Baffling a Bully

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Laura Tallardy

I had a fun time working on this illustration for Brandon Reese at Guide Magazine.

Addi is a shy girl with a problem- she’s got a bully. Teased away from her favorite hair clips, she decides to try a new shorter style. She knows the bully will tease her anyway, but Addi has a secret weapon this time…

Two of the sketches I submitted, one focuses on the bullies and the other on Addy.  I had to work with the perspective a bit after this sketch to make everything proportional.

For the record, I think it’s a cute style!  I sported a similar one a few years ago:

I love the way the grass came out in this illustration- it took a lot of fussing and a lot of different textures, but I love how summery it looks! I’d definitely have a picnic on it.

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Sophie the Sweetheart

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Laura Tallardy

Kisses! The last Sophie book for you.
Before we get to the story: this was my favorite cover to work on. Kittens and love! I wanted them to publish every single sketch I came up with:

So cute!
OK, to the story!

Sophie, throughout all of her adventures, has decided maybe it’s time to be something different- a sweetheart.

Not only will she make her teachers fall in love and get married-

but she’ll be a lovely person to everyone she comes across.

But things don’t work out quite right and she drives her two frenimies apart :(

It gets bad. This just got real.

Thankfully everyone soon returns to normal…

Despite Sophie’s master matchmaking plan ending in disaster.


That’s all the Sophies! Thanks for reading along and checking out the art. I had a wonderful time working on the series with Tim Hall and the Sophie team at Scholastic, and an especially great time illustrating Lara Bergen's manuscripts. She’s a clever and fun writer, and her work was a joy to read and illustrate.

Attention Sophie fans! I’ve set up a webpage just for the Sophie Series with the official game, illustrations, links to blog posts by myself and the author, and a portal to buy the books from Amazon.  Click here to see everything Sophie all in one place!

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Sophie the Daredevil

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Laura Tallardy

Sophie’s taking it to the next level.

Dares.
Double dog dares.

Victory is sweet for Sophie (she’s holding a bit of toilet paper from the boys room there… GROSS!).

While at their friend’s pool party (yay pool party!)…

A dare by Sophie’s nemesis Mindy goes too far.

She’s not really into it, but what is she, a chicken?  No way!

But it’s such a terrible awful dare and Sophie feels terrible and awful.

OH GEEZ HOW WILL IT END?!

Buy it and find out :)
$5 on Amazon
Oh my gosh guys- only one more Sophie left!!

PS: I didn’t see this until photographing the book but check out the awesome Kitty Corner books on the back page!  With Tiptoe the kitten on the back cover!  Well played, Scholastic.

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Posted in Books, Publicity, Sketchbook, Sophie Series | 1 Comment

Sketchbook – Girls

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Laura Tallardy

Happy secret leap year day!

Here are some fun sketches I found in my sketchbook that aren’t really connected to a specific project.  Please enjoy these girls with kittens, guitars, ipods and a picture of myself being grumpy in my grumpy chair.  Also apparently Sailor Moon is a thing again?  Awesome! Sailor Moon got me enamored with all this art and painting stuff, so that’s exciting for me.

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Sophie the Snoop

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Laura Tallardy

I think this book cover won the popular choice award for Tiptoe’s little hat and pipe! He really steals the spotlight, no matter how cute I tried to make Sophie. Kittens always win.

After solving the mystery of her stolen life savings in the previous book, Sophie decides she would be an excellent detective.


She hunts for mysteries to solve all day at school, real or imagined…

But her sassy shenanigans land her in the principal’s office- sigh.

SIGH.

After a particularly frustrating art class,

Sophie decides to make a hand-made amends for the trouble she caused.

But things never end so easily.

You can pick up a copy of this fun story for $5 on Amazon.

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Posted in Books, Publicity, Sketchbook, Sophie Series | 1 Comment

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Laura Tallardy

Happy New Year web surfers!
Also, happy 17th birthday to my website! It launched officially Jan. 1, 1995- if it were a teenager, it could drive by now. Mazel tov! In celebration, I’m moving from my old web design to be 100% on illobook. Super cool.

I’ve been hard at work this fall on a new set of illustrations, painted completely digitally instead of halfsies. I’ve been working extensively on the ipad app Brushes ($8, itunes store) and it’s a wonderful painting program. I’ve fiddled with lots of styluses (styli?) and settled on the Boxwave stylus ($10, amazon). It does wear out after about a month of heavy use and I need to order frequent replacements, but it’s the best as far as response and feel. The NOMAD brush ($25, website) is pretty cool and surprisingly responsive, but it’s very fluffy- take a clean dry sumo brush and run it across a pane of glass- no friction at all. I prefer scrubbing at the canvas with the little boxwave.

Here are some paintings zapped from the ipad:

Thanks as always for reading and checking out my art!
Hope you all have a wonderful, healthy and prosperous new year.
xo,
Laura

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Posted in Sketchbook, iPad Paintings | 1 Comment

Sophie Sophie Everywhere

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Laura Tallardy

Hey everyone!  Sorry for the summer vacation radio silence.  So far I got married and then there was an earthquake and hurricane.  The tornado warning got called off, so we’re almost back to normal.

