My epilogue to Davis-Kidd

So as snow swirls down outside pretty much guaranteeing that tomorrow I'll be coasting on a cookie sheet down the backyard with my kids instead of working come Monday morning I thought I would share a couple of neat nuggets with the blog. I will get to my Davis-Kidd story but first, a sample of a book I worked on this summer:

This was a little board/activity book for Lifeway's Big Apple Adventure. It was illustrations over photographs - similar in design to Mo Willem's Knuffle Bunny books. In order to get the illustrations lined up, I sketched them out on tracing paper, scanned the sketches in, placed them over the photos in Photoshop, then zoomed way in to make sure they really were lined up and adjusted as needed. When it was time to do the finish, instead of using my usual pencil line, I used a very fine Sharpie to outline each character. The solid black line gave each illustration a more seamless look when placed over the photos. Needless to say there was a lot more process involved in these than in my usual illustration style but it was a pretty fun challenge. Since I didn't have to worry about a background I got to spend more time on the characters.... and even decided to draw a few of my friends into the illustrations! Here are some interior spreads:



The back and front cover spread:

Look for it in the spring at all Lifeway Stores!

So here it is: I have my own little ending to Nashville's sob story about the closing of Davis-Kidd Booksellers. Twelve years ago, shortly after making the leap to freelancing, I was invited to submit designs for the tenth anniversary poster for Tennessee's Southern Festival of Books. Happily my illustration and design were chosen and I went on to create several marketing materials for the festival. At the time Davis-Kidd was a sponsor of the festival and afterward, a framed print of the poster was hung in the children's area of the bookstore. When DK moved to the Mall at Green Hills the poster was hung downstairs near the TPAC box office desk. Even though I think my work has gotten better since doing the illustration, I always smiled to myself when I saw it hanging there. So when word came that Davis-Kidd was closing its doors I anxiously asked a clerk what would happen to the poster. He told me to put my name on a list of people who were interested in buying store fixtures.... and to write down what I was interested in. A few weeks later I got a call that all store fixtures were going on sale. In 25 degree weather, with rain falling, and a just woken up Baby Sprout, I rushed to the store to see if my poster was still there.

It was..... and it had a price tag on it of a hundred bucks!

Now with a rational mind I can see that the framing alone was worth at least $100.... but at the time I was a little taken aback (and slightly flattered). They thought my poster was worth $100! Wait a minute.... I was going to have to pay $100 to get my "own" work back! I hemmed and hawed, called Jim Dear who told me if I didn't buy it I would always wonder what happened to it. He was right. So hundred dollars lighter, the Sprout, the stroller, the poster, and I made our way out of a crowded Green Hills Christmas shopping parking lot.... and home to pick out a new display space. Davis-Kidd may be gone but I'm glad I have my own little bit of the store hanging in my library.

The Sherpa Mommy

How can you tell if you are seeing a real live Sherpa Mommy? Sherpa Mommies are known for their extraordinary ability to carry an entire afternoon's worth of errands in their arms at one time. Click on the chart below to see the characteristics of the Sherpa Mommy in her natural habitat.



p.s. I also thought this would be pretty appropriate for this week's Illustration Friday theme, transportation.

The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia

Today I'm giving a shout out to fellow illustrator and SCBWI-er, Elizabeth Dulemba, on the release of her latest book The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia, written by Susan Rossen Spain, published by Sterling Books. The art looks really yummy. Sterling is publishing a Twelve Days for each state and personally I'm glad they picked a couple of Southerners to do Georgia's. Elizabeth is a whiz at on-line promotion and has lined up a maze of blogs, activities, promotions and tours to get the word out! The actual release date is Tuesday October 5th so with E's fab self promotion we can all expect to see this book's release in the news crawl on CNN by Thursday.

On a more serious note, it's about time for me to begin my annual holiday drum beat of GO BUY BOOKS! With 2 kid's birthdays and Christmas in the next 3 months our family can almost singlehandedly support the reading industry. Almost. The rest of you need to do your part too...... and take my recommendation of The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia as a great way to get started.

SCBWI Midsouth Conference

Every year I feel like I should write a wrap up of the conference..... and every year I just decide to defer to someone else's blog. Looks like this year will be no exception! For a much better overview than what I could give (since, hello, i wasn't in every session) check out the actual conference blog.

This year was just as informative as previous years. One of my favorite parts is always the panel discussion at the end on Sunday. This year, before taking questions submitted by attendees, conference planner Sharon Cameron asked each faculty member what they could do to speed up their journey into publishing. Their answers were as follows:

Patti Ann Harris - Be yourself and stay true to your vision

Ruta Rimas – Be professional

Ellen Hopkins- plunge into the next project.

Peter Clifton- have fun

Kelly Sonnack- Find a way to hook publishers/readers. Follow your heart, but make it relevant.

