aprylstottdesign.com Blog

I just finished a job for a client in the UK. I’m getting paid in £. (I totally had to copy the pound sign from my email cause I don’t know how to make it.) So my illustrations will now be better traveled than I am. Along with the produce I eat in the winter (hello Argentina, some day I will come visit you!)

I have big dreams of seeing the world “One Day”. Maybe when my sweet husband finishes his degree…. Sigh… Till then, here’s a list of where I’m planning on going.
Paris
Portugal
China
Argentina
Brazil
Vancouver (again, love that city)
New Zealand (why is my spell-checker saying that’s wrong? Apparently my spell-checker needs to get out as much as I do…)
And of course, London. Where I will find a Bobby and see if I finally got his uniform correct…

My Little Ella loves bugs. Unfortunately I’ve passed on my arachnophobia, but besides spiders she LOVES BUGS. And Little Gretta is getting in on the love too. Last week I rescued two rolly pollies and a herd of ants from her inquisitive little fingers. Ella has TWO bug catchers and frequently sends small crawlies to their death with her love (I’ve tried to save them, people, I’ve tried!). So comes the inspiration for my Bug Book, which I just sent to Maggie this week. Here’s a sneak peek at one illustration. I wanted it to be a “Pretty” bug book. Is it too “pretty”? I hope not. Bugs aren’t just for boys, you know. And boys can like pretty things, right? Right???

Last week was spent with my family. And one day was spent going through piles & piles of artwork from days past. My mom is a good saver. GOOD SAVER. I documented some, purged some, and kept some. Here are some stellar pieces I thought you might enjoy…

Not feelin well? See the School Nurse. Apparently she has lots of love to give. My first illustration??? “Oi”.

I LOVED MY CABBAGE PATCH KID. So much that I couldn’t stand to keep the icky name that she came with on her birth certificate. So I named her Elizabeth. Cause that was way prettier than the moniker she got stuck with at the factory, er, cabbage patch. And actually, I only loved her because everyone else loved them. I admit it. I got sucked in. Check out my early pastel skillz.

Dear Sweet Sister,

Thank you for posing for me whilst I honed my pastel/portraiture skills. I was going for a Mary Cassatt thing. You really are very pretty. (Except I was not exaggerating your bangs. You need to take that up with Mom. She’s the one that cut them like that.)

Love,

Apryl circa ’85

Very fashion forward. Check out the layers. Are those black bike pants under her shorts? And flohos? You betcha. I’m guessing some sort of dog & the dude’s legs were just not a priority for Apryl circa ’87.

Apparently all cities in the future will be abundant with toy stores & babysitting services.

I am a fun lover. And for the record, I only played the flute for approx. 6.5 weeks. Apparently I was not a flute lover. Please notice my super stylish overalls with ONE STRAP undone.

A stunning example of my jr. high years. This piece is especially special as it combines my love of art with my overachieving 8th grade English project.

My BFF from High School. So sweet to sit for me. I remember drawing this my senior year. She sat on the blue couch in my parents house & we talked about her boyfriend. And to thank her for 27 years of friendship, I bequeathed this to her when I saw her last week. (Dude, we have been friends for a LONG TIME). (Also, I SO want to move her mouth about 1/4″ to the left…)

If you’re really REALLY lucky, I might show you some Super Embarrassing Angsty College Art. We’ll see how brave I am.

Once, when I was a kid, I looked at my arm and realized I had a skeleton inside me. And it totally freaked me out. Sure, I knew in theory that I had a set of bones holding my body upright, but I’d never really thought about what was inside my skin keeping my body going. Luckily I’d avoided any serious health crisis, so I hadn’t spent much time considering my innerds. Apparently my imagination was too busy creating soap operas with the Strawberry Shortcake Dolls & My Little Pony crew. Imagine my delight when I got the gig for this little number, an OVERSIZED teacher book for teachin’ 1st graders about their bodies (Oversized as in 15×20″. That, my friends, is big):

Thanks to a fabulous reference book from my local library (shout out to Librarian Mary Claire for her excellent suggestions), I was able to get past my squeamish tendencies to actually enjoy working on a book about our guts.

My most super favorite clients called with this job. Wanna know how much I know about baseball? The art director reviewed my sketch & said, “It’s great! But can you give the kid a catchers mit?” Catchers mitt? What is catcher’s mitt?

I also got to work on a super fun project for one of my other favorite kids mags. It was a rush job, but despite the quick turn-around I’m still happy with the results:

Now I’m off to finish the next set of projects. What are YOU working on?

