The Website and Portfolio of Children's Book Illustrator Jeffrey Brian Fisher of Baltimore Maryland.

New Project Underway

March 11, 2007

Any returning visitor is likely disappointed to find no new drawings. Ah well, I have a good news! I have a new project underway which looks to be quite a challenge and a lot of fun.

Shortly before Christmas I received an inquiry from author David Sutherland of New Zealand. He too found my illustrations on ChildrensIllustrators.com and wondered if I was available and interested in his next project. Naturally I was very interested and in January we agreed on the details.

Since the project is David's I will not reveal the details, though perhaps I'll be able to post a few things here and there as we go. I can at least say that the book requires 20 full color pastel illustrations.

Badger Under Moonlight

December 11, 2007

My Badger illustration is completed!. After many distractions I found a few hours to complete Mr Badger and overall I'm quite happy.

I think that in the future digital illustration will have its place in my portfolio. There's no denying it can be a powerful tool for developing compositions and color palettes. However, it simply is not the same as working with paper and pastel. I could never give up the feel of pastel scribbling on paper.

Mr Badger: A Work in Progress

November 20, 2007

Mr. Badger under Moonlight is coming along nicely... for my first digital illustration. As the piece progresses I am more and more pleased with the success of my method given the limitations of the digital brushes. More or less I worked in the same way as if it were a pastel illustration, blending with layered lines and color. The result is something closer to acrylic, I think, but I don't know acrylic as well as I do pastel. As for achieving a Canson-like paper texture, I have some ideas, but don't imagine such effects will add much, if anything, to the illustration. We shall see.

The Wind in the Willows was a subconscious inspiration for Mr. Badger. However, he is actually the beginnings of a picture book story of my own in which there are badgers, instead of Badger, and they are not the main characters.

My Recent Sketches

October 30, 2007

Little Jenn is a recent sketch. October has been a busy month and I haven't had as much time to draw as I'd like. Between paying the rent by way of website design and integration and fighting Maryland's state healthcare system I've been a bit exhausted.

My drawing of Mr. Badger may be rendered digitally. I have 29 days remaining on my 30-day trial of Painter X. If I can't get the hang of it within the week then I'll stick with my loveable pastels and give it another try later on. So far I like the potential of the software. There is much that is intuitive about it, which is good, but still much more that is not, which is not good.

Update: Alice in Wonderland

October 16, 2007

Here are a few photos my wife took after much struggle with sun and wind. The first is the cover of Step Inside: Alice in Wonderland, which features A Mad Tea Party. The cover itself is a 3-dimensional scene and also happens to be my favorite illustration of the book.

This second photo is the first illustration of the book. Down the rabbit-hole into Wonderland. Look closely and you can see the White Rabbit's house through the windows. Every scene in the book is composed of four die-cut layers to acheive the 3D effect.

Alice is Published!

September 29, 2007

My copies of Step Inside: Alice in Wonderland arrived from Fernleigh Books just last week (U.K. version). I was especially pleased with the die cuts of the 4 layers that create this "magic 3-dimensional classic story world". When will the books be available to order online? Good question. It is still hopeful that the book will be available in the U.S. by the Spring, if not sooner.

ISBN: 9781905212781

My wife has plans to photograph a few pages so you can get the idea of what the book is like. I'll will post them as soon as I can.

Here, again is John Moulder's note to me regarding the plans for Alice.

"We will launch ALICE in UK and Australia this Fall. We plan Brazil, Spanish and French already for 2008. In the US, Sterling are continuing with the series so will probably also be in for ALICE in 2008 and the mini version is causing quite a stir too so we will keep you informed on all fronts."

John also happened to mention, "we now have 19 languages running on this series from Russian to Estonian."