It's Challenge Month - PiBoIdMo - SkADaMo - Doodle Day!

The Doodlers in Doodle Day are focusing on Animals all month long. Since I am also participating in PiBoIdMo and SkADaMo through November, I am pretty much overflowing with ideas. I have come up with 14 new picture book ideas and lots of doodles.

Here are my doodles for the first 8 days of Animal Month and SkADaMo...

Day 1: CAPYBARA

 

I also did some birds on Day 1...





Day 2: RACCOON

Day 3: ELEPHANT

Day 4: JACKALOPE

 

 

 

Day 5: PRAIRIE DOG



 

 

Day 6: SHARK

 

Day 7: NEWT

Day 8: RED PANDA

Now for some COWS for Day 9. Check back next Saturday for the week in review...



 

DOODLE DAY MAY - DAY 2

There were a lot of doodles posted on the Facebook Group page yesterday for DOODLE DAY MAY - Day 1. Great job! Yesterday's prompt was about Zentangles so if you didn't try it, you are welcome to go back to it (or any drawing prompt) on any day. If you missed the first post about this new challenge - click HERE to learn and consider joining us on a doodling adventure for May. These prompts are only to give some inspiration to those who want or need it.

Today's drawing prompt is inspired by a sculpture lesson that I taught to my 6th grade students when I was a middle school art teacher in Colorado. The assignment for the students was to create a sculpture of a monster - it had to have a body, two arms or wings, legs and feet. In addition, it had to have 3 or more other parts built on such as ears, horns, tail, hands, nose, fangs, ... This assignment was pretty open but I never graded on artistic talent, merely on an ability to follow directions. This was my example - my students called him the Hertz Monster and he became the mascot for my classroom.

So today's prompt is MONSTERS. They can be cute and fluffy or prickly and scary - it is up to you. It can be a group of monsters or just one. It can be peaking out from under a bed or inside a closet or just snuggling up with its favorite human. There are no requirements here. If you need ideas for awesome monsters, look up Tara Lazar's book the Monstore or look at the trailer for the new movie coming out this June - the sequel to Monsters, Inc.

How to draw a monster? Ack! Don't know where to begin? My advice is the same for my students when creating a sculpture. Begin with the body. Use a circle, an oval, a square, rectangle, triangle or some wackier shape. Then add some legs, do you want them to be long or short, wide or thin? Add some feet - is your monster wearing shoes or does he/she have big hairy toes? Maybe little dainty feet? Decide if your monster(s) have wings or arms or both. Horns or ears or both. Teeth or toothless? A big slobbery tongue? Perhaps your monster enjoys a hat? It is always fun to look at a photo of a human and turn them into a cuddly monster. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask, "What would I look like as a monster?" Does your monster have a head or is his body and his head all one piece? Are the eyeballs dangling off? Are those eyes giant or tiny, even or uneven? Spikes? Bumps? Hobbit feet? Scales? The possibilities are endless.

I will post my examples in a couple of hours - until then, I have some mommy duties. Have fun!

My 2012: A Look Back

2012 has beens my year for challenges and acronyms. I participated in Julie Hedlund's 12x12 all year, Paula Yoo's NaPiBoWriWee in May, Tara Lazar's PiBoIdMo in November, and Linda Silvestri's SkADaMo in November. In addition to all of these, my debut picture released November 15th. It was a lot of challenges and a lot of work. In case you don't know what these acronyms stand for, here are some quick definitions:

12x12 - Write 12 picture book drafts in 12 months. I did it. Thank you Julie Hedlund.

NaPiBoWriWee - National Picture Book Writing Week, Write 7 picture book manuscripts in 7 days. I did it and with 12x12, I wrote 18 manuscripts this year. Thank you Paula Yoo.

PiBoIdMo - Picture Book Idea Month, Come up with a concept for a picture book storyline every day of the month of November. I completed this challenge this year and last year. I used many of last year's ideas to create drafts for the first two challenges on this list. Thank you Tara Lazar.

SkADaMo - Sketch a Day Month, Create a sketch every day in November and post them on your blog. I posted 23 sketches on this blog. I actually created one every day but could not post some because they are part of a picture book dummy for a NaPiBoWriWee story I wrote in the 2011 challenge. This was my first year doing  this challenge and it was a lot of fun. Can't think too long when you have to produce a sketch and post it that day. Thank you Linda Silvestri (who also created the 12x12 badge you see at the top of this post.

As if November wasn't busy enough with writing a draft for 12x12, coming up with an idea for a story everyday for PiBoIdMo, and creating a sketch everyday for SkADaMo - a picture book that I wrote and illustrated launched on November 15th. FLAP! is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, and my website (if you want an autographed copy). See image of FLAP! cover on the sidebar.

Now that I have thanked the four talented women who led these challenges, I need to thank the other writers and illustrators who participated in these challenges with me. Thank you. I read many of your pitches, critiqued many of your stories, reviewed many of your sketches. You are all very talented and supportive and I appreciate the communities created within these writing groups.

But wait! There's more! Because of exposure through 12x12, I was invited to join a group of writer's who had books coming out in 2012 and share marketing advice and efforts. Thank you Picture Book Pluggers. I also created a business called AH Designs in which I create swag for authors and other professionals - including bookmarks, business cards, postcards, coloring pages, book formating, etc... Thank you Susanna Hill for helping to get this ball rolling.

One More Thing! Through the connections I made in 12x12, I also started an online picture book critique group called Flowing Words with several talented writers and illustrators. Thank you to those writers for sharing your manuscripts with me and for helping me polish my writing.

Whew, now I can breathe for a couple of weeks until 12x12 in 2013 begins this January. Are you with me? There is nothing more motivating that a group of writers struggling along with you and telling you that YOU CAN DO IT.