We'd Rather be Fishing

Check out the Ripple Sketch blog for a great way to help the Gulf clean up efforts. Illustrators from all over the world are donating marine life themed art to raise money for restoration. Here's the piece I posted which sold only a few hours after being posted!

Some new-ish sketches on a long day

It has been a freaking long day. After getting the Sprout down for her nap, I'd hoped to have an afternoon of sketching on some projects and maybe, maybe, even getting to work on my new story idea. After all the submission deadline for my regional SCBWI conference is fast approaching and this year I intend to have my dummy critiqued by an editor as well as an art director. So with baby quiet and Morning Edition streaming I looked forward to a few hours of creative combustion. Then the phone started ringing with calls and e-mails about projects that, well, I'm not that excited about but frankly the money's good. So there went my nice afternoon of sketching. So throw in baby Sprout being cranky after her nap and a contractor working on our new deck being ornery and I'm now sitting here sipping white zin, scanning in what sketches I did get done and saying thank goodness its 10pm. At any rate to cheer myself up I thought I'd post some sketches from the new story idea (not the ones I didn't get to today obviously) these were done over the last few weeks. The story is Nothing All Day, about a little boy (played by a mouse with attitude here) who is having, well, kind of a crappy day also.

Illustration Friday - Trail

Trail of Happiness
My first illustration Friday post in a while.... definitely the first since The Great Hard Drive Meltdown of 2010.

packin' up and movin' up

Ok this time I'm not even going to come up with some witty story to explain why I haven't kept up with posting. Instead I'll just say 2 kids, plus one house for sale, divided by one house sold, multiplied by one move to a fabulous new house. You do the math. At any rate in my last post I explained how we were about to put our house on the market. . . and now badda bing badda boom. . . we are 7 days away from closing on the old and moving into the new. As I have referenced many times I love love love my studio here so I am more than a little sad to be leaving it, however I am focusing on the walk-closets and extra 1000 square feet my kids to get to "decorate" in the new house.

To give an update on my New Year's resolutions.... I have, in fact, started another book based on a conversation the Small Fry and I have on a regular basis. The title at the moment is Nothing All Day. I'll post sketches shortly (read: after moving). A few other illustrators and I have formed an online critique group and its been a great inspiration.

On becoming more loose with my work - still working on this one, but I have been enjoying being loose with the sketches for Nothing. My deadline is early August so that I can get it into the critique sessions for the SCBWI Midsouth conference. Having to get 30 spreads sketched out in 3 months on top of work (and did I mention moving?) means I don't have time to get jammed up drawing each and every hair on my characters' heads.

As for an update on Zoo in the Tub, the word from my recent communication with the publisher is that it is "still under consideration." Okaaayyyyy. I'm going to take that as good news. I have actually gotten very positive feedback from the other pubs I submitted it to, which while not an acceptance, is better than a form rejection letter photocopied crookedly on a piece of scrap paper and I have had my share of those many years ago. Most of the other editors wrote that they thought it was funny though just not quite right for them - basically the equivalent of you telling your girlfriend that you love her outfit but thinking I could never get away with wearing that myself. Oh well, there is a publisher out there somewhere that does dress in my taste.

To sign off here's a couple of sketches from Nothing All Day. For no other reason than animals are easier to draw than people, these characters are mice. I've been reading the Fry and the Sprout a spate of mouse-populated books and noticed that their (the mice, not my children) facial structures and very similar to people's. Enjoy:

Bad blogger rings in 2010

Wow its been a long time since I wrote... that's actually really funny to me because I write posts in my mind all the time but just never make it from daydreaming in the tub to sitting at the keyboard. Or let me clarify, actually sitting at the keyboard doing something other than work (and surf Facebook, we must have our priorities.) At any rate the reason(s) for my 2 month absence are because my schedule for the last 2 months looked something like this:
Plan Small Fry's birthday party
Meet 2 deadlines
Plan the Sprout's FIRST birthday party
Meet 3 deadlines
Celebrate Christmas
Meet 2 more deadlines
oh, and did I mention we are planning to sell our house this year so that involves painting, cleaning, packing, calling realtors, more cleaning, fixing, planning, more packing, and yet even more cleaning. And our house isn't even listed yet, that's next week. I can hardly wait.

