Landscapes and Comics

These two books are wonderful for landscapes and comics, I always look back to both of these for  reference, specially the landscape one :

Fantasy Landscapes & Cityscapes by Rob alexander : This book covers everything and is weird because is so thin!. It covers from tricks you can use depends on the medium you are most comfortable with, the importance of a sketchbook and use of references; perspective as well as depth. How to sketch common things like clouds,mountains and trees. It shows wonderful examples and tricks.

Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner : This guy is a legend, and if you want to learn how to make a GOOOD comic then you must have his book, I loved al his comics, he's very good in capturing the human body language, how to change the moods of an environment. He's a master at the comic art, he is mostly known for his comic "The spirit" I was more fan of his other works about everyday people like "New york: Living in the Big City".

Well here are the peeks:

Ecollustration of the week: Fireflies

UPDATE!:

Well here is the final piece :)

I did this piece for the Power in Number online gallery/shop from Gallery nucleus. I hope they accept this submission. I love the idea part of the sell of the painting goes to a Non-profit of the artist choice. I love the idea that a painting of mine helped a non-profit. Here this is the link:

http://www.gallerynucleus.com/pin

I would let you know if this piece is accepted.

Good day to all

Here is the next illustration I'm working on, When I post the final look I will tell you what is it for, heheheh loves surprises. I love drawing/painting fireflies, let me tell you why. Fireflies are ugly bugs, they kinda look like a small squatty cockroaches, but at night they are soooo beautiful! I love the idea that beauty is not skin based but rather the person you are inside. I feel Fireflies represent that very well. They are not remember for how they look but what they do (light in the darkness). It's also a good memory of my childhood going out in the darkness unto the small street of our house or to a friend's backyard and see all the fireflies and chase them. It truly is magical, Nature is magical. I feel lucky to not have grown in a big city, but in a small town close to nature. Of course that small town has grown over the years and is now a big city compared to how it used to be.
ok one more peek from the happy boy:

Don't worry he's not planning to squish the firefly between his palms

That's my idea on my sketchbook. It's the last page, so I need a new sketchboook YAY! I'm always exciting to get a new sketchbook.

D.I.Y Recycling Gift Tags

A very simple and quickly way to do unique gift tags.
All you need is a strip from the soda box, or cereal box, I leave it up to you :)
and x-acto knife or circle cutter and a hole puncher. Have fun
P.S.:Click on the images to make them larger :)


1)the Beginning:

2) Use your circle cutter to cut your circles, If you don't have a circle cutter trace the circle using the bottom of a glass,trace it and patiently cut it with an x-acto knife:

3)Then using a hole puncher or a 3 hole puncher like me, punch the holes:

4: Then Prepare your strings and attach them to your circles :

5: You can hand write it or use stamps. ( I used a custom print kit that are sold in all office depots in the office/stamps section):

6: Then the fun part DECORATE! I used Gouache, you can use any medium you want like acrylics, pastels,color pencils anything! have fun

7:The final product:

Your Inner Child

I have come across this Illustrator, whose work makes me all happy and warm inside and makes me want to be a child again. I'm talking about an illustrator who lives in England and is passionate about god, art and her love a boy named Lee.  Kate a 19 year old with a big kiddie heart and it shows on her beautiful illustrations. Visit her website to see her work at http://www.lovefromkate.com/ .


But here is a peek to my favorite ones:

Now aren't they so inspiring?YES they are! if you say no then I'm sorry but there's something wrong with you.
She also has a blog (which I of course follow) and an etsy shop. Visit them and show some love :)

From my library to yours: The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher

I'm a big fan of M.C. Escher's work and I've been looking for a book that not just shows his work and talk about his life. Instead I wanted a book that described his process of work, his life and show his work and it's process sketches and I found it on this book:

The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher by Bruno Ernst published by Taschen. Like any book on artist it talks about the life of Escher, his influences and the work he did. Unlike any book on artist it mentions how his work developed, the process of his works (his original sketches are shared), his explorations and why he created these illustrations. Is really cool to read how he reached its final illustration. Now here is a peek:

Spring Vacation

Hello everyone, just letting you know I will be taking this week off from blogging. Everything is fine, just need to be a able to finish some commissions, I will be back next monday. Have a good week everyone.
Love
Romina

Happy Spring

Happy spring for everyone, I know is not officially spring, but here it feels like it. The grass is already showing its green and in the mornings the sun warms my room right away, waking me to a sunny day instead of a cloudy one. So I'm excited because that means, more time outside than inside,and time to out winter clothes away.
I borrowed this beautiful picture from Waynel's photography via FLICKR . Isn't it beautiful? so I HAD to share it. He has the most amazing bird photograpy, next time I need to draw birds I will use his photos for reference.

D.I.Y Recycling sites

Today I won't share one of mines, but instead share with you other sites that encourage recycling and are my new favorite sites. Here is the first one:
http://www.creativejewishmom.com/ 
This creative Jewish mom does BEAUTIFUL creations, and she not only does her own recycling, she shares craft for kids, parties and home.
Also her name is Sara "creative"(ok that's not in her name but I won't be surprise if it were)Rivka, she lives in northern israel(where she met her husband, very romantic no?) with her husband and kids.
I'll share here some of her creations:

Now the second one was shared to me by my cousin Mel, Here it is:
http://fashionableearth.org/blog/ 
A site whose mission is to reduce, reuse and restyle
They have good information on how to follow those 3 missions to accomplish.
The only thing that bothers me is their website design,I just wished they designed their website a bit more cheerful. When you think green, black does not come to mind. Also It bothers me they don't have tags to easily and quickly navigate on the subjects that interest me, which leaves only the option to go through all the pages, rolling the page down. Here are some pics on ideas of reusing that they show in their site.

These were the two new finds that I had to share with you. :)

Book Page Illustrations

I'm in love with the page illustrations of Anette, also known as "Carambatack"
An artist from a little town somewhere in Norway. She does her illustrations using old/vintage book pages! some dated back to 1851. I think is a beautiful way to recycle an old book, plus it gives a nice background/Texture.
She does not have a website, but she has an ETSY SHOP and a FLICKR. Check them out.
Now a little peek to some of my favorites of her work:

The Other Side

We are covered in our creative side of the brain, now let's deal with the other side. This brings me to introduce these two great books, that talk about how to smoothly handle your freelance life and be successful. These books are a very important addition to my library and I recommend it to add it to yours.

Here is the first one:

My so called Freelance Life by Michelle Goodman

I LOVE this book, It covers everything I was unsure of and now I have no doubts. It deals from pricing, contract, registering your business, finding clients, dealing with clients, paying bills, time management. PLus she not only talks from her experience she has illustrators and writers freelance sharing their input too. Also it gives you so many links and resources, is just that amazing.

She also has a website check it out @:

Now the second book relates mostly to opening your online store or making craft to sell, I like it because It also covers a lot about bills, time management, getting clients, patent, trademarks and it shares o many experiences from a lot of full time crafters.

Turn your Creative Hobby into a Business by Meg Mateo Ilasco

It can be done, but is hard work. This covers a lot about preparing a business

plan,learning what works and what doesn't, SELF PROMOTION(favorite part of the book),pricing and of course the downs. It also has a lot of good resources that one can always look back to. Great book, thank you chronicle books for publishing it.

Good Morning Monday

well I have finished my piece for the Drawgasmic show , let me share it with you:

Its called "The Henna Flute Player" I'm actually quite satisfied with it. It would be awesome to see how music would look, if images represented the notes no?. I used watercolors and gouache and of course my fountain pen.

And now something else very exciting thanks to these two guys:

They are the founders of Art house.

What is art-house? The art house is a library/gallery, but not your usual library and gallery. Their Library collection is of SKETCHBOOKS!!I love to look at sketchbooks they are so inspiring from famous illustrators like James Jeans , and Mattia Inks , or from colleagues like Jessica cooper and Julian Callos . Sketchbooks are inspirational, and to have a whole library how coool is that? Plus they no only deal with sketchbooks they create art projects for the community to participate on. Anyone driven by art can participate so, I signed myself up for two projects. One of the projects is the sketchbook project, where they send a sketchbook for you and you well you do what you do to an sketchbook, as long as you follow their theme. I love it is like they will have a little piece of me in history, someone could come look at my sketchbook and get inspired, I do love the Idea. The Second Project is the Pattern Project, where you have to do an art piece as long as it has patterns and well I have recently gotten fascinated with patterns so I just can't help but give this a try.

Go check out their website:http://arthousecoop.com/ 
I will of course share all that experience with you.


Have a good monday.

Ecollustration of the week: The Henna Flute Player

Here is the piece that I'm working for the "Drawgasmic Show ", If it looks familiar is because is a better and bigger version of the henna painting I did, and I been waiting to refine it. Here it is. I'm done with the inking, then will go with the watercolors and finished with Gouache. I'm pretty happy how it looks so far. One of my struggles as an illustrator is my human forms, and I think is that I always try to stay realistic, you know include the nose,the chin, the real proportions and all that. Don't get me wrong, it is very important to know all the fundamentals, which is why is important to have life drawing classes( I plan to sit in in some of life drawing classes that they have at the Oregon College of Art and Design, where I'll start the next step in my career life). As I was saying, this time I'm going back to just being loose with my human forms as long as they read "Human". Well I'm excited to work more in this piece.