Meg and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

First of all, THANK YOU to all of you for your wonderful support on my Royal Wedding Refashion - it made my day!! I wish there was a way to respond to each of your comments - *ahem* Blogger, are you paying attention?  No seriously, I adore all of you - thank you :)

For this week's sewing challenge, I knew exactly what book I needed to use:

...because aside from the Royal Wedding goodness, I got quite the shock on Thursday:

I am moving. *Swoons and lands under desk*

The Robert and I live in a property and the landlords want to renovate, which means, we need to move out temporarily.  Originally, we were staying and moving from room to room while the renovations happened around us.  Now we need to move out entirely for probably three months, and probably to a different building/neighborhood altogether. This is how I found out we were moving:

Meg: "Shelley wants to know if we are having people over on July 4th.  I don't think we're visiting your parents or mine, so why not?"

The Rob: "We can't have people over because we are moving that weekend."

Silence.

Meg: "WHAT."

The Rob has been living in this space for eleven years, and I have been living there for two, so you can imagine the amount of clutter that has built up!  The first thing that crossed my mind was, "Sweet puppy in a basket, I need to get rid of fabric.  There is no way I can pack all of that."

So, I am going to be getting rid of fabric.  And lace.  And notions.  Which means:

GIVEAWAYS, YA'LL!

I am moving in two months, which means stuff needs to go go go.  While I'm not going to ship you that extra blender I randomly have with a bent blade, I will ship you other pretty things.  I could not bear to give fabric away to a thrift store when I know my lovely friends could use it.  Is that complete hoarder behavior or what?

In terms of this sewing challenge, since I'll be living out of a suitcase for a few months, I need to have some excellent pieces that I can wear regularly.  I have a green sweater that needs to be taken in and given some love, and my Burda 8488 pattern is begging to be made.  I'm thinking some blue sailor pants, because Alexander wears blue pants, right?  Right.

In between sewing my outfit this week and making Mother's Day presents, I will be cleaning out the kitchen.

This could be a picture of me cleaning out the utensil drawer.  I realize we have two sets of silverware but I like the way my forks feel in my hand...

Moving is a difficult process for two pack rats.

New Digital Art

Throughout my career as a children’s book illustrator, I have worked in a traditional style with acrylics on Strathmore Bristol Board. Over the last five years I’ve been mixing mediums by enhancing traditionally painted art with Photoshop techniques. Recently I completed a number of projects that were painted entirely in Photoshop.

After reading about a great digital painting class on Marion Eldridge’s blog NEW ART NEWS, I signed up to take an online class that would help me with a new sketch for Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

In the spring, I took Will Terry’s Digital Painting and Photoshop Course. After completing his class I was able to get more of my traditional painting style into digital artwork . Will demonstrates his process for painting with layers and the use of textured brushes you create. I learned how to use layers and much more from Will’s series. Below is the first illustration I finished after the class. The possibilities with digital media are endless!

©2011sharonvargo -Goldilocks with Papa Bear's Bowl

Regardless of the painting technique, my creative process has remained the same and my first step is to begin with thumbnail sketches. Thumbnail sketches are reduced versions of the images. I use these little 'chicken-scratches' to work out everything from composition, character, colors and even text placement.
From the thumbnails, I selected the two spreads to illustrate and then move to a full size sketches.

I scanned the drawing and painted it in Photoshop using a Wacom Cintiq. The Cintiq is a tablet/screen that allows me to draw directly on the display surface.

On this spread Goldilocks is testing the hot porridge in Papa's bowl and tasting the cold porridge in Mama bears bowl. With Photoshop the art is still workable in the final stages. I added a larger chair and Papa bears glasses (not in the sketch) to illustrate the difference in size between Papa bear and Goldilocks. I connected the two single page illustrations by showing the table from the same vantage point. This perspective also allows me to feature the difference in size from Papa and Mama bear's chairs.

©2011sharonvargo Goldilocks with Papa and Mama Bear bowl

Here is pages 30 and 31 ... Goldilocks ran down the stairs, opened the door, and ran away into the forest.

©2011sharonvargo Goldilocks and the Three Bears

I'm starting sketches for another project today and will post more of my adventures in
Photoshop soon!