So not being one to make lists only about my headaches/reasons-I-can't-find-time-to-blog, I will share with you my list of resolutions for 2010. If you've been reading a while you will remember that New Year's is actually a big deal for me, as I wrote earlier. Here goes in no particular order:
1. Create another picture book to send out (somehow after doing one I decided I could do it again.) I haven't hard back from all of the places it was sent from my last post, but I did hear back from one - it was a personal rejection. Which in the world of publishing is actually a good thing. The editor complimented the story and thought it was funny, just not right for their house. But that is sooo much better than the crooked photocopy form letter. Yes I have gotten some of those too, but not for Zoo in the Tub. (One final note on my submissions, several folks have asked in real life if I've "heard anything." Honestly I'm trying to not think about it or talk about it too much. I'm superstitious enough to believe in jinxing oneself.)

2. Work on loosening up my work. Starting last year I really worked on not trying to make every finger on every hand of every child perfect. Sometimes I will get in a groove and the next thing you know I've been slaving over a square quarter-inch of an illustration for 20 minutes. It really puts a cramp in my hand let me tell you, and I don't think my work is better for it. So I want to put more fluidity (is that a word?), more energy, more life into my pieces this year.

3. Work on some licensing ideas. I toss ideas around in my head (more daydreaming in the tub) and I see posts go by on the various online illustrator groups I'm part of but I never do anything with them. Of course that is largely due to time and my lack of it. One of these days my kids will be in school 5 days a week and, when they are here, able to entertain themselves without my constant supervision or participation. While others refer to this as "that sad time when I knew my kids were growing up and didn't need me anymore" I like to refer to it as heaven.

4. Finally, lose 10 pounds. Ok cheesy and cliche I know.... but c'mon, i have two kids worth of baby weight hanging around. There I said it out loud and I think 10 is a realistic goal... surely in 12 months I can lose 10 freakin' pounds.

So thats it. We'll see how I do with this (especially the weight thing) when the stress of more deadlines and moving kicks in in a few months. But for the time being I'm going to sign off, go eat my vegetarian lasagna and take my sketchbook to bed. Happy 2010 ya'll.

The finals for my dummy

The white 9 x 12 envelope was neatly laid out on my drawing table. Already inside was the painstakingly brief and witty cover letter and dreaded SASE. Finally, last Wednesday, I slipped inside the copies of my three finished illustrations, sealed it up, mentally muttered a small prayer and threw it in the passenger seat for the drive to the post office. After a whole month of work devoted to doing my best possible work ever for these images, I was amazed at how long the last hour of preparing them to mail took.

Of course I checked to make sure everything was inside about 216 times before I actually sealed it up.

So here they are, the three images, in consecutive order as they appear in Zoo in the Tub. It's the story of a boy who doesn't really want to take a bath. Joined by his basset hound, he lets his imagination get away with him and is visited by an ever growing gang of animals. But is it really his imagination that's doing all the splashing? (so please make the splash sounds as loud as you possibly can)

What does it sound like when four flamingos flop in the tub?


flip-a-ti-plash plip-a-ti-FLOSH!
plip-a-tiFLISH flip-a-TA-PLOOSH!


What does it sound like when five bison barge into the tub?


. . . . . . . . . .
If you want to see what happens next then make your own splash in the comments

a good reason to be busy

Just posting this update because I'm about to be working hard for the next few weeks: While at the SCBWI Southern Breeze Conference this weekend in Birmingham a representative from Eedrman's Books for Young People expressed interest in my dummy and suggested I work up some finals and submit to them. Sooo I'll be spending the next few weeks knocking out some awesome final illustrations to send away with it. Wish me luck!