make sure you wear something old or cover up with a smock. Have fun.

How fun is this art?

I just received my latest trading card from Cyn Narcisi.  You may be familiar with Cyn from her work with Lucasfilm, The TOPPS Company, Inkworks Trading cards, and Titan Magazines.

Cyn sent me a note last week letting me know she’d like to make a trade. I checked out here site and she has some really fun pieces. There was this pig with a little yellow hat and a striped shirt that jumped out at me right away. I was psyched when she agreed to make the trade with me. I just received the art yesterday and am looking forward to finding a spot on my office wall for it.

If you are interested in finding out more about Cyn and her art you can find her here:
Blog
Illustrations

If you’d like to purchase some of her art you can find her on  Art Fire where she sells prints and original art.

Seeing Cyn’s page on Art Fire has inspired me to think about setting up a Bob O store… so if you’ve ever wanted to own an original Bob Ostrom Studio piece of art, keep an eye out I’ll be posting a link as soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to trade with me, like Cyn did, don’t forget to check out my trading card page and let me know which piece you’d like to trade.

These are the cards we traded.

I started doing trading cards with the classes I teach over at Jerry’s in Raleigh and kids loved them. Last week I did an in-store, artist trading card demo for both kids and adults. Everyone had a ball.

It’s kind of challenging working on such a small canvas but that’s actually a big part of the fun. You’re pretty much forced to consider your layout in a totally different way then you normally would… it’s a nice departure from the digital world we’ve all become so accustomed to. There’s no delete button, no crop or re-sizing, what you put down on that little 2 1/2/” X 3 1/2″ card is what you get and in a way that’s very refreshing. It gives you the chance to be spontaneous.

Usually when I do the cards I work in whatever medium happens to be handy, but for my last batch I busted out my old watercolor set and was a little more deliberate about my method. I cranked out a few holiday cards for the demo. Then when I got home I got my watercolors back out and let my pencil do the drawing and painted up a few more. So….Who wants to trade?

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Here’s the deal: I’ll leave these up for a few days. All artwork is 2 1/2 X 3 1/2″ original, signed and dated. If you see one you like and would like to trade with me… just use the form below and send me a link to what you’d like to trade. Best offer gets the card.

Once a card has been traded I’ll be sure to mark it as traded. When I’ve traded all the cards I’d like to do a post showing what I traded them for. I’d also be happy to add a link to your website or blog in the article.  If you are uncomfortable with me showing your art on this site please specify that in your offer otherwise I’ll assume it’s OK. Oh, and no print outs please…just original artwork.

Look forward to trading with you!!!

UPDATE 12-11-09 !!!

All these cards have been traded. More coming soon….