Page 5 - Color

This illustration is intended to look hot .... as in sweltering! I thought I might put a bright sun behinde Lily's head and then do a radial gradient fill out to the edges. I figured out a couple of good tips while using gradients... never use just 2 colors ie (beginning color and end color) because the colors blending in between get mushy and cloudy. You want to punch in a couple of medium hues on your gradient slider to get those mid tones popping! Here is the type as well...my first attempt at laying in type...I can't believe how easy it is. I love Adobe products!

Page 5- Leap Leap Leap

Lily loves to Leap! How to draw a leaping girl? hmm...that was a challenge. I started by taking photos of some of my art students to figure out the geusture..but then suddenly a thought from a couple years ago came to mind. I had been hiking in cal poly through the woods, when I came upon a woman suspended 20 feet from the ground by a long crimson cloth, holding an arabesque pose. I was stunned...I came to find out that this woman was an aerial dancer. Remembering this image triggered an idea to create Kilys leaping gestures. Aerial dancing is athletic and graceful. Lily needed to be energetic, but still feminine. These are some of the arresting poses I came up with for Lily.

Page 4 - Unicycle

So Windy Hill, CA is the inspiration for this color scheme. I was having the hardest time coloring the hills...I wanted them to look like spring grass. In April on my birthday Matt and I hiked to the peak and took dozens of photos. You would be surprsied how close in value the hills actually are compared with the sky. I had to squint my eyes to check and see which one is darker. Turns out the hills do make a sillouette against a lighter sky. This illustration took almost 12 hours to complete...but believe it or not, Lily's house in the background took only half an hour! Its one of those things where you just feel it and you do it and it works! Rare moments in painting I must say. Also, this was my first for painting balloons. Balloons are cool. They reflect the colors of the sky and the colors of the balloons around them. They are transparent in the middle and opaque on the bottom and top. Who knew!

Page 4 - Lily loves the outdoors

Lily has all sorts of tricks up her sleeve, among which is unicylce riding! This illustration was inspired by the rolling foothills of my dear old Cupertino CA. I also wanted to mix in a German village flair...those tudor houses are soo cool! Art tip: objects get smaller with distance. In a 2D drawing, usually far objects are small and in the upper half of the page. Objects close are large and in the bottom half of the page.

Page 3 - Color

What but a hot pink shower cap could be the most perfect thing for singing in the shower! As you can see, Lily is a bit of a free spirit...perhaps a shadow of the girl creating her! Yes, I think Lily embodies all of my own deesecret loves!. On the right page...Lily watches while the bubbles float out hte window, something I love to do any chance I get around bubbles at weddings or the like. Did you know that bubbles are a myriad of colors? Yes, they come wearing pink, blue, purple, green and lime. I created these bubbles starting with a translucent white cirlce and painting transparante layers of color ont he top and bottom of the bubbles...which is where most of the color congregates. Enjoy bubbles today!

Page 3 - She loves to sing

Color to come soon