I’ve got some great stuff to share in the upcoming weeks, including some new books and really cool digital paintings.

For now though, check out this awesome Sophie the Daredevil photo snapped by my sister from her grocery store- next to Nancy Drew even!

Thanks Erin! :)

Back soon with more!

xo, Laura

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Posted in Books, Publicity, Sophie Series | 4 Comments

iPad paintings part 2: dramatic lighting!

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Laura Tallardy

Hey everyone! I’ve been buried under this spring’s Artageddon- 4 projects all came together to be due in April, so I’m on the tail end of a 124-picture drawing marathon (8 more to go!!)

I can’t show any of the stuff until this summer and beyond, so please enjoy these ipad paintings in the meantime :) I really enjoy using the Brushes app- it forces you to use color in a way I’m not really used to, but it’s fun planning out pictures in a different way.

Fun with dark colors:

Looking down fire escapes at night

I got some stuff in my eye the other night and my computer screen looked all fuzzy and cool.

Someone's staying up late

One more doodle with a bonus video!

Bonus video!

Back soon with more art! :)

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Posted in Sketchbook, iPad Paintings | 7 Comments

Sophie the Zillionaire

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Laura Tallardy

Lucky number four in the Sophie Series is Sophie the Zillionaire! Sophie reminds me of me in this book… I had some businesses when I was a kid to raise money for who knows what- but I clearly remember my business cards, briefcase from my brother’s room, and extensive advertising campaigns. It’s hard being a kid sometimes.


So check this out- Sophie decides she’s going to be fabulously rich after finding a $50 bill on the street.


She tries out all sorts of ways to make money, including selling deliciously expensive cookies, working the classroom coat check, and doing homework-for-hire.


Of course things don’t go all to plan- when do they ever? In the end, there’s just too much mystery and intrigue… this calls for the one and only…


SOPHIE THE SNOOP! stay tuned for the next installment!

PS to the Sophie fans: I just finished designing the Sophie Series author Lara Bergen’s website! It’s super cool- you can find out more about Lara and her awesome books :) here’s the link: http://www.larabergen.com

PPS: Did I link to the Sophie game on Scholastic’s website yet? Here it is if I missed it!

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Posted in Books, Publicity, Sophie Series | 5 Comments

Art Tech Review: Bento

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Laura Tallardy
Welcome to the first in a new series of articles: Art Tech!  With Art Tech, I’ll share reviews for software and other computer goodies I use as an illustrator that you might find helpful in your own digital conquests.
First up in time for freelancers’ tax prep time: Bento!
Bento is a wonderful piece of software from the same company that produces the heavy-duty database software Filemaker.  Bento is a light on its feet, easy to use little piece of software that should be on every artist’s computer.  It isn’t tax software- but it’ll help you get and stay organized throughout the year, so tallying up at the end of the year is a snap.  If you have piles of receipts to go through at the end of the year, you’re gonna love this.
Even if you’re not computer savvy, Bento makes it easy to create, modify and maintain databases for illustration jobs, client information, income, expenses, invoices, and anything else you would need.  The design is very intuitive- it’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get, and it takes no time to get up and running.
My main job database stores all the information I need to know about any given project- due dates, publish dates, fees, job numbers, client information, notes- and here’s the great part- images and files too.  Every entry can also store a copy of the final art, the contract, and the invoice PDFs, and it’s all in one spot for easy referencing later- no digging through notes and emails trying to find old information.
I also have databases to keep track my income and expenses.  My expenses database is great- for each expense entry, I can store the date, the price, how I paid for it, what kind of expense it was, the vendor and a description.  I can’t believe I used to write this all out in a notebook and computerize it at the end of the year.

click to enlarge

My mailing list database is the most mammoth of them all.  I’m able to store tons of information about regular and potential clients- their companies, the type of company, their contact information, special submission requirements, correspondence, and which promotions I’ve sent them.  It would be utterly impossible to keep this kind of thing on paper, and the search function is lightening fast so finding things is a breeze.
Exporting to spreadsheets and csv files are a snap, so you can open and work with the data in Excel or Google Docs.  You can also import spreadsheets or even old Filemaker data. Bento also has apps for the iPhone and iPad that will sync with your main computer’s databases- you can Bento on the go.
Bento 3 costs a modest $50, and is well worth the price- it paid for itself for me within the first week.  When I first set up my jobs database on Bento, I realized I was missing some information- like the dates I was paid on several jobs.  It turned out I had never gotten paid.  Thankfully I was able to get the checks in the end, but I would have completely overlooked them if it weren’t for Bento <3  Needless to say I haven’t missed an invoice since.
Bento 3 is available from Amazon.com or whatever you buy software in a store, if you’re the type who buys software in stores.  You can also download a free trial here to try it out.
I’ve uploaded the Bento database templates above (with a couple others in there for good luck) so you can try them out on your own.  You can download them by clicking here (2mb download).
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Posted in Art Tech | 6 Comments