Bad Hair Day

So proud of this project.  Adrienne Vincent Sutton,  A friend who is self publishing her first children's novel, gave me the honor of designing her book cover, and it is now off to print!  I love the outcome, but this beauty went through several stages to get finished.  I usually paint by hand and enjoy doing so, but since the success of this book will rely heavily on it's web presence, I decided to go digital.  I'm a newbie to digital painting but have been trying to challenge myself since I now have the means to do so.  Photoshop and Corel Painter, I love you.  You are both, the wind beneath my wings.

After reading the book, I felt an immediate connection to the main character.  Struggling with my own natural hair journey since childhood, has made this subject matter near and dear to my heart.  I was inspired to create a cover that would make girls and boys pick up the book and say, "Hey that girl is kind of fly, and her hair is kind of fly too.  But why is it in two totally different styles?"  Pick up the book and find out, young whipper snappers.
(I said that in my Yoda voice)    

I started with this sketch this past Spring, on the airplane in route to the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia.  I felt a freedom I haven't felt in a long time on that plane, traveling for work.  I can't tell you how long it had been since I had picked up my favorite sketchbook.  This girl easily oozed out of my pencil like I had been sketching everyday!  After revising the lip and the eyes, the client settled on the following sketch, I scanned it and cleaned it up in photoshop.

I love sketching on brown paper.  I just want to lick the page, it's so buttery and delicious.  First challenge:  Capture the look she had right at this moment, a crucial point in the story.  And that look on her face says it all.  This moment sums up the main character's whole dilemma....

but you'll have to read the story for yourself to find out.  

I wanted the title to be as unruly as her hair.  Then I had to drop in a bit of the setting for some background.   

TIME TO PAINT! 

I started with the hair first because the hair is everything in this story and getting it right would be my biggest challenge.  ESPECIALLY, that amazing fro!  

When I say this hair took layers upon layers of work, I mean I stopped counting how many times I created a new layer.  I finally got what I was going for.  I probably took the long route, but I learned a lot through the process.  Main thing, it's the same as painting on canvas, just with different tools.  Man that Wacom tablet is a treasure!  Now to capture that pretty brown skin.  Airbrushes, you rock!

Finding this version of a lock in a reference picture, then playing with it in photoshop to make it follow my vision, really was a turning point in this process.  It supported the color choices I had already made in the hair and really inspired the rest of the color story.  

I would call this my "Aha Moment."

I love the colors.  She's almost there.......mo' layers, mo' layers, MO' layers!

Now this.....this is "The One"!  Bout' time!

And now for the back cover and spine design, drum roll please........

BAM! (applause and the crowd goes wild!) 

I did that thang!  Thank you!  Thank you very much!  "In the face!"

Stay tuned, because as soon as this baby gets printed you can order on line and have a copy of your very own.  You're gonna love it.  Go to www.adriennevincentsutton.com to find out more and spread the word!

And holla at your boy!  

UPDATE:  AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON!!!

"Bad Hair Day" by Adrienne Vincent Sutton

Cover Art by:  Me!

D.L. Tucker Illustration

woop woop

  

Mural Madness

Over a year since I've posted.  Man.  Don't dwell Danyett.  I've done so much since last August.  It's been a heck of a year.  Exhausted but motivated to share the beginnings of my first mural this school year!

The following are pics from day four's workshop at John Hanson Montessori .  We spent the first 3 days developing images and creating the layout and design.  Now it's time to paint!  Everybody was shaking in their boots!  Hahah!  Paint is so intimating but a worthy challenger.  

The theme of the mural is "Earth's Treasures".  I love creating murals with students.  I'm not just the instructor but an active participant.  Murals are one of the most authentic community arts projects.  And I get to do me, which is the little strawberry on top.

I gave the middle school students a poem for inspiration.  I googled earth's treasures and found this little treasure  A Lunar Lament by: Anne Pedtke.  After I read the poem to the class for inspiration, I asked them to imagine that they were the moon looking down upon the earth, marveling at it's treasures.  What treasure's would make you a jealous moon?

They came up with some great sketches, which I pieced together into our mural composition, all from the moon's perspective.

Here are six of eight panels.  I love taking their sketches and turning them into one picture. They are always so shocked to see how all the pieces fit together.  They thought their vision boards were the mural!  I'll post those pictures next time.  Imagine the looks on their faces when they saw these.....

They were so tickled to see their ideas and sketches imagined through my eyes.  

And here are my little community artists at work to bring our masterpiece to life!

Mrs. D runs a tight ship but I Ron Clarked it!

  

Dearest Ron, 

Since I got that first peek into your head, I've been chasing that feeling I had when I came to visit your amazing school in every interaction I have with a child or educator. 

Dearest Jay the Magnificent,

I remember my first time being exposed to your process.  I remember thinking....this man is a diabolical genius.  The imagery that came out of your workshops were otherworldly.   I got caught up in those panels, it was magnificent, hence why I call you Jay The Magnificent.  And now I get to create these collaged universes where anything is possible with a totally awesome group of students of my own.

I want to be like those two when I grow up!  

I hope these young people could feel that magical vibe in the air that this kind of project can bring.  So grateful to Young Audiences for blessing me with this opportunity to serve communities that feed me with inspiration and fuel my passions daily.  

Now if I can just get them to be fearless....we are gonna have one humdinger of a mural and they will be left with a cherished memory and an experience they will never forget! 

Continuum

Continuum-a continuous extent, series, or whole.

Continuous-being in immediate connection or spatial relationship

This may be the best first page of a new sketch book I've ever drawn on the fly.  

