Lauren Wilson - The Journey of an Illustrator

Finished Fennec Plush!

2011-01-10T18:16:00.000-08:00

Finished the cute fennec fox I made concept art for in the last post. All the patterns are my own work, I created this cuddly toy with fake fur and premium fiberfill. He is a one off plush for now, but I am open to mass production if ever there was a desire for it. This lil guy is sticking with me for now, I might auction him off at a later date.

Art Post

2010-11-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

Monsters! Playing around with rough Photoshop inking. Just kind of spontaneous and fun. :)

Art Post!

2010-11-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

Sketches from the dog park.

Concept art for a fennec fox plush toy! I like traditional children's plush styles a little better than the pop surrealism plush movement, but both are cool.

And a lion toy concept. I will be construction both these toys myself. It is a secret dream of mine to design plush toys for a company, so I'm really gonna fill out that portfolio!

The Tale of the Sun and the Moon... in a movie?!

2010-10-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's true! My work is in a movie! :)

In the feature film "Life as We Know It" which came out in US theaters today, there is a scene when the adults are watching kid's cartoons late at night (not spoiling anything by this) and during this, they show scenes from "The Tale of the Sun and the Moon", a children's music video project I did the art for a couple years ago! I knew about this a while ago but I had no idea my part was so big! There is even a little dialogue about what they see on the TV, it's hilarious! :D

If you missed the original music video, it can be found on YouTube here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoWFJ690U6E

I am very excited! The movie itself was adorable, especially the kid!
This is a rather proud moment.

2010-09-11T21:48:00.001-07:00

These are some comp sketches for a new project... people always tell me my stuff looks like children's books, so I figure I'll put together a mini portfolio of works featuring the same cast of characters for this purpose. The idea behind this double page spread is a wolf (specifically a red wolf, which look different from the typical grey wolf) starting a journey traveling through a tunnel under a tree.

Tell me which comp you like best if you don't mind :D I know which two I like, but I need help narrowing it down from there.

Alive!

2010-04-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

UGH so yes, I am still alive! Sorry for the looooong silence, it was a combination of things.
I'm happy to announce my website's been updated with a bunch of new art I've been working on since the last blog post, so check it out! <3 http://www.laurenwilsonart.com
I hope to get back into blogging regularly again.

Sketches

2009-12-03T19:56:00.001-08:00

A sketch for a painting for Monday Artday! The theme is "feast". I'll be getting this done over the weekend.

And a silly follow-up to that sketch. Eww, carrot breath!

Opossums are Awesome.

2009-11-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

New art!

This is my design for a PathTag! What are they? They are metal and enamel round charms that are highly collectable and tradable! It started out as a geocaching thing (whatever that is lol) and has caught on with artists as an affordable little thing to sell or give out with orders.
I'm taking preorders to have these made, I have 7 preorders so far and I need 8 more to be able to afford to produce these! The deadline is the end of the month. Each preorder is $6 each. For 75 cents extra, you can add a cellphone strap, jumpring, or keychain ring. Shipping will be determined later when I have the charms in hand.
Comment or email if you want one!
The purple's gonna be glittery. :3

I just joined an opossum mailing list, so I uploaded some of my older 'possum art to show them. So this post is just chock full of opossum goodness. :D

This is a piece I did in 2006, and despite its age is still a personal favorite of mine. It was to be the cover of an opossum themed coloring book that I lost interest in doing. I should start again and see if I can't get it made. That sure would rock!

This is from 2008 and was a mixed media experiment. Baby opossum! Squee!

I'm still kickin'!

2009-11-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry for being so quiet lately. Still working on stuff, I just don't have anything really finished to show yet. I'll have to make a WIP post later this week once I get Photobucket to cooperate. :)

So in the meantime... show me your favorite illustrators. Can always stand to look at more people's work.

Art Post

2009-11-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

A new painting, a cute little tiny bat clinging to a cherry. I originally sketched this two years ago, and the sketch actually became very popular in my online galleries, so I figure why not redraw it and paint it?

It's a bit heavy on the warm colors, but I still like it. And I hope you do as well.
It feels REALLY good to be back to my schedule of one painting a week. Doing art sort of gives me a purpose and a sense of well-being, especially in this really awkward period in my life.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, I painted the scariest thing I could think of. ;)

Actually furries are some of my favorite people. I just like to poke fun at the fandom from time to time. ONE OF US. ONE OF US.

Children of Luna, finished

2009-10-22T17:56:00.001-07:00

Finished "Children of Luna" at last. :) Way late for the competition it was for (Monday Artday, which rocks and you should watch), but it's fine, it's more for me than anything I think. A tribute to Luna and her nocturnal children. :)

New Piece

2009-10-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

Done a new piece I'm particularly proud of, a cute german shepherd painting, as a promotional piece for my pet portraiture site, which has yet to be designed. Bother. And a note, I'm always open for pet portrait commissions or professional work! :) Just drop me a line. <3

New arts!

