Imaginary Animals – paintings by Karen Little
Several years ago I fell in love with the teachings of Carla Sonheim who wrote the book “Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals: A Mixed-Media Workshop with Carla Sonheim.”
Carla is a very imaginative and happy artist and teacher who inspires others on her website, Carla Sonheim Presents, (www.carlasonheim.com). Her subject specialty is fantasy.
I’m revisiting the techniques I learned from her with the idea that someday I might lead drawing classes to residents of my home community. Right now, however, I’m just having fun painting the Spirit Animals I see in rock, concrete, leaves, and other piles of stuff.
The most recent paintings are shown on top.
Concept Art
Concept art, when integrated into a serious project, takes a great deal of planning and skill. At the level you see in my article, creating imaginary creatures is fun and a good way to expand your imagination.
If, however, you wanted to elevate your illustrations into children’s books, games, or other types of professional reproduction, follow the advice provided here:
- Sketching for Concept Art with Donald Yatomi, a video tutorial published by Craftsy.
- The Art of the Picture Book by Shadra Strickland, a video tutorial published by Craftsy.
- Shadra Strickland’s YouTube Channel
- Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals: A Mixed-Media Workshop with Carla Sonheim, a book.
- Search phrase of “Developing Concept Art” on Google.
- Search phrase of “Concept Art Tutorials” on YouTube
- How to become a better concept artist by Donglu Yu on CreativeBlog. Note that CreativeBlog has many excellent articles on the subject.
Karen Little – info@littleviews.com
Note: All art and photos on this website are the property of Littleviews.com and Littleviews-Crafts.com and may not be reproduced in a fee-based publication without permission. Do you want to post these images in a commercial article? Request permission from Karen.