I went through a brief phase when I was a kid, the “Little House On The Prairie” phase where I wanted everything to be old-fashioned. I took up needlepoint for about 2.5 seconds (alas, my “Cats Are People Too” sampler was never finished. Too bad, how awesome would that be on our wall?) I wore dresses every day. EVERY DAY. I would make two braids in my hair & wind them on top of my head. My biggest project: I attempted to sew. Mom just though I was making a mess, but my intent was to make a dress. And shoes. And a gingham skirt (I had no idea what this “gingham” was, but Laura was always talking about it).

Fast forward to now. I no longer want to be “Old Fashioned”. I am just fine buying my clothes in a store. And I cannot sew. But Ella wanted to make a stuffed animal for her new baby cousin. And that’s how this came to be:

“Ummmmm, great. But what is it?” you may ask? It’s a Kitty-Bear-Unicorn! Of course!

Side View:

And Back View:

Kitty-Bear-Unicorn has popcorn seeds in his feet. And bells in his belly. (They don’t ring cause they’re surrounded by stuffing. It makes it sound like a rattle, we put about 5 in there. Ella & I had a long discussion on the pros & cons of bell inclusion. She decided it was a good idea. Sometimes I think she just wants to have long discussions…)

I know, it’s a little sad looking. And his head is really really floppy. But considering these were the plans we went off of, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out (note where Ella helped with color plans by indicating where it should be pink):

And considering this was a 3-Sunday-project, I don’t think we’ll be making any more stuffed animals any time soon…

I asked Ella what she wanted to do for her Valentines Day cards. Should we make her a princess riding a unicorn? Riding a flying kitty? Oh no, she wanted to be a ,”…princess on a flying dinosaur!” So this is what she’ll be handing out at preschool on Friday:

I tore myself away from a fabulous book to finish this:

I must REALLY like this technique because I couldn’t put that book down for any other reason. (It’s amazing how much you can get done one-handed).

“These is my Words” by Nancy Turner. On page 296. So good.

We had TWO new babies born in the Stott family this month! Two! (Not THIS Stott family, the extended family. Obviously. Phew.) And this is our little gift for the first one. I’m pretty happy with the effect I’m getting from my pastels. I used a really nice brown paper that looks like it came from a paper grocery bag. I used to get fancy paper from the art store, but this is actually from a scrapbooking set I got on sale at Michael’s. I figure as long as it’s acid free (which it is. I don’t actually use grocery store bags anymore) and SUPER CHEAP I might as well give it a try. I’m feeling like a genius. Plus it’s easier to store cause it’s not on some random 20×30″ sheet that just ends up getting mangled in a drawer.

Welcome to the world Samantha Skye! Good luck with your big sister, she’s a firecracker!

Usually when I get educational work the turnaround is really really REALLY fast (really). And though it’d be fun to lovingly craft a beautiful set of heartbreakingly sweet illustrations, I ain’t got time for that. I still want them to look good & enjoy working on them though, so I came up with this technique. It took be about 2 years of experimenting, but this is how I do it now.

First I start with a sketch. I print that out & trace the lines to clean them up. I scan this into Photoshop as a CMYK image & usually convert it to a sepia tone (brown lines are “friendlier” than black). I clean it up even more & punch up the parts that I want darker.

Then I add my 2nd layer (usually titled “colors” cause I’m so tricky like that) and add in the color. In the layers palette I change the layer from “normal” to “multiply”, which allows the sketch to show through the colors. Genius, right? I add in blocks of color with the “lasso” tool & then clean it up with the “brush” tool.

I add my 3rd layer, titled “Skin Tones”. This is where I start to add texture. I do it on a separate layer because then I can select the whole shape on the “colors” layer. If I put the texture on a separate layer it makes it easier to go back & make changes. Like if I put too much blush on a kid or decide to change the shirt color, whatever.

If I have any tricky patterns, I usually put them on a separate layer too. That way I can make changes easier. For this pic I put the tablecloth pattern on its own layer. I got really fancy & adjusted the perspective on it too.

Next comes shading. Usually with a soft brush tool, black, 10% opacity…

Then I add in the highlights. I also put the border around the thought bubble on this layer.

Sometimes as a final touch I’ll flatten the image (to 1 glorious layer) and punch up the color under image, adjust, curves,input: 45, output: 55.

Tah dah! So do you have any tips or tricks you want to share with me?