50 Precious Words: Prickly

 

Author Vivian Kirkfield holds a contest each year called "50 Precious Words." It does what it says on the label-- challenges writers (especially us picture book folk who are always chasing after profound brevity!) to write a complete story using no more than 50 words. 

You can view all of this year's entries here.  I've thrown my hat in the ring for the first time this year. Mine is below, with a bonus illustration to spice things up. 

 

(By the way, I used *EXACTLY* 50 words, thankyouverymuch.)

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UPDATED: You guuuuuuys! I won an honorable mention! In the highly coveted and obviously most important of all Nature/Environment category! I drink from the keg of glory!!!

Earth Day 2020: Flora & Fauna

Happy 50th anniversary, Earth Day!

I'm late, I'm late, but I'll still celebrate!

It's that time of year again... baseball's back, and with it, my annual illustration in honor of pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training camp. Unfortunately, my go-to online resource led me astray, so I missed my favorite team's actual official "Pitchers and Catchers Report Day" this morning.

Nevertheless, a tradition is a tradition, and I did have a piece underway, which I can now proudly present! Happy 2020, sports fans. Play indoors as winter wraps up, sure, but try not to break any cacti.

[Memory lane:  2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019]

It's been a while!

I don't post here much anymore, but I'm still making art! Some catching up...

I did a few pieces in response to illustrator Lily Williams's #KidLitSummers illustration prompt. I drew some childhood summer memories, like running through the sprinkler:

And listening to baseball on the radio:

(And then I bought an iPad and an Apple pencil and did some experimenting in ProCreate to update this one in color!)

And soft serve ice cream, mmm: 

I was commissioned to illustrate a postcard for a Kickstarter campaign for a short film about baseball legend Jackie Mitchell: 

And had some fun with idioms:

This piece will be featured in my local SCBWI chapter's 2020 calendar:

And I channeled my inner Maurice Sendak for a family project:

Whew! That's a wrap on summer and fall 2019!

A random assortment of art I've been making since August...

Patterns and play

My creative work the last few months has mostly been writing and some sketches to go along with those stories, so not the kind of thing I'd share here. Also not the kind of thing that lets my pastels (and my beautiful turquoise art desk) come out to play, so I thought I'd play around a little today. Enjoy!

Redleg Annual (and Happy Opening Day!)

The last two years, I've illustrated the cover of an e-book called the Redleg Annual, which previewed in eloquent and entertaining fashion the Cincinnati Reds of 2013 and 2014.

For this year's zine, which is still available for purchase as any number of e-formats HERE (seriously, it's only $5...GO HERE!)... I did two interior illustrations instead and got to step into the weird and whimsical zone a little, and it was a ton of fun.  

For an article on Reds All-Star catcher Devin Mesoraco (titled "Devin Goshdang Mesoraco") I was tasked with envisioning a Lovecraftian creature that could appropriately accompany an article containing lines like this:  

Devin Mesoraco is feared. By pitchers, sure, but also by children, beloved family pets, and young Victorian-era adventurers unjustly denied their inheritance. There is a rumbling of the earth and a black skein over the sun when Devin Mesoraco digs in. (words by Asher Kohn)

Hence:

This one's a bit experimental for me, because I used a larger variety of media than usual.  This one included gouache, Colourfix primer, pencil, permanent marker, and pastels.

And for an article introducing new Reds players, I got a little punny welcoming Mr. Marlon Byrd, because sometimes I just can't help myself:

Today is Opening Day for my Reds and most of the baseball world, so happy 2015 season to all you baseball fans out there, and happy lovely spring day to everyone else!

Books Read in 2014

Here we are, halfway through the second month of 2015, and I haven't yet done my annual check-in on the past year's reading.  I didn't realize it until the end of the year, but I actually read very few books in 2014.  Still, there were some good ones mixed in.  My favorites are in bold.  Looking forward to good books (and MORE books!) in 2015.

• The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
• The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
• Wildwood Imperium, by Colin Meloy
• The Greenglass House, by Kate Milford
• West of the Moon, by Margi Preus
• Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
• The Wainscott Weasel, by Tor Seidler
• Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan
• Veronica Mars:  The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line, by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
• The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer
• The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
• The Interrupted Tale, by Maryrose Wood

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...

Daydreaming.

I did a little digital collage work in the illustrations for that last post, piecing together bits from old pastel illustrations of mine. Exploring that more in this one by almost exclusively using collaged pastel textures to paint an old sketchbook piece.

A story in six panels, based on real life

Rally caps!

Rally caps are more effective when everyone participates, right?

Worked on this one for a while this spring, but forgot to post when it was finished!  It's the first illustration that really let me play around with my Wacom tablet (though it's still mostly traditional hand-drawn pastel work).  My next promotional postcard:

The Window

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

Picture Book Idea Month (checking in)

We're approaching the halfway point of Picture Book Idea Month, and I've been pleasantly surprised at the ideas that have presented themselves to me. I thought I'd be dealing with snippets-- a title here, a character there, a mildly amusing bit of wordplay there-- but several reasonably complete story ideas have come to me during this month.  Who knew?  

I won't be sharing the ideas here, because there's no better way to kill an underdeveloped idea than to share it too early, but I've been doing some exploratory sketches for some of them, and I'll share those. Happy November!