A Penguin Named Patience - Thumbnails and Scribbly Penguins

Continuing where we left off...

Once I had my penguin drawings down, I began doodling in the margins of the manuscript of spots and images I thought I might want to feature in the story. Those doodles turned into pages and pages of really rough, scribbly sketches.

Scribbly dancing penguins...

Scribbly marching penguins...

All kinds of scribbly penguins...

I took all of those scribbly penguins and began laying them out until I had a sketchy idea for every page in the book.

Throughout this process, there's a lot of back-and-forth with the Art Director, determining what scenes best illustrate the text and tell the story. The rough sketches shift and change until we have a full set of  sketches for the entire book.

Stay tuned... next up on the blog: final sketches and final art.

For more info about the book, check out some of these reviews. We've been really lucky to have the book featured on a number of different blogs and websites, including Kirkus, Miss Marple's Musings, The Simple Moms, The Bookworm's local paper reviews, the National Book Examiner. My personal favorite is this synopsis by a 5 yr old in the San Francisco Book Review.

And don't forget! I'll be speaking about A Penguin Named Patience on Saturday, May 16th at Books of Wonder.

SCBWI Conference Doodles

Hey there folks,

As promised - conference doodles! 

Conference weekends are some of the most inspiring of the year. Hearing from illustration greats is a creative jolt, and I often come away with a sketchbook full of doodles and ideas. This year's winter conference was no exception, even leaving me with a spark of inspiration for a new manuscript.

Over the course of the weekend, this grumpy little girl showed up a couple of times.

And later with a friend.

I had actually come down with a cold just before the conference, so the weekend was a wee bit rough on my system. Not to mention, I was waking before 7am each morning and getting home after midnight each night. As you might imagine, by the third day of the conference, despite all of the creative energy buzzing around the room, I was ready for a nap or, at the very least, an early night. (Which didn't happen... I think we got home "early" on Sunday - around 10:30.) Most of my doodles from the day were "wishful thinking" drawings...

::yaaaawn::

In fact, I could use a nap now...

Hearts in my sketchbook

Bunnies & SCBWI

Hey there blog readers,

It's been a busy couple of weeks - between a job, a surprise party, conference prep, and the very recent possibility of some exciting new work, I've been running around a little crazy. (When I say conference, I mean the same little dealie I went to last summer.) But! Things seem to be mostly in order. The suitcase is packed, and with six freshly cut and taped book dummies, a newly loaded portfolio, and a blank sketchbook, I may just be ready to get on the plane for LA.

In the midst of all of the crazy, between scanning and printing and binding, there were a handful moments for some much needed doodling time.

I give you the ballerina bunnies:

Ta da!

Not sure where these are going, but you may see more of this little character after the conference.

Turtles

While we were away, I did a fair amount of aimless doodling. Mostly turtles, as it were.

Don't be surprised if you see more of this little turtle guy in the future...

Gym inspired doodle

2012

New Years resolutions stress me out. I just don't like them. Whether it was trying to get organized, exercising more, or eliminating m&ms from my diet, January's well-intentioned resolution often became December's guilt trip. Rather than continuing to fall into an inevitable cycle of December angst, I decided not to make any more annual resolutions.

While I have stuck to my resolution against making resolutions, I do, however, think it's valuable to have goals and high hopes. So this year, I made a list of hopes for 2012. Rather than pressuring myself to be someone I'm not or do something that will make my stomach lurch with guilt come December, I did a little journal doodle about angst-free things for the new year.

And I can say with certainty that the year is looking like a happy and hope-filled one.

Subway doodle

Just a quick post of a recent silly subway scribble-doodle I sent my sister about my day -

The Pom Pom Girls

A friend needed some cheering up this week, so I took a break from thesising and dummying to draw a quick cartoon. I was going to make something along the lines of a get well soon card, but I ended up with this gaggle of gals instead.

So for all of your life-cheering needs, I present to you...

Clearly they're going to need their own story.

SCBWI

Hey there, folks!

It was a crazy, exciting, whirlwind of a weekend. It was SCBWI's (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) annual winter conference in NY, and I decided to check it out this year.

Read on for photos from the weekend, conference-inspired doodles, and more!

The weekend started out incredible and continued to astound me day after day, panel after panel. Friday was the illustrator intensive, featuring workshops all about digital media and the possibilities and potential new media holds for illustrators interested in children's publishing. It was an amazing series of panels organized by one of my favorite people in the universe, Pat Cummings (far right in the photo below... Pat is not only a widely published children's writer and illustrator, she's also my advisor) and by Cecilia Yung, a