2009-10-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Some new arts to share :)

Finished designing the cat cheshire cat, here is a turnaround of him! Gosh, I love him so much. I want him to be real so I can give him candy and we can be friends. :3

Some Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs fanart, hahaha. That movie was so cute.
Pose reffed from a photo I took of myself!

A cute toony yorkshire terrier doodle. :3 I like this guy.

Cheshire Cat Sketches

2009-10-03T20:49:00.000-07:00

I've been working with character design lately! My friend proposed a challenge to create a cheshire cat character, so I've been pondering what direction to go with it. Should he be scary? Cute? Small? Big?

My first page of sketching. Played around with different ideas until I got in my head a big fat stocky lynx-like chesire who loves candy (I want this to be somewhat Halloween themed) and will trade some of his magic in exchange for it. The children seek him out on that one day a year with their extra goodie bags in hopes of gaining the massive cat's gratitude and the special abilities he grants.

More playing around with the friendly fat cat theme. The bulldog shaped one kind of creeps me out! The bottom half of the page seems to be pretty much what his final design wants to be, in particular the candy-munching one. He is pretty cute, don't you think?

Website Official Launch!

2009-09-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.laurenwilsonart.com is up and running! :D I'm so excited! The self promotion can start now. :)

Website Sneak Peek!

2009-09-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

So I bought my domain and hosting for my websites, and I have a sneak peek at my website for you all today. :D
http://studentpages.scad.edu/~lwilso23

It'll be on laurenwilsonart.com soon enough, but in the meantime if I could get some opinions on the site and bug reports (if any, it's actually an extremely simply made site), that would be faboo! :3 Thanks!

I also bought laurenpaintspets.com for the pet portraiture biz, but I'm not yet sure what I'm doing for that one, so I think it'll be a mirror of laurenwilsonart.com for a short while as I figure it out.

Tuxedo Cats Portrait

2009-09-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

Just finished a new pet portrait commission of two tuxedo cats. :)

Pretty pleased with it! Doing black animals is rather difficult. Original is 8.5 x 11, and prints are available. I'm also open for commissions of this type, or any other kind of interesting art project you can throw at me. :)

In other news, I'm going to be getting my websites up soon. I went ahead and bought the domain names and hosting a month or so ago, and I just haven't gotten a free moment to sit down and finish them yet. But soon! Will be sure and let you guys know when it's ready.

New Painting and a sketch

2009-08-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

Finished up an 11 x 14 illustration tonight. :)

I'm liking how it came out, I think. I wasn't convinced it would turn out at all, so I'm very glad I kept tinkering with it!
A boy and his monstery friend discover a magical orb of some sort. I don't know what it does, but I do know it's shiny! And shiny things are all right with me.

This will be next project, a painting for Monday Artday for the "Moon" theme. I might just post this as a WIP there if I'm allowed to.

Man, things were slow here for a while, but all of the sudden I have three things in the works, one of which is a commission. :) I'm loving it!
See you soon, with more art!

WIP Sketch

2009-08-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Started the sketch for my next painting today.

I realllllly need more human examples, we all know I can draw dog faces! So I sketched up this. It's a made up scene from something that could easily be a children's book. I drew a bit of influence from one of my professors just with the subject matter of a big mystical pearl and a kid. Sort of an homage to his watercolory awesomeness. <3

So that's what I'm working on this week.

The Etsy shop thing's been going well! I have the place all customized up with a banner and avatar and my old print stock I want to get rid of, lol. I also have two pet portrait commission slots available right now on there! It's a really exciting site, I keep finding new features I didn't know about. I better be careful it doesn't suck away all my time!

New Etsy!

2009-08-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Woo, I just got done setting up my Etsy! Right now it's stocked with some old prints I want to get rid of and a lone jewelry project from a while ago. So if you're curious to see some embarrassingly old art of mine, check it out ;D http://wilsonillustration.etsy.com
If you have any requests for things you want to see on there, let me know! Also general Etsy tips and tricks would be appreciated.
Do you have an Etsy? I'd like to see your shop!

Stylized Pet Portraits Done

2009-08-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

Finished up these pet portraits of Arbo the dachshund and Taco the chihuahua. :) I think they came out rather cutely! I'm going to have small prints made to do inside of some pretty oval frames I bought, I'll have to take a picture of those when they're ready!

Puppy Sketches

2009-08-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a couple of portraits of my fiancée's dogs, Arbo and Taco. Here are the final sketches, I'm working on the finished paintings today :)

Arbo is a miniature dachshund, and Taco is a chihuahua. I plan on doing more semi-stylized pet portraits in the future, so if you're interested in one of your own, drop me a line. :)

Weekly Art Post

2009-07-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

Some lifedrawings done on a trip- to not only pass the time, but to keep myself sharp.

