Happy Valentine's Illustration

In celebration of Valentine's Day weekend, here's the creative process behind an illustration I completed last Fall for a story in Sparkle magazine.

Final Illustration: 

Valentine's Day Illustration by Cheryl Kugler for Sparkle magazine.
Gouache and colored pencil on paper. 

Thumbnail Sketch:

Thumbnail sketch.

Sketch:

Sketch.

Painting:

Painting and colored pencil.

Finishing the illustration:

Finishing the illustration.

Close up:

Close up.

Published:

Published in Sparkle magazine.

Have a happy Valentine's day! Thanks for stopping by.

5-Day Artwork Challenge - DAY 3

Hello Everyone! Today is DAY 3 of the 5-Day Facebook Art Challenge. (But, why should Facebook have all of the fun?  That's why I'm posting it here too!) A warm thank you to Debbie Lamey Macdonald, a Nova Scotia artist, for nominating me.

Today I am posting samples of illustrations I have created for a national children’s magazine, Sparkle – a publication of GEMS Girls Clubs. It is an inspiring, spiritual and sweet publication aimed at young girls ages 6-10. I always enjoy receiving the story text from the publication designer along with thoughtful direction from her and then figuring out a composition that will depict an important event in the story.

Today I am nominating Marie LeVan Lick to participate in the artist challenge. She is an incredibly talented chocolate artist and owner of Two-Nuts Confections. Her creative and delectable confections are amazing!

"Hiking in the Dark"/Sparkle Magazine Illustration

A new illustration for Sparkle magazine - now completed!

The challenges:

* Nighttime
* Depth of field

The Final Illustration:



The Thumbnail:



The Sketch:


If you enjoyed this post, please check out previous posts of Sparkle Magazine illustration:
* A Change of Heart
* Watercolor Walls

Thanks for stopping by!

SKETCHES for Sparkle Magazine - "Too Much!"

Here are sketches for my next assignment for Sparkle Magazine about a little girl who gets overwhelmed (ie., "Too Much!"). They are rough enough to help me figure out how the characters will flow in the composition space, and some details to help me see expressions and emotions I want to convey.

The story GEMS Girl's Club gave me was packed with activity and scenes, so it was difficult to narrow down the focus to three scenarios that would be enough to complement the story.





I actually had hubby lean over and pretend he was hugging someone so that I could get the angle correct for the Dad's back in this last sketch! He was a perfect model. ;) A few dabs of color at the bottom as I consider pallette choices.



Next phase will be adding color. Stop back to see the final version!

The last illustration I created for Sparkle Magazine was all about cupcakes! You can see it here: Cupcakes

Cupcakes! - New Sparkle Illustrations

I'm excited to post a few illustrations I recently completed for Sparkle, a magazine for GEMS Girl's Club.

These two illustrations will appear in the October 2009 issue:

And this illustration will appear along with the Sparkle mission statement on the back cover of the magazine for one year:

I have so much fun creating the illustrations for this magazine. Their stories have really helped me in developing girl characters in my artwork. I've always got to think about how to create the emotion in the character's faces and body language; and make sure that the clothing is fashionable with the young gals.

I'll be posting a few more in upcoming blog posts. Thanks for stopping by!

Girls Club Mission Illustration

This is a fun illustration that I just completed for the back of a girl's club magazine - Sparkle. It reflects the mission statement of the organization: "Teaching young girls to become world changers." My cat wiggled his way into this drawing - his long tail and all! *meow*~