Earth Day 2020: Flora & Fauna

Happy 50th anniversary, Earth Day!

Previously on... The Creative Life.

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, huh?  Fall is a crazy busy time at work and that can mean my art falls by the wayside for a little bit. But my creative self hasn't been entirely dormant.  A quick round-up of creative world goings on...

My aunt has a professional organizing business called Managed Chaos, and she commissioned an illustration for a brochure she's using to advertise her business. You can see the brochure at the link above-- it was truly a family undertaking, as my sister (with a new business of her own) designed it!

I had a lot of fun with this one since it's a bit of a departure from my usual work.  Makes me want to play around with lines more and see what happens.

Also in October some friends and I busted out the old acrylic paints (seriously, these were leftovers from college... and I just got an invitation for my 10-year reunion, sooooo....) and snazzed up some papier-mache skulls for Day of the Dead.

 

 

I miss painting.

Two weekends ago I attended my second Mid-Atlantic conference for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Some notes (and sketches from the margins of my notes).  Leave it to a room full or book people to turn a phrase / speak in fun little metaphors.

• One of the agents in attendance (I didn't mark down who, shoot!) referred to the problem of starting a story in the wrong place as "throat clearing."
• Stephen Mooser quoted Sid Fleischman in describing a character's dramatic introduction into 
  
  
  the story as a "grand staircase."
• Keynoter Linda Urban refers to the essential essence of a story as its "spine," what you should hold onto.
• At one point, author/illustrator Pat Cummings said it was harder to be an artist than a lawyer, then later indicated that adventuring was even harder than art.  Which led me to pen a mini infographic: 

In general, I had a great time at my second Mid-Atlantic SCBWI conference!  I pretended I was an extrovert and talked to many people.  And between the conference planners clearly going out of their way to provide more learning and networking opportunities for illustrators (yay, thanks conference planners!) and the fact that I've been writing more since this time last year, I felt like there were more nuggets of wonderful helpfulness than ever before.

Now it's November, and I'm all in on another round of Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo, the brainchild of Tara Lazar). 

Out of last year's 30 ideas, I now have three (very, very early stage) manuscripts, another close to complete story that's still in my brain until it discovers the perfect ending, an idea that I think might be an early reader or middle grade instead, and a character just begging to feature in a series.  Here's hoping this year is just as successful!

And of course, I still draw from time to time...

The Window

Putting the "pastel" back in pastels with a little experimenting on my new handmade pastel paper.

Notes from my first SCBWI conference

This past weekend I attended the annual fall conference of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). This was my first time attending this conference, and my

first time attending an conference in this field. While there was a stronger emphasis on the W part of SCBWI than the I part (my part) I didn't mind this too terribly, in the end. Learning about storytelling is obviously useful if I ever decide to write (which I might someday!) and at the very least it can help me build ideas for more narrative, action-oriented artwork, which I've know for a little while now is something I need to work on.

Here are some notes from the weekend, punctuated by some of my notebook doodles:

"Aha!" moments

• Frances Gilbert, editor at the Doubleday imprint of Random House, in talking about story
  
  
  mining, mentioned a phrase that stuck with me: "childhood moments."  She also reminded us that when you write for children, "your customer is 5 years old and has to pee."  (I think her point was that you need a strong hook or something, but I really just wrote that down because it made me laugh.)
• Draw from life, no matter your style, says art agent Christina Tugeau. 
  
• Authors Mary Quattlebaum and Cynthia Lord both admitted to struggling initially with plot development / story arc. As someone who doesn't walk around with a spring in my step and a story in my heart, this is gratifying to hear. Woo!
• Agent John Cusick of Greenhouse Literary on the best kind of picture book ending: "surprising, yet inevitable."
• This one's not from anything anyone said this weekend, but just from being in the room, where (and this is where I try not to call my fellow conference-goers old and fail miserably) I was among the youngest there. And that's
  
  
  gratifying in the midst of a perfect storm of (1) turning a round number this year, (2) spending a lot of time wrapped up in the world of baseball, where phrases like "an old 29" and "way past his prime at 36" are not uncommon, and (3) living in a city where seemingly everyone is 24, runs marathons, has a masters degree, and makes six figures as a consultant.  It can be easy to feel time slipping away, to feel regrets about what I haven't yet accomplished.  But I'm pretty sure I'm doing just fine. 
  

"Duh" moments that were still worth hearing again, from multiple experts in the room 

• Never stop reading! 
• Conflict is essential in plot development. There's got to be a problem
• In a well-crafted picture book, both the words and pictures should be essential to the storytelling. Neither should feel superfluous. Each should feel incomplete without the other.

