Friday, April 08, 2011

The Odd Couple

Back in January, Jannie Ho (aka chickengirl) had her topic "Chicken" picked for Illustration Friday. There were participants all over the blogosphere who participated (me, included) in IF for the first time in months. Those of us on Twitter even changed our avatars to reflect our chicken status, and when we talked about how much fun we were having with the chicken topic, we used the #bawkbawkbawk hashtag.

This was my sketch. When I took it to finish, I decided to put what I had learned about coloring in Photoshop to use and ended up with this:
I was very happy with these two, and was inspired further to create a storyline about their friendship in the form of a mini-comic.   Time hasn't allowed me to complete and share the entire story, but I thought I'd share one of the first pages. A glimpse into the evolution of one odd couple.



Creating the hen's home was so much fun. I went a little nuts with the wallpaper, don't you think? I'm very happy with these two, even more so because this is exactly how I had pictured the piece in full color.

My husband and I have agreed that I shouldn't ask him for feedback on pieces because as he puts it, "I'm an engineer, what the heck do I know about your art?" But this time I thought he might be interested in my latest experiment. So I showed him this piece after it had been printed out for my portfolio. And you know what,  when he looked at this piece, there wasn't just encouragement and support on his face. There was real admiration and appreciation for what I had made. :)

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:54 AM

    Diandra Mae!
    love your drawings! I have a line of chickens too. LOVE dem chickens. Its so fun to read about what you are doing. I love all my artist friends on Facebook.

    Hen and Fox are adorable!!! I hope you continue to have fun with them!! Thanks for sharing!
    Leslie

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  2. what a cute story! more more more! what do they do after? what are they chatting about? why is the fox grinning so widely? ;) fun stuff.

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  3. They are really sweet with each other! I love Chicken's parlor wallpaper.

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  4. This is really cool. I love your willingness to experiment. And the story about your husband was neat to read. I think that is the most difficult part about being an artist - what our loved ones 'don't get.' Really enjoyed sharing in and reading this.

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  5. Thanks, everyone!I got some great feedback on this page at our conference this weekend. Have a few tweaks before I move forward with the rest of this story. :)

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  6. I'm so glad you extended the energy and attitude of your characters to the wallpaper. It rounds out the whole piece. Love it!

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  7. I really love this in comic form. I would buy it in a second. Keep it up! :-)

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  8. This is so cute! Great characters, colors and backgrounds. I love the chicken's hair/swirl; it made me think of Lucille Ball for a second. Then I thought that these two look like a new and way cuter Lucy and Ethel!

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Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!