IF - Messenger

Have a Happy, Joyful, Merry Christmas!
And Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends!

 

digital and pastel on paper

7.5 x 7.5

IF - Sink

The Illustration Friday topic for this week is Sink.

Don't you wish kids were always this happy about helping out around the house?

From Wash the Dishes by Geneus English, LLC

This illustration started out as a  pencil sketch. I scanned it, cleaned up the sketch and painted the color in photoshop.

IF - Round

My Illustration Friday entry for this week...

Elf with Hammer
5x7

pastel on paper

This little elf has so much to do to get ready for Christmas. If he only new where he left his nails!

I've been experimenting with scanned pencil drawings. This sketch was scanned, edited to darken the lines and clean it up a bit. Then I printed it on art paper and added the color with pan pastels, soft pastels and pastel pencils.

IF - Shadows

This is my Illustration Friday entry for this week:

Two Strange Beings | 9x12 | pastel

"One evening, while he was lying there alone... he saw two strange beings creep out of the tall bracken near him."

This illustration is the result of a fun SCBWI Westside Illustrators project. I was assigned the above quote from a children's book without knowing the origin.

Would anyone care to guess what childrens book this came from?

IF - Toy

Here's my Illustration Friday entry for this week.
For a child, it only takes a few toys to spark a world of imagination.

pastel on paper

In the spirit of March being Art & Music in the Schools Month, I'm compiling a list of the people/organizations that work behind the scenes to make it happen. If you have a group in your area that brings art, music, drama lessons to the public schools, please comment on my blog. I'd love to see this list grow!

http://cathyjune.blogspot.com/2011/03/art-in-our-schools-hats-off-to-people.html

IF - Reverse

... if she would just row that boat in reverse and take him back to solid ground!

No Turning Back Now
digital illustration

I've been enjoying this little girl and giraffe team since they appeared in my Sketchbook Project 2011. This illustration was a little bit of an experiment exploring the use of Photoshop to fill in the color of a hand drawn sketch.

IF - Brave

My Illustration Friday post for this week...

Max is brave, smart, energetic, loves puzzles,
and has the biggest smile in the whole world!!

9x12
mixed media on paper

Just in case you're wondering... I usually work in pastel, but I used a little different technique for this piece. The puzzle was partly created in Photoshop. I worked over it with ink and pastel. The background and boy are pastel and ink on paper. Then the finished puzzle was added with a little space between it and the background to give some dimension.

IF - Crunchy

This is my entry for Illustration Friday - Crunchy. It's a sketch that was inspired by the children's enthusiasm during a classroom visit where I shared my new picture book, We Eat Food That's Fresh! written by Angela Russ-Ayon. I've sketched the boy in pencil. The butterfly and the word "CHEF" are cut and paste from the book with Photoshop.

See more Illustration Friday entries for this week

IF - Strong

This week the topic for Illustration Friday is Strong.

If it has a strong unpleasant smell,
you probably shouldn't eat it!

pastel & gouache on paper
From the book, We Eat Food That's Fresh!
by Angela Russ-Ayon
illustrated by Cathy June
Our Rainbow Press

IF - Similar

I met these three pals while experimenting with black lines on a not so long plane flight.

IF - Balloon

Sometimes a person's just gotta doodle. This little guy reappeared from childhood memories.

Nap Time
graphite

Maybe one day I'll finish him in color. If I do, he'll be powder blue with a little fuzz missing.

IF - Late

Here is my Illustration Friday entry of a late night star gazer,  Chandler, who loves to ride horses.  The sky's the limit, Chandler!

Chandler Star Gazing

12 x 9

Pastel

IF GARDEN

This is my entry for ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY this week.

Princess Charlotte, loves to read. She likes to read all kinds of stories about girls in other lands and books about animals, dinosaurs, and insects. Keep reading Princess Charlotte!

Princess Charlotte
pastel

GREEN THINGS GROWING
Oh, the green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing...

~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik