Sarah's Sketches

For Sketch Dailies! I like how this drawing ended up looking a little Take-on-Me 80's.

This is the main character from a novel I'm revising. You'd think I'd sketch my book characters more often, but for some reason they seem less real to me if I do. And so it goes... I like this drawing, but it's not quite her.

Here are a few promotional illustrations I did for my wonderful agency, New Leaf Literary & Media , as well as a character sketch to test out a digital painting technique. Finding a method of digital painting that's easy, loose and works well with my sketchy style has always been a holy grail for me. I can spend a kazillion hours and paint something that looks like an oil painting, but I don't have a kazillion hours these days. Besides, that sort of approach doesn't lend itself to the children's books I write, and is far too labor-intensive for comic work -- other than covers. The above technique feels comfy, cozy and very me. And even better, it's super fast! I don't want to jinx it, but I think I possibly just "chose wisely." We'll see as I continue to test it out... :)

I like posting with artwork, so here's an unfinished painting of a supervillain. But really I'm posting because I'm super excited to announce that I'll be contributing to a Kickstarter for an art book called the Masters of Anatomy .

I posted these on Instagram a while ago, but I thought I'd properly scan them and put them on the blog too. Watercolor and I don't always get along, but I really do love the look of it. Here's a self-portrait and two of my kiddos!

My daughter tells me these two are named Briar-Rose and Peachen.

Here's some of the freelance work I did for Zynga Dallas' Castleville game last year. Of all the freelance gigs I've had, this was one of my favorites; nice people, solid pay and fun assignments. When I first toured the studio, I brought my children with me, then an infant and toddler. It resulted in a harrowing kid-vomit-art-department-greek-yogurt-incident. Super horrifying/embarrassing! It's still amazes me that Zynga wanted to work with me after that, ha ha, but I'm glad they did. It was a great gig.

Yes, I'm still here! I know... five months, no posts, but I had baby in January, which is my third munchkin if anyone is counting. This means 90% of my day is spent kissing hurt fingers, reading Richard Scarry books out loud, making Star Wars shaped lunch items (wookiee tortillas anyone?) and having dance parties in the living room. As for the other 10%, I was, and still am, busy with work-related art projects -- which are fun and exciting, but like most work-related art projects, they aren't something I can share here yet. However! While I was off sleepless and zombie-like in cute newborn land, this movie came out. I worked on it back in 2007 until I learned I was expecting my daughter and no longer wanted to commute to Vancouver. I'd long ago buried this artwork on an external hard-drive, but now that the film has been released, I thought I'd dig out some of my favorite pieces. Since little babies and theaters don't mix, I still haven't actually seen...

Thank you Stephen for distracting the kiddos so I could color and post this. :) Hope everyone has a great holiday!

So yes, this is sort of me, because at the moment I'm nine months pregnant with baby #3 and not nearly this slim. But like the picture, I DO need a haircut. I painted this for my illustration profile for the New Leaf Literary website , where I'm now represented by the awesome Suzie Townsend . If I don't get the chance to post again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a great holiday!

My kids are in love with Miyazaki's Totoro. Lately, the Catbus is all my daughter talks about. Here's something both Totoro and Fall-inspired. :)

I like to attend my writing group with a sketchbook and handful of sharp pencils. Here are some doodles from the last few meetings.

I drew this after seeing Brave and finally got around to adding color last night. Wish my hair was this curly and this red.

After looking through some old Comic-Con finds, I drew this Chris Sanders inspired girl. I love how he makes things both solid and pudgy (especially feet!) and how delicate and confident his line work is.

I'm back! We've finished moving and my studio is all unpacked. Here's a quick sketch I did today. Hopefully a lot more new art will follow... :) Also, Austin Broder created a free rig of my 2007 caveman illustration! You can download it here.

We've been busy attempting to sell our home and buy a new one since May, so pretty much everything else in life -- including working on new art -- has been put on hold. But since I miss updating my blog, I wanted to share my sister, Laura Mensinga's amazing short film, which she shot, directed and filmed with Kirsten White . It features their bike gang/art collective The Deadly Nightshades and toured with the 2011 Bike Film Festival. I think it's awesome, and I'm excited it's now online. Enjoy. :)

Pencils for an illustration I may or may not finish. One of the challenges of parenting for me is maintaining enthusiasm for creative projects. I begin with a lot of energy and excitement, but where I used to just sit down and work on something for several hours/days until it was done, I now must work in small increments, stopping and starting over and over. After stoping and starting five or six times, it feels (even if it's not true) that the art is going nowhere and I should probably just start something new. Writing seems to be the one exception to the rule, thank goodness. And I think it's because even if I can only sit down for a half hour, I can still knock out a couple of pages and create something that, even if needs polish, still feels complete.

Don't pay attention to this first version of page five. It's horrible. But my post makes the most sense if I start with this image. Last week I was really lucky to hear Glen Keane speak. If you don't know who Glen Keane is, it would be worth your while to do some googling. He's the incredible talent behind many iconic Disney characters and his beautiful artwork has been a huge inspiration to me and many many other artists. After Mr. Keane's talk, my husband asked me how it went and I said, "Meh." At first I couldn't pinpoint why I was disappointed, I mean, Glen Keane did a great job speaking. But then I realized that a silly part of me thought that by listening to one of my art heroes speak, some of his awesomeness would rub off on me and I'd be magically transformed into a better artist. And another equally silly part of me thought I'd leave that lecture with some powerful art secret I never knew before. Ridiculous. I know. But a...

Kapow! A bat!