A New Chapter

Over the past 15 + years, I have been illustrating pretty much on my own. This has included newspapers, magazines, educational assignments, books and posters. Making a living in this field hasn't been easy. Most of my adult life has been devoted to rasing our family, teaching elementary school and art or working as a travel agent, contributing graphics to the former Family Channel on AOL, serving on AOL as a graphic arts host, and keeping my art life alive each day with whatever materials were at hand. Once, when I had no other materials to paint with, I created an entire 22 foot mural for our library with brown craft paper and food colors for paint. Challenge was pretty much the song I sang each day.

Today I am finishing the artwork for a sixth book, looking forward to the release later this summer of the fifth, and have happily become part of the group of artists represented by an AGENT!


Life moves us forward in amazing ways.

How to Create Patterns in Painter

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PAINTER X ~ THE ISSUES

I have always been a painter. That way when Painter the program came along I was hooked. The use of the brushes and various stroke controls was and is amazing. BUT... when I upgraded to Painter X, I had a huge disappointment. Those fantastic REAL BRISTLE brushes were just so deadly S L O W. I tried all the tricks in my little bag of tricks to no avail. I upgraded my Wacom, downloaded the newest drivers, boosted the scratch disk, set all the extra space on my external hard drive. Still those marvelous brush strokes eluded my faster pace. UNTIL... after emailing Corel with no response I called in for another issue, and just on the spur of the moment they offered me tech support for any other issues. I found an answer to my problem, and maybe if you have been slowed down either by Painter X or by my problem ( a slower brain) this could help.

If you open PREFERENCES> GENERAL and uncheck BRUSH GHOSTING and ENHANCED BRUSH GHOSTING, the brushes in that category of REAL BRISTLE will behave! Yippee. This is extremely important when creating a painting on a larger canvas such as a two page spread for a large picture book. Some of those page spreads can be as wide as 24 inches and even under the best of circumstances can take days to paint.

If anyone else has had this problem, I hope this helps.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ CAMOUFLAGE

These illustrations are from 'THE ADVENTURES OF CALI' by Michele Lallouz Fisher, featuring my illustrations. On his flight home from California to his city apartment a young boy 'HIDES' his caterpillar friend in an airport food stand salad..... Naturally it is a bit surprising to the other passengers on the plane.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ REJECTION

Oh the agony.....
©GingerNielson

Marketplace

This is the companion piece to the 'Student Driver'.
©GingerNielson2007

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ SUIT(s)

©GingerNielson2007

Robert's Snow ~ the flake has arrived ~

I am happy to say that I have begun work on my Robert's Snow snowflake. True, the backgound is only painted so far, but all the paints and the sketch I am working from are on the upstairs drawing table. I am so pleased to be able to participate, this year especailly. One year ago our little grandson, the "T man" was rushed to the hospital and subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumor. The initial prognosis was dreadful, but the surgery to remove the tumor was successful. Although he still travels to the Dana Farber Cancer Research Center for his follow up MRIs he is totally well. We pray that his success story will be repeated for many others due to the valuable research and treatments that are and will be forthcoming. You can read more about the brainchild of Grace Lin here at the Robert's Snow website.

School Visits

I spent a wonderful day with the children of Pierce Elementary School in Bennington, NH. We had a great time getting to know each other and I had a chance to show the students some of the ins and outs of digital artwork. Along the way we read from 'Princess Caitlin's Tiara' and 'The Adventures of Cali.' I brought along my own Princess Tiara to wear, just (well almost) like Caitlin's, and each child who listened to the story about Cali got to take home a Cali finger puppet. The one that I made is from cardstock, but the one that will be presented when the books come out later this summer will look like the fuzzy one shown here next to Cali's book cover.

I was really impressed with the attention, interest, and teriffic good manners of all the children!

An Online Art Gallery

If you haven't seen it yet, take a hop on over to the Picture Bookies Showcase. The online art gallery features the work of 50 children's illustrators. You won't want to miss the exceptional art and variety, so scroll through the entire gallery and enjoy all the lively offerings. New themes are posted each week.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ MY OTHER PARADISE

Wouldn't you, if you could, just love to be able to fly like this, with such ease and delight.©Ginger *:)

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ MY PARADISE

©Ginger*:)