Shawna J.C. Tenney's Blog

Yes, you read that right! I've finally decided to make the switch. I am going to be moving my blog directly to my website. It will be a new blog. In fact, you can see it here. It's sad to say good-bye to my old blogspot blog. We've been together for 9 years now! But it is much better nowadays to have everything on the same site.
In honor of the old blog, over the next little while, I will be moving over and revising old popular blog posts to the new blog. I will be posting every Wednesday! I will keep everything here also- at least for a while until things are really established over at the new blog. Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope to see you over at my new blog. There is an email subscribe button, and and RSS feed on the new blog, so I hope you will come on over and subscribe. 
Here is the link again for the new blog. Or go to my website: www.shawnajctenney.com, and click on the blog tab.

I recently finished the artwork for my book Brunhilda's Backwards Day. The book will be published in fall 2016 by Sky Pony Press. 
Although I can't share a lot of images from the book yet, I wanted to share a little sneak peak of Brunhilda's dress. In the story, Brunhilda wakes up one day to find things quite different than she is used to, and all she can find to wear if an annoyingly fluffy pink ballgown! Well, I just coudn't skip on the opportunity to make this dress look as ridiculously ruffly as possible. 
But then, guess what?! I had to paint the darn thing no less than 20 times in the book! And I had to adjust it all according to the lighting and mood in each picture. Yes, it was a pain. But in the end, it was all worth it. Long live the ridiculous fluffy pink ballgown! I can't wait to share the book with all of you next year!

Willow the Squirrel
Rowena the Porcupine

Greeting blog friends! Do you remember the game, Wizards of the Wild which I helped illustrate that was funded on Kickstarter back in March and April? Well, since the Kickstarter campaign reached so many stretch goals, I was able to make two new characters for the game. This time two female wizards. 
Introducing: Willow the Squirrel and Rowena the Porcupine! These characters were so fun to do, and I learned a lot while doing them.

Good day friends! Over the weekend, I once again hung out with some of my art friends to bring you another conversation about being a professional artist today. You'll notice I was not in Episode 2, as I was speaking on a panel at a local writing conference that day. But I was glad to be back, we had a great conversation.



This time we interviewed Mallory Carlson. We talked about not shying away from the things that are your weaknesses in art, because if you take the time to really work on those things, they will soon become your strengths. We talked about the challenges of taking care of our bodies and taking time to socialize and other things that are important that we sometimes neglect as artists. We also talked about where we are most inspired.



It's a great conversation to listen to while you draw today! If you like it, share it with friends!



In other news, I also need to mention that the game I helped illustrate- Wizards of the Wild was successfully funded on Kickstarter! In fact, it ended up being funded way over the original goal mark! And since the project reached so many stretch goals, I get to illustrate 2 new characters! I already have them designed and ready to color! Thanks to all the backers!

I'm happy to announce that the game, Wizards of the Wild, for which I was one of the illustrators is now funding on Kickstarter! Click here to go to the Kickstarter page!

I had the great opportunity to participate in this fun project! I illustrated the cover, the character cards and some of the magic cards. I especially loved creating the characters! I am posting the full illustrations of the characters below. Enjoy! And please come help back the game and pass the word along! I would love to see this game be published!

Greetings friends! Over the weekend, I hung out with an awesome group of artists, and we had a great discussion about our careers as artists. We started by interviewing artist Jose-Luis Segura, and then broke into a group discussion. Come and listen while you work! We hope to do more of these in the future, stay tuned!

Some sketches of a character I have been working on from my sketchbook!
In the month of December, I drew in my sketch book nearly every day. I skipped a couple weekend days and Christmas, but I was proud of the fact that I sketched nearly every day. I managed to keep it up a lot of January, but slacked off a bit near the end of the month. But I'm determined to keep going. I started this challenge because I got some feedback from Stephen Silver at CTN on my character drawings. He told me to just keep practicing and drawing my characters in motion. I haven't ever been really good about sketching in my sketch book regularly. I came to CTN with a blank sketch book with the first page cut out because my first drawing was really bad and I was embarrassed.

Trying out different mediums! Pen and Ink with Watercolor!


Sketching daily feels a lot more comfortable now, and I don't need to be embarrassed about what is in my sketch book. One thing that helped me in this was remembering that it is all just practice, which means I'm not obligated to show any one else my drawings. I have been doing my own drawings, and I have also been copying other people's character sketches for practice and study. It has been great. And I'm going to continue it this year, and I know I will get better.Join me this year, and challenge yourself to sketch more! In fact, if you want an official challenge, the #kidlitart chat community is doing a challenge to draw every day in February. Check out the details here.

Sketching on the Ipad! This one was done in the Procreate App.
To help you get motivated and inspired, here are some prompts and tools that I have been using.

