Gurney Journey

I've been cheicking out some sites, blogs and discussion boards and stumbled across an incredible blog. Most of you are probably familiar with it already but I was enthralled to look through it.

Check out:

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/

Such insight and expertise is inspiring to say the least. What a great resource for artists everywhere.

Sketch from Pat Cummings Workshop.

Now that I'm slowly working through my backlog of client projects, it's time I start posting a little more. Here is the sketch that I came up with for the Pat Cummings Workshop. In case you are not familiar with the story this is from the Grimm's Brothers "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten." In english I think the story is called "The Bremen Town Musicians." It was one of the stories that I grew up with and I always liked it. I like my version of the chicken/rooster. I had the "Titanic" "I'm the king of the world" scene in my head when I drew him. He's having fun...

Salt and Soap Illustrations are complete!

I haven't had a chance to post this yet, but all artwork is complete for the Salt and Soap project. All the artwork was delivered on schedule and we even got to hike around the Grand Canyon a little. It looks like the book will be out around the end of February, 2009. The actual title of the book is "The Adventures of Salt and Soap in Grand Canyon" and the publisher is the Grand Canyon Association. Here is a preliminary cover of the book. I'll let you all know when it is available next year.

Tanja's website has a new look

It's about time! I finally posted my revised website. It had been over two years since I changed my site and I was really getting bored with the look of it. This is what it used to look like:
This is the new and revised look:

I like it so much better. Also, I finally added new artwork and a link to my blog. Take a peek if you like at http://www.tanjabauerle.com/

Pat Cummings Illustration Workshop was Incredible

We finally had our Illustration workshop with Pat Cummings last Saturday. It was a full day that started at 8:30 in the morning and didn't end until about 6:30 in the evening. Yes, we went over our scheduled time frame but everyone was able to spend more one-on-one time with Pat during our portfolio reviews. Thank you Pat for an incredible day.

Pat shared with us her insight on what makes and effective Promotional piece for a children's illustrator. The pre-workshop assignment was to select a well know fairytale and produce one image that would make the story easily identifyable to the viewer. She engouraged to use as many of the following in order to make the piece striking and stand out to an art director: ACTION, SPECIFIC MOOD, DRAMATIC LIGHTING, UNIQUE COLOR PALETTE, DYNAMIC SCALE, PATTERN, FACIAL EXPRESSIVENESS, UNUSUAL PERSPECTIVE, DISTINCTIVE LINE, INTERESTING TEXTURE, and P.O.V. At the workshop Pat went through each illustration in detail offered suggestions on what can be done to improve the art. The result were many very nice pieces that will no doubt attact attention.

Here is Pat with Michelle, Juana and myself at the workshop. The person missing is Kathy Parks who was such an integral part of getting this workshop put together. Thank you Michelle, Kathy and Juana for your hard work in getting this workshop put together. As always you surpassed expectations.

Here is Pat with Megumi during the portfolio review. Everyone attending was able to have some one-on-one time with Pat to get advice on their artworks and portfolios. Thank you Pat for all your insightful comments.

Tom, Lewis, Annette and Kathy taking diligent notes during Pat's informative address.

Listening attentively. I don't think there was a single person that did not enjoy and appreciate receiving Pat wisdom.

Here's Kathy with Christine (sorry that I cut your head off), MaryBeth, and Debbie going over how she handled the assignment. Kathy's the hone holding the paper.

Reviewing everyone's assignment was very inspiring. I always feel that you can learn just as much from another person's art as you can from your own.

Pat Cummings Rountable Discussion Last Friday

We had the pleasure of having Pat Cummings out for both a roundtable discussion and our workshop. Thank you Pat for and incredible experience and for sharing so much incredible information and advise with us. The roundtable discussion was so entertaining. Pat is such an engaging speaker and everyone enjoyed the evening. It 's amazing how much everyone learned about the children's publishing market and craft in only two hours. It was so valuable to get insight into both the writing and illustrating aspects from such an accomplished artist.

Here are some photos of the evening: