The first end

So, I've finished up the quarter, and have created a finished (emphasis on the ish) book. It's really a first addition, and although the illustrations and text will stay mostly the same, I am in desperate need of a good title, and more than that, a new illustration for the title. So that's my next mission, and then onto create less of a picture book and more of an animal fact book.

Here are a few of my favorite layouts from the book.






This last image is the cover, as is ... blah.

Z is for Zoanthid

TWENTY SIX LETTERS COMPLETED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If only that was the end of it .... now for the not as fun but very necessary tasks:
-Create a cover illustration
-layout page size and placement for alphabet book
-insert text by Phil!
-scan all of my sketches in ... oi vey
-layout all sketches and explanations in a process book
-package files and take to printers
-take printed documents to get bound
-make a presentation
-present Tuesday morning
-SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Y is for Yellow Pine Chipmunk

Flora: Douglas fir, Pacific Dogwood, Common Snowberry, Arrowleaf Balsam Root, and Pinemat Manzanita

X is for Xantus's Murrelet

W is for Western Painted Lady

Flowers: Musk Thistle, Mountain Globemallow, Leafy Aster, Cutleaved Coneflower, Engelmann Aster

Exciting Developments

So, with a week left of class ....... I'm needing to put some content in with the alphabet illustrations to make it a complete book. With the help of my blog, and supportive friends and family, Phil has volunteered his time, skills and energy to help me with the narration of the book!

I'm really excited that he's going to be on board with this process, because he has some great ideas. One of which was transforming a simple alphabet book into sort of a childrens field guide to all of these animals! I love love love this idea, but it's going to take more work than the rest of this quarter will allow, so the process will continue into next quarter, but with both of our enthusiasm on the topics, I think it will be a quick amount of time well spent.

Here is some of what he's come up with, and what I'm about to share with my teacher for feedback, so we'll see where it goes by this afternoon!

This content will be for the simple version of the alphabet book

Pileated Woodpeckers find ants, their favorite food, in tree trunks. They make large rectangular holes in trees with their beak.

Each female Chinook Salmon lays thousands of eggs in gravel at river beds. Their nest is called a redd.

Hummingbirds are very small birds that are able to hover and fly forwards or backwards.

Mountain Goats can climb steep rock faces because of the rubber-like bottom of their hooves.

Jellyfish have two body types that alternate each generation. This means that jellyfish parents will look very different than their children, but the children will look just like their grandparents.

This content will be for the field guide version

Chinook Salmon (King Salmon)

Main Fact: Each female Chinook Salmon lays thousands of eggs in gravel at river beds. Their nest is called a redd.
Where in Washington? The best place to see Chinook Salmon is in one of Washington’s fish hatcheries. In Fall, adult Chinook Salmon can be found in rivers and streams that connect to Puget Sound and the Ocean. Issaquah, Washington has a festival called Salmon Days on the first full weekend of October.
Life Cycle: Salmon eggs are small and red-orange. Baby salmon called fry hatch in the rivers and streams of Washington in spring and are smaller than a dime. The fry take about a year to grow into a larger version of salmon called smolts. The smolts travel down their streams and rivers to Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean. Once the smolts reach salt-water they quickly become adult salmon. Adult Chinook salmon can be as large as a small adult human in weight and length. After about 3-4 years in salt-water, the adult salmon return to the same river or stream they were born in. The adult salmon stop eating once they enter freshwater, where they find a mate and make a redd of eggs. After the adult salmon make a redd they die.
Save the Salmon! Humans affect the number of salmon in many ways. Dams slow the flow of water and can stop the salmon from returning home. Some fishing is okay, but too much will mean not enough salmon for the future. We change the natural home of salmon when we cut down trees or build close to rivers and streams. The best place for a redd is in a clear river or stream, building and cutting down trees near a river or stream will make it too muddy for the salmon eggs.

V is for Veery

Vegetation: Black Cottonwood tree, Arrowleaf Groundsel, Timber Sedge, Dewey's Sedge

T is for Western Tiger Swallowtail

U is for Sea Urchin

S is for Screech Owl

Riparian Vegetation: Timber Sedge, Tender Sedge, Pendulous Sedge, Arrowleaf Groundsel, Heartleaved Bittercress, Explorer's Gentian, Mountain Globemallow

P is for Pileated Woodpecker

M is for Mountain Goat

Teeny tiny mountain flowers included: Comb Draba, Red Mountain-Heather, and Spreading Phlox.

O is for River Otter

N is for ...

N is for Never drawing a Northern Goshawk again. The computer drawing alone took me 12 hours, aka all freaking day. Thank goodness it looks how I wanted it to, otherwise I may have been in meltdown mode.

L is for Lynx

Plants included: Ponderosa pine, Hood's Sedge, Foothill Sedge, Heartleaf Arnica, Blue Anemone, and Redwood Sorrel

Half Way There

J is for Jellyfish

This is the Aequorea Victoria Jellyfish from Puget Sound from which a fluorescent protein has been extracted and cloned to use in human technology (BIOMIMICRY!! Which is what my senior thesis was about).

K is for King Snake

I is for Isopod

Isopod's live in the waters of the Puget Sound, while they feed on Phyllospadix.

I can't decided if there should be some sort of water/blue color behind it ... whaddya think?

G is for Gray Wolf

Let's Talk About It

So, I love this project. I'm so excited to be doing it for so many reasons. The main reason is that I've been wanting to spend more time drawing for a while now, and I'm finally doing it (it's basically all I'm doing!) And more than just drawing, my drawings are turning out AWESOME! I don't really even care if I'm being cocky, because, like I said, I love this project, and what makes it even better is that I'm so proud of it.

In addition to just being able to draw, I can see my drawing skills improving, and what I imagine in my head is actually showing up on paper, rather than a jumble of awkward lines that don't quite make up the shape I thought they would. Now, the thing that's not coming to me clearly is the words to express everything else I love about this project, it could get messy.

I love drawing nature, I love finding the shapes that make up each petal and branch, and fluff of fur or feather; I love picking out the colors, there's just an infinite amount of possibilities; I love that each letter is made up of plants, and holds no real defined outline, and I love fitting all the plants in to make up that composition, it's like a puzzle, and I love puzzles; I love drawing in pencil, then going to the computer to fill in all the colors ... I just LOVE THIS.

The only thing I don't love is how much I'm having to rush, I wish I had more time because I want this project to turn out perfect. Getting the letters done are not the problem, those will be finished by the end of the quarter, but I want to create a book, and one that highlights the images and that works together, image and text, flawlessly. I also want to create a second book, with the process of the whole ordeal, research, inspiration, sketches, and i want that to fit in with the 1st book, and look good, not just a binder of sketches, which is what I drag around with me right now.

Yes, I could work on it more next quarter, but I'm also going to be working my butt off once again to work on 6 new portfolio pieces for graduation. Ugh, anyways, enough talking, more drawing! G is on the drawing board!

H is for Hummingbird

To my mom, the bird lover :)




Flowers: Lowbush Penstemon, Wild Blue Fax, Yellow Pea, and Few Flowered Shooting Star

B is for Black Bear

This one still needs a bit of work ... but seeing as it's 5 in the morning, I'm just going to call this done for now and I'll edit it when all my letters are in their final stages. Off to get my 40 winks.

A is for Alpine Grasshopper

This time I'll share a little before and after, the first image is what the illustration looks like once it's traced by hand on the computer, and looks similar to my pencil on paper sketch, only cleaner. The sketching part took me about 10 hours.

The second image is the final, colored in letter, and coloring this one in took me about an hour and a half.

R is for Rainbow Trout

C is for Chinook Salmon

E is for Eight spotted skimmer

Just trying to move right along in the alphabet, my goal is to at least have all my sketches for letters done by next Tuesday for class, and at least half the computer drawings done. Goodbye sleep.

Also, if you're looking at this and you have a comment to make about it, clarity/color/whatever ... feel free to leave it below!

Edit The eight spotted skimmer can be found near weedy lakes and ponds and low elevations. The flowers and leaves within this illustration are the water plantain, the arrowhead, the Indian pond lily and the water buttercup.

Q is for Quail

First Post :o

Hello,

I suppose you're here in search of some information on my senior project this quarter. Well here it goes:

This quarter I'm working on a children's alphabet book; the content of the book is going to be a fun and visual and centered around the different critters that inhabit the Olympic National Park in Washington state. Each letter in the alphabet will represent a different critter, and each critter will be placed within it's letter, which is made up of the habitat the critter lives in.

This blog will mostly show images from my project, and progress, BUT I'm also hoping that this project leads to an actual published circulating popular book ... so we shall see.

Here's what I've got so far.

D is for Deer Mouse






F is for Pacific Chorus Frog