Global Talent Search Round 2!

I woke up that Tuesday morning a few weeks ago to see that I made the top 50 of
999 amazing artists in Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search! Wow...I'm in a group of outstanding artists!
The assignment for this round was to create a personified animal character for a young child's t shirt.
Uh Oh, this isn't the thing that I normally do or am the most comfortable with. I had lots of ideas and only
2 1/2 days to do it in before I left for a vacation with my Mom. I started right away just quickly
painting a few ideas.

It seemed like a good start so I started playing putting them into t shirt shapes to see how they would look.

Hmm, looking back now If I had more time I would have explored these options more.
I may have tightened up a bit too much because of time constraints. But at the time I really
wanted to show great deal of detail and thought on the animals face and gestures. You know
its so easy to 2nd guess yourself in a high fraught competition like this. (and in my experience in
a real life situation, a job, there is feedback on sketches from the art director so its not so blindly
done, so this is extra hairy!)  On the final version I wanted to show the lioness in a different position
so she is playing guitar on a vintage tin lunchbox and I also wanted to show a cute little girl wearing
the shirt. It would knock my socks off to get into the next round of 6 finalists but if not I've learned
so much and come such a long way that I'm going to be happy either way. (after a good cry!!)
Best xoxo Jennifer

Global Talent Search

The last 2 weeks I've been so absorbed in my entry to
the #globaltalent search. We had to design a 5x7"journal
cover with the theme vintage playground and the word
journal in there. The winner gets 2 years representation
by the amazing Lilla Rogers and a whole slew of licensing
deals. It's stiff competition, I've seen lots of the entry's and
there is some really  amazing work out there. I don't know how
many entrants but it could be thousands.. I would drop dead with joy
if I won, but right now I'd be blown over by just making the
the first cut which is the top 50 pieces. It's a long shot but if
you don't try you can't win...
I played with a few versions before I landed with the chalkboard
version which I submitted..
I started with pencil sketches, I knew I wanted to paint the icons
goauche and play with them in photoshop. I began designing a scene
but I just wasn't happy with it, It felt fussy and somewhat off.
especially as I added more icons.

Looking back now, I could have stopped here on the
scenic one but I was set on having the moms on the bench
in there and it just didn't work well with this layout.

I put this little sketch on the submission page. I remember my son doing this!
I'm looking forward to August 1st when we see the final 50!