"Oh, cool" moments

• Agent Brooks Sherman of Fine Print Literary Management found his first picture book client via Twitter.
• There's a trend in illustration right now toward simpler art, with minimal background, less details, subtle beauty.  This, I like!
• Cynthia Lord passed around her Newbery Honor plaque and let us all touch it and make a wish. It was delightful.

Reading list

Children's books

• Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by James Dean
• The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
• Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord
• George and Martha by James Marshall (yes, I too can't believe I've never read this one)
• My Name is Not Isabella by Jennifer Fosberry

Craft books 

• The Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson
• Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
• Hero's Journey (lots of books by this name... unsure which one was recommended.  Maybe Joseph Campbell?)

Blogs

• Picture This!
• Preditors and Editors
• Literary Rambles
• Absolute Write

Robot umpires!

Anytime I'm watching baseball with my brother and an umpire makes a terrible call (usually on balls and strikes) we'll turn to each other, shake our heads and occasionally our fists, and shout something like, "The time for robot umpires is now!" 

Here's a prototype. You're welcome, Bud Selig. 

Lettering

I'm taking a class over at Skillshare called "Lettering: Learn to Draw Illustrative Words," taught by Neil Tasker.

My project for the class is to illustrate the phrase "Have fun storming the castle," from one of the best scenes of my favorite movie. You can follow my progress on that project over in the Skillshare classroom.  I'll probably do a post here when I finish up.

But in the meantime, I've been drawing words for practice like crazy, trying to get a feel for different materials, different styles, different letterforms.  I thought I'd let you in on the madness...

Click for a larger view!

Illustration Friday: Whisper

Work and play

After wrapping up a few big projects recently, my "studio" (okay, FINE, the corner of my room with the art desk in it) was sorely in need of both cleaning and cleaning up.  (Seriously, you would not believe the places pastel pencil shavings can end up.)  When I went to organize/neatly stack my chalk pastels, a few tiny leftover bits found themselves homeless:

As a last hurrah, I took them out for a spin on another of the mini pastel boards I bought a few years back.  Voila!

As an illustrator, I tend to pay such close attention to the process of drawing.  I like to think I've learned to loosen up a little bit in my work lately, but even still it's essential to make sure I have a strong composition in place as a guide, so I know pretty well what I'm going to be doing when I finally get around to laying down color.  It's liberating once in a while to skip right to the "painting" part, no planning at all beforehand, just diving right in with pastel.

Doodling (2013 edition)

Sometimes I doodle on old envelopes while re-watching episodes of Community (because that's the best way to rest up and get over post-holiday sickness.)

Unrelatedly, sometimes I use old envelopes to make grocery lists.  And sometimes I doodle on an envelope and really like what I drew, but then accidentally use the other side to make a grocery list, then shove said envelope into my purse to go to the store only to discover that I've smudged my beautiful doodled other side, which is annoying because I liked that and wanted to post it on my blog, so I have to doodle a little (and erase a little) to fix it up and make it presentable.

Sometimes.

Cherry blossoms

 

On Friday I left work a few minutes early and headed down to the Tidal Basin to check out the peak bloom cherry blossoms on a beautiful, blue skies kind of day.  DC is at its loveliest in the spring, even when spring comes early.

  

[Dear Illustration Friday visitors:  you're probably wondering what the "swamp" connection is. Legend has it that our nation's capital was built on a swamp.  Not quite true, but there were wetlands involved, and it gets awfully humid in the summer.]

Testing out pastel colors!

New (Nu) Pastels

I bought a Groupon a few months ago for Plaza Artist Materials.  It was due to expire last weekend, so on Friday I trekked to Foggy Bottom to pick out some new materials-- namely, NuPastels, in nu colors. 

It's not my usual process for finished illustration work, but I still have tons of fun mindlessly sketching with these flat, square sticks of color.  Here, four of my new/nu pastels get a workout. 

Illustration Friday: DUSTY

I've been working all afternoon on perfecting the sketch from my previous post in preparation for some pastel work.  That's why, when I clicked over to Illustration Friday and saw that this week's topic is "dusty," my mind went immediately to Reds manager Dusty Baker.  So I grabbed a pencil, a pen, and a post-it and went to town on a quick sketch of the runner-up to the 2010 NL Manager of the Year award.

24 days until pitchers and catchers (and managers) report!

Warming up (no, really!)

The Illustration Friday prompt a few weeks ago was "burning"... right at the same time a particular tree at the end of my street exploded in a sort of flaming color not unlike the palette used in these illustrations.  Unfortunately, not only did I miss the deadline for the IF prompt, but I came home from work last week to discover that every last leaf had fallen from that tree.  So this post is dedicated to the swift passage of time.

So what do you think?  White outlines or no?

Warming up.

I'm all (mostly) settled in to my new place in Washington, DC!  Now it's time to loosen up the old sketching/smearing fingers with a "just for fun" illustration...

Scenes from the green isle