More sketching for the mathicore adventures. I'm having trouble envisioning the environment, I need to brush up on my mathematics quite a bit. More to come!

Weekly Art Post

2009-06-30T21:57:00.001-07:00

Some new arts for ya'll to see. :)

A cute cartoony australian shepherd head done for a friend! I like using markers for cartoons and watercolors for everything else. They actually work in surprisingly similar ways.

I keep a bag of ideas and sometimes I pull one from the bag at random. One of the pieces I pulled out said "Mathicore". I have no idea why I had this weird idea, but I ran with it. So here is Eddy, the math teacher manticore, or Mathicore if you will.
I've got the beginnings of some sort of epic learning adventure with him and a little girl, the only thing that's in my way is my own embarassing lack of knowledge about math. Math historically has been my worst subject, it's kind of the anti-art.
I'll continue to sketch these guys up and see where it takes me.

Semi-Weekly Art Post

2009-06-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece I did for a local theater camp as part of a contest. I won, and it's going to be printed up on T-shirts! Their theme for this summer is "Across the Universe". :)
It was a challenge to make myself really limit my palette for screenprinting and simplify everything. I did this in Photoshop over the span of about three days.

Long Time, No Update

2009-06-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates folks! First I got lazy, then I just plain got busy with the end of school and graduation(!!!)
Things are quieting down a bit more here, so my goal is now to post a new art a week. :D Ideally I'd like to post WIP sketches and stuff here every now and again, but once a week is an easier way to step into it.

Here is a cute watercolor postcard design I made for mailers! I love opossums something fierce, so I decided to use them all over my marketing stuff. :) I mean, seriously... who else would use an OPOSSUM? Haha.
The great thing about this design is that as I gain more and better samples, I can switch out the images with the greatest of ease! Cool stuff.

Character Sheets and Sketches

2009-04-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Another large part of my animation-oriented portfolio were character sheets of personal characters I came up with.

A character sheet of a very old character of mine from 2003, revisited and revamped.

He can also walk on two legs!

Here is some of the concept work that went into this.

I already had designed this character years ago, but I wanted to take the basic idea and just make it better. So I didn't use any of the old art of him as a reference, I just remembered his distinguishing traits and exaggerated them.
I also wanted to make him look slightly 'tougher', as in this new storyline featuring him, he's not just a joker goofball, he's also the protector of two girls in a strange land.

This is Kari, the younger of the two sisters.

And here is the older sister, Niko.

Some of the sketchwork that went into planning her design. I already had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go with it.

Art Post, Environment Paintings

2009-04-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here's the new art I was talking about earlier! :)
I've always had a heavy interest in animation, and I'd love to break into that industry doing concept work for animated movies, things like sets and character design.

While creating a cohesive portfolio of characters and settings, a story begam brewing in my mind about two girls entering a strange land where they befriend a blue creature that serves as their guide and protector. Through it, the girls grow stronger as sisters and overcome many obstacles.

This is a creepy landscape from the magical world they enter. I was inspired by three main things, the beautiful angularity of trees in Japanese woodcuts, the fractal trees from the film "Coraline", and a very old piece of mine from 2004 that I've always wanted to revisit in some way. This is nothing like how I imagined it coming out, but it seems sometimes you just have to let go and let the paints do what they want to do. :) Definitely worked out to my advantage here!

An environment shot from the sister's hometown, which is pretty much directly influenced by Wormsloe Historic Park here in Savannah. :)With all the spanish moss and twisted live oak trees everywhere, it almost feels like it's a part of the magical world.

An establishing shot of the youngest girl's room. I tried to remember details from my own childhood in the fleshing out of this room, while still keeping the character's personality evident. I'm not 100% happy with the execution of this one, I was trying to see how a flatter look would be. I think for this to pull together, it needs stronger outlines so it's more obviously supposed to be cartoony.

Sorry for the lack of updates!

2009-04-11T11:12:00.001-07:00

Sorry it's been so quiet around here! I've been working hard on getting together a new portfolio for a market I'd like to break into. :) I should have some things to show you guys next week!

First Post! Introductions are in order.

2009-03-06T10:21:00.001-08:00

Hello world! ;)

This is my first post on my professional illustration blog. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Lauren Wilson (soon to be a Wallace in October, hence the title of this blog), I specialize in character-driven watercolor illustration. I love animals, and more often than not, they make their way into my work.

I'm a SCAD senior graduating in May, this journal will be about the journey I'm about to undergo, leaving college and starting to work steady doing what I love - creating art!

I was inspired to create this blog by seminars I attended last weekend at the SCBWI conference. It was my first conference and it was incredible! The creative vibe I got from that place was fantastic. I left full of new ideas and a lot more knowledge about children's books than I ever knew before. :)

I'll be scouting around the Blogger community and adding people who's work I can really get behind, and people with lots of great tips and tricks for the industry. If you're reading this right now, why not comment and say hello? I'd love to get to know you all! :)