Linda Pratt- be flexible. and actually write, don't just be a student of the industry

Lionel Bender- Don't underestimate the amount of time it takes

Diane Muldrow – Be smart, do your homework

Tracy Barrett – Know what you can do

I did manage to get some new pieces done around work for my portfolio. Here's a couple more spreads from my newest dummy Nothing All Day

Illustration Friday - Dessert

Hotdogs for lunch and ice cream for dessert. This is from my latest VBS project Big Apple Adventure

Work-at-home mom - REALLY??!?

This Dr. Laura thing is killing me. No, not the latest flap over the N word..... I'm talking about what I discovered on a recent trip to her website. To back up a bit: The Fry and Sprout have been at Grandmama's this week while Jim Dear and I did some massive house projects. Subsequently, having the gallons of free time afforded by a no-kid existence has allowed me to become aware of things that would not normally cross my radar screen. So while lingering over breakfast with my husband this morning I happened to read that Dr. Laura has accepted her own resignation from radio, presumably for some segment of her show involving the N word. I haven't actually heard this show (see above comment about my normal life with kids) but I was intrigued and, crucially, had time on my hands so I went to my trusty Google search bar, typed in "d-r-l-a-u-r-a," and was shortly staring at her official site.

What I found there made me laugh in astonishment.

Again, not the offending segment (I still haven't heard it), but the assertions via multiple ads and posting on the main page, that, as a mom, you could easily work from home. Not only can you work from home, you can do it with your child in the office with you.

Come again??

I am a mom and I work from home and - let me pause for emphasis - it's close to the same level of difficulty as achieving cold-fusion. I could be wrong, and could have the only kids on the planet that won't be quiet while I'm on the phone, but I am here to say that any starry-eyed new mom who thinks they can build a career from the spare corner of their playroom, while 2 year old Jr. chatters happily (and quietly) behind them, needs to get more sleep. Oh sure, when Small Fry was a baby it was a leeetle easier.... I remember taking my first assignment after he was born. The Fry was about a month old, and I feverishly worked while he slept. Which, little did I know, was going to be most sleeping he did ever. I met the deadline handily, the art director thanked me for the awesome work, and I patted myself on the back for having this work-at-home-mom thing down. Three months later it was different story. Now almost 5 years and two kids later, I have a drawer in my studio filled with plastic toys but the bulk of my work is done while my kids are at the cold, institutionalized childcare option known as our church's Mother's Day Out. I do work on naptimes, one ear glued to the monitor, while my hands and brain fly over the keyboard in a desperate attempt to be as productive as possible in a 90 minute window. And I work at night a lot. Which doesn't sound so bad until you add that onto a whole day of taking care of two naturally curious beings with a ho' lot more energy than me. Wonder how many CEO's of fortune 500's would like to make key decisions for their companies after 10 hours of that.

Now I'm not whining (very much). I know I signed up for this on a long ago Valentine's Day with my husband. I don't regret either having kids or continuing my career, which means I work for myself at home. But I do take offense at people like Dr. Laura promoting its relative ease compared to working outside the home. Women who choose to raise their children and work, not matter where the corner office is, begin a balancing act that puts Philippe Petit to shame.

The ads on Dr. Laura's site featured moms holding smiling children while typing away on a laptop. No sign of back strain from sitting with a child in your lap while also trying to see the screen. No tell-tale sign of important papers flipped everywhere or stained with coffee jerked out of reach at the last minute. No questionably safe office accoutrement's being handed to the child as a distraction. There was one ad that got it about right. I'll call this one "right before she missed an important detail of the contract." Notice the baby gnawing on her hand: she's bored and teething and tired of mom's attention being elsewhere for the last 35 seconds. Baby is strategically positioned to flip backwards in annoyance, wham her hard baby head into Mom's collarbone causing Mom to lose her grip on the cell phone while simultaneously keeping Baby from hitting the floor. The good news is Baby doesn't hit the floor. The bad news is an important piece of the cell just went skidding under a nearby bookshelf. The really bad news is Mom had been waiting for that call all morning, praying it would come while Baby was on a nap. Of course it didn't. Looks like Mom had a good start to her day, she got dressed - even managing to put in earrings - but she's not exactly smiling here. Maybe because she knows it's only 9:30, her cell phone's under the furniture, her child's wailing is drowning out her client's bewildered "hello hello's?" from the floor, she can't remember where her coffee cup is, ... and there's eight and half more hours before hubby walks back through the door.


No, she's not rushing to get her kids and herself dressed and out the door at 7am. And she's not dropping them off with some well meaning, scrutinized, and highly paid child care worker. And she's not picking them back up 9 hours later, on her way home to get through the frenetic bedtime rush before settling in to relax with a glass of wine and her husband. But maybe she should be. At least then she might get 15 minutes in the car to herself. 15 minutes to listen to the radio. Maybe even 15 minutes for Dr. Laura to tell her everything she's missing by not working at home.

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!