Illustrating Children's Books e-course

I had a very busy October as I took a wonderful e-course "Illustrating Children's Books" with Make Art That Sells with top art agent Lilla Rogers and children's book art director Zoë Tucker. This 5-week intensive class covered different areas of illustrating picture books from facial expressions and poses all the way to cover design. After five weeks of working with the course assignments and other commissions I was exhausted, but very happy.

Before the course started we had to choose one of three texts to work with. I chose a text written by Zoë Tucker. It was a story about the life of Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician who is often regarded as the first computer programmer. "Ada Lovelace and the Number Crunching Machine" was my choice over a traditional folk tale and Edward Lear, as I love a bit of research!

The course was packed with information about pretty much everything. I was familiar with illustrating children's books, but now all that knowledge was presented in a fresh, inspiring way. The teachers Lilla and Zoe were fantastic and encouraging.

My main character Ada evolved quite a bit over the five weeks. I enjoyed the "Expressions" week the most, maybe because it was a good reminder of how many other facial expressions there are than just smiling, happy ones! Also "Poses" week was a very useful one to remind me of the power of exaggeration.

Since the course finished I've felt a lot more confident about my work. It was an intense five week period. It's taken a while to catch up with the rest of my life! We even got our first snow during the course, really early this year (now it's gone...).

Ada's friend, fellow inventor Mr Babbage in my neighbourhood forest!

Week 4: "Environments"

Over the five weeks I had a chance to properly experiment with new techniques, mixing traditional media with Photoshop. Now I just worry that I forget all the things I learned. The cover did require some serious help from my studio partner, PS wiz spouse. All those masks can get a bit confusing at the best of times! With my patience, well...

Week 5: "Cover"

Anyone interested on the course, I give it five golden stars!

Creative autumn greetings !

This autumn has been quite busy, hence the silence here. Here are some highlights I wanted to share with you.

The photos below are from Gudrun Sjödén store in Helsinki. I was there on a Friday afternoon in September drawing 15 minute portraits of the customers as a part of the Gudrun Sjödén's culture week.

Drawing an illustrator colleague Maija Hurme, no pressure!

Then I had a wonderful day with Make in in Design team at Marimekko Factory tour in Helsinki and Sketch Doodle Draw event in the city centre. It was such a pleasure to meet Rachael Taylor and her crew. I'm taking Module 3 of her Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course at the moment.

Read more here: http://makeitindesign.com/blog/2016/10/04/we-sketched-doodled-and-drew-in-helsinki/

Me with the amazing Make it in Design team

At the Marimekko factory

And I took part in the pattern bombing challenge on Instagram with Make it in Design School. My hippie car with my botanical pattern received an honorary mention too.

There was also one weekend of intensive dance training at SVOLI Convention for dance, gymnastics and fitness instructors. But I carried my sketchbook with me...

I'm also participating in "Illustrating Children's Books" course by Make Art That Sells. These drawings are based on daily sketchbook prompts. I'm enjoying both of my courses and working on an illustration project that requires a lot of time until the end of the year.