Spontaneous and Free.    

I call it, "Continuum" because I found a way to make every line that I made work together for the good of the whole.  Sketched in ink so as to promote confident lines, I just went for it.  The grey paper with the brown ink is making my heart quiver with glee, it's so delicious!  I like it a lot!  Yummy!  

I have a confession to make.  I am a sketchbook addict.  I saw the paper and had to have it.  I rarely fill up a sketch book.  I may have two completely full sketchbooks (and one is a thumbnail sketchbook so that doesn't count), but I have a lot of incomplete sketchbooks.  I know it's a problem, I'm working on it.  I don't know what it is but there's just something about a fresh blank book!  I collect them.  I labor for days on what to put on the first page, it's so ridiculous.  It's always that starting point that gets me.  The fear of messing up.  The pursuit of perfection produces a deadly combination when art and fear merge.  How could I ever expect a sketchbook to be perfect?  It's a freaking sketchbook!

I have to talk myself through my misgivings.  A sketchbook's imperfections are what makes it perfect.  It's the space for experimenting without restrictions and preconceptions.  It is inception.

Inception-beginning; start; commencement

Duuuuhhhhhhh....

Well, cheers to spontaneity, and doing what comes natural, and what makes you feel good!

I think I'm going to have to digitally paint this one because there is no way I can reproduce this drawing as a painting otherwise.  Ain't no way lightning is gonna strike twice in the same spot.  I like my first try!  Who am I fooling, I always like my first sketch best.  Don't we all?  It's always more loose and free and full of promise and potential.  No pressure....until the second draft which will not include the Edward scissor hand....I loath drawing hands.  I wish I could wave a magic wand to make them appear effortlessly.  But noooooo, hands have to be all confrontational and difficult, ol' suckas.  

The figure was initially intended to be laying on the drawing, melting into it.  Somehow, she ended up standing holding a tree up.  Then she somehow became the tree.  Sound familiar?  I always start off in prostrate, then somehow end up standing, carrying the load until it becomes second nature and an extension of myself.  We all have the tendency to do that without even thinking about it, some of us need more practice.  I might start off on my face but I find a way to make it to my knees and after that God lifts me to my feet then fills me with His grace.  And if you know me, you know....there are going to be some trees thrown in the mix!  

I just can't help myself.  I don't see dead people.  I see tree people.  LOL!

So this one has mad layers too, which seems to be a reoccuring theme.  She's lays in prostrate and stands in strength, all at the same time.  It's duality, and I like it like that!  That's what laying in prostrate can do for you!  It can give you the strength you need to stand! So go throw yourself down on your face and pray for the strength you need to get back up!  Do not delay!  Do it now!  

This is about as abstract as I get, but I do love when recognizable images emerge from lines and shapes...now that's gangsta!  

Emergence=Evolution

   

The Rebirth of Venus

Remember this lonely little Venus that I started during my 100 days of art challenge?  On a solitary journey towards becoming, arriving to the wilderness?  Yeah, she's been sitting every since, waiting.... on me.

I am drawn to the famous painting, "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli.  It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman.  Arriving to the sea shore upon a shell, aligned with the myth to explain her birth.  On her left, the wind god carries his bride towards the threshold, blowing the shell amongst a shower of roses, gently caressing her hair and the incoming waves that seamlessly break over the shore.  As Venus is about to step onto dry land, a hand maiden waits patiently for the goddess to come closer, reaching out to cover her shy naked body with a cloak. Venus' contrapposto stance depicts grace as she carefully leans on one hip, modestly covering her private parts, slightly revealing her sexuality.
 

It's been said that this painting "illustrates the birth of love and spiritual beauty as a driving force of life.  Once she lands ashore, the goddess of love will don the earthly garb of mortal sin", an act that could lead to the creation of a new life or the possibilities of an everlasting one.  Once draped in earthly garments does she become a personification of the church which offers a spiritual transport back to the pure love of eternal salvation?  In this case the shell upon which this image of Venus stands could be seen as a symbolic pilgrimage.  "The sea brings forth Venus just as the Virgin gives birth to the ultimate symbol of love, Christ."  Is Botticelli's Venus meant to represent the idea of divine love?

Rather than choosing one of the many interpretations offered for Botticelli's depiction of the Birth or Arrival of Venus, I think it's better to view it from a variety of perspectives.  This layered mythological, political, and religious composition was intended to portray the goddess as the epitome of beauty arousing humans to physical love at first sight, then inspiring intellectual love upon second glance.  After further investigation, one might be inspired to lift the mind towards the Creator.  Lets get lifted.

When I became a mother, I experienced The Rebirth of Venus.  I have my own ideas of what that means as I add my own layers to the many layers of this great classic.  I'll explain more about my motives as it progresses and as she emerges, but can I just say....I am so addicted to illustration as fine art.  It makes all the spit rush to my mouth....soul stirring artful storytelling at its' finest.  Food for my soul.

"The Rebirth of Venus"

WIP

And just in case you were wondering, my Venus arrives on a cowrie shell and my hand maiden, and my God who controls my wind, just so happen to be trees....anything less would be uncivilized.    

Missing My Muse

Sitting here thinking of my muse Luna Blue.  Realizing that had it not been for her, I would still be sitting somewhere sulking in a stinking cubby.  Instead, I'm rolling with cheribiums!  Thank you for inspiring me to smile, pray, love, play, roar, be...and fly....despite my circumstances.  I love you precious babygirl.  Cancer can't kill you.  Your presence remains!

In memory of Luna Blue

The cutest little monster I've ever known....

Rawwwrrrr!