Bella & Luci's book!

The last six months have been spent working on a secret book project, that I've been dying to share for forever! I finally finished the illustrations in July and had a couple copies printed. It was a surprise book for friends of ours (and awesome photographers at Bellalu Photography!) Lindsey & Nathan Freitas and their adorable daughters Bella & Luci. The idea was planted in my head last December, when Lindsey mentioned to me how she would love to have a storybook about her two girls. I had so much fun writing, and sketching out the thumbnails for the book trying to figure out the flow of a full 32 page book (and trying my hardest not to mention anything to them the whole time!). And finally after months of multiple dummies and redrawing, I tackled the final step: painting 34 watercolor illustrations! Whew it's done, and I'm pretty proud of it!

heres a couple in-progress sketches from my book dummy:

and the finishes:

Its official! I am now Mrs Pamela Goodman!

It's been a while! I have been busy all spring and summer planning and getting ready for my wedding to my wonderful husband Luke Goodman! We were just married this August, and I made the switch to change my name. So I'm officially Pamela Goodman, and it feels really good to have a fresh start, with a new logo and look. Time to order new business cards & promos! My old website and emails will continue to forward to my new one:

www.pamelagoodmanart.com 

new promos

My spring goal was to send out some new promo postcards to book publishers. After a year and a half of revamping my portfolio, and working on some new paintings, I finally put together a brand new set of promo mailers to send out! ( I can't believe its been since fall of 2010 ) It feels really good to have spent more time developing my style and having fun with what I really like to illustrate. This time around I included response cards, and Im glad I did because I already got some positive responses back! So they are off to my targeted publishers! woohoo.. next project book dummy submission...

my cover letter, envelope and postcards

Whats Inside? A color concept book

A random idea for a color concept book came to me about a year ago, and I re-discovered the sketches the other day. So heres what I came up with so far, the little bunny just crept in as I went along! hehe.

new work: "Go Fish!"

New Illustration: The Summoning

The Summoning

A newer painting I did for a novel cover concept. Its watercolor & digital, although Im trying not to overuse the digital aspect. I love the bright translucency of colors you can get with watercolors alone, but my photo/ scanning looses some of that. (Time to get a larger flatbed scanner!)

Beauty and the Beast cover illustration

beauty and the beast

I did this illustration for a young adult novel cover concept. The first sketches were too much like a girl and wolf, so I added horns and pants to make the beast a little more human and beastly at the same time. Beauty wears a locket with a mysterious picture of a handsome prince, but she has yet to find out that its the Beast himself.

( first sketch, and revised final sketch)

Edwardian Beetles

Edwardian beetles! Luke and I went to the Edwardian Ball in January and it was such a magical festive night! So many great costumes, and creativity everywhere. Plus dancing in a fancy dress and top hat? yes please! We will have to go again next year.

New Illustration: The Beetle Ball

A new illustration I have been working on over the last 6 months! These critters have been waiting on me forever, and whew its finally finished. Now time to go find some blue grass music and dance!!

Happy Christmas!

The first snow

Gingerbread bugs

New Illustration: Lost in Leaves

Ive been working hard on some new illustrations, a few are still in process and half painted. This is my most recently finished painting, a cover illustration based on the myth of Daphne & Apollo. Apollo was struck by Cupids arrow and falls madly in love with the nymph Daphne. She runs away from him and calls on her father the river god who, protecting her, turns her into a laurel tree.  Here are some photos of the painting process along the way. I started with a clean line drawing that I transferred onto my watercolor board with my homemade graphite transfer paper. Then I painted in washes of watercolor and used salt to create the mossy texture. The final touches were digital in photoshop to clean up some edges and emphasize some lights and darks in the atmosphere.

"bottled" or rather, unbottled. . .

This painting was done a while ago, but I thought it was perfect for this weeks Illustration Friday topic.

character sketches

Initial sketches for an upcoming book project, The Circle of the Ruby Red Stone by Alix Leslie.

{ cultivate }

Illustration Friday "warning . . ."

Today is brought to you by the letter....

Since the new year started I decided I wanted to do more personal projects for pure fun. Do I decided to take a letter of the alphabet everyday and draw things that start with that letter. So far I'm on the letter "P" yay thats a good letter haha! (which means I didn't do it every day, but pretty close!). I found that by doing this I felt freed up to just draw without really thinking if it was correct or even"good."

So here are a few pages out of my sketchbook :)

{Goldengate Bridge Mural}

The bridge mural is complete! It took about 2 full days to paint. Its located next to the Backpackers Hostel, on Derby Street, off of Taylor & Geary Blvd. My little contribution to the mural art of San Francisco!

Golden Gate Bridge Mural: sketches

My newest project is to paint a mural of the Golden Gate Bridge. It will be on an outdoor wall 8x13 feet, near Union Square. I created this sketch, with watercolor pencils to get an idea of colors and placement. More photos of the work in progress to come...

...i love the bright blue sky, and vibrant red of the bridge...

...love the fog and atmosphere in this photo...

ocean critters at Monterey

I spent a day sketching at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and there were so many great underwater creatures to observe and draw. My most favorite were the seahorses, especially the leafy sea-dragon, and weedy sea-dragon. So surreal and magical!! Plus baby sea turtles and tons of fishes. 

these little guys are amazing!!