First, Here are some things that help me think of what to sketch every day:- Draw your own already designed characters in different poses.
- Use Stephen Silver's Character Design Shuffle app to come up with new character ideas.
- Copy another person's character design sketches. Of course, these are for personal study, so don't post them on the web, but keep them for yourself.
-Try different mediums- pens, watercolor, markers different art apps on the Ipad etc.
- Choose a photo from Pinterest and draw it.
- Use images from the apps Posebook or Posetool for reference.
- Prompts from Sketchdailies.
- Color studies from nature in watercolor or on the Ipad.
- And of course the best idea is to just draw the things you love!

Do you all have any other ideas when it comes to sketch books? (Share in the comments below!!)

Trying some totally new mediums! This one was done with pen and Ink and Copic Markers!

Second, something that has been helpful to me, it to replenish and revive my sketching supplies. Here's a picture of some of my recently replenished supplies:



Just incase you were curious, here is my #weaponsofchoice:

I am enjoying my new sketch book! It is a Trav-e-logue Hand-Book Sketch Book , and it fits perfectly in purses, and other bags. It also has strong enough paper for watercolor washes and such! 

For sketching in my sketch book I like to use Prismacolor Col-Erase Erasable Colored Pencils , or a regular mechanical pencil with a  Kneaded Eraser. For pens I am trying out new brush pens  from Jetpens.com and Micron Pens. I have also just purchased and started trying the Copic Markers Sketching Grays set. 

I LOVE my Sakura Koi Portable Watercolor Set Sakura Koi Water Colors Field Sketch Set with a Water Brush. So nice! 

I also like to sketch on my ipad. My favorite apps are Procreate, and Sketchbook Pro. My favorite stylus so far is an Adonit Jot Pro Fine Point Stylus . I also like to use the Wacom Bamboo Stylus. 

For all my finished illustrations, I paint in Photoshop on my Yiynova MSP19U Tablet Monitor. 

Hope this helps inspire you! Happy drawing everyone!

Artwork by Shawna (that's me)!
Utah and Southern Idaho Illustrators Unite!! Mark your calendars!
Utah/ Southern Idaho SCBWI presents, our 2015 Illustrator's Conference, February 21, 2015 with art director Kristine Brogno from Chronicle Books! Other speakers will be Author/Illustrator Mark Pett (The Girl and the Bicycle), and Illustrator Guy Francis (Clark the Shark). Come join us for a day full of fun and inspiration!

Keep up to date on the Drawing Sunshine Blog: http://drawingsunshine.wordpress.com/

Also, you can register here: https://utahsouthidaho.scbwi.org/events/utah-southern-idaho-scbwi-illustrators-conference-2015/

Hurray! I participated once again in PiBoIdMo in November- 30 picture book ideas in 30 days. It was a little tricky with CTNx and Thanksgiving, but somehow I managed to come up with 31 ideas! I can guarantee that the majority of them are pretty bad ideas, but maybe there are a handful of gems in there that might become great picture books someday! I'm happy that I did it once again. I think one of my favorite things about PiBoIdMo is all the inspiring blog posts by guest bloggers on Tara Lazar's blog. They give great ideas for coming up with picture book ideas, tell about their experiences, or just give great encouragement. This is definitely going to continue to be a yearly tradition for me.

As for the month of December, I have decided to do one sketch a day. I am not good at doing daily warm up sketches, I'm really not. I think it is because I have such a limited amount of time working as a freelance illustrator and then trying to do all my mom duties as well- I guess the daily sketch usually gets pushed to the back burner. But I am going to commit to it for one month. I know December is a weird month to do it, but I was so inspired after CTN, and I just want to start now. So here I go. I am committing to sketching every day. I may or may not post sketches. Some of my sketches may be copies of what other people have done for educational purposes- so I definitely won't be posting those. I know I will probably come up with some pretty bad sketches. But the thing is, if I am sketching more, I am going to get better. So I am committing to do it today!

Happy Happy News! I just wanted to share that my book "Bruhilda's Backwards Day" will be published by Sky Pony Press in 2016!!!

Here's some more posts about Brunhilda that you might enjoy! I have been sharing much of my process on this project!

The Showcase: Will Your Personal Project Make Money? On chrisoatley.com

Picture Book Dummy Part 1- Making the Dummy Book

Picture Book Dummy Part 2- Preparing the Dummy Book to Send to Publishers

Picture Book Dummy Part 3- Sending the Dummy Book to Agents and Publishers

Painting Drama 2 at the Oatley Academy

Visual Development for Brunhilda's Story: Today Strange Plants

Today was really not going well for Brunhilda! Another Illustration for my Book!

Another Sneak Peak into my Book

"Then one night, the cat made plenty of trouble." Process to Final!

Be a Vis Dev Children's Illustrator!

Finding a House for my Characters

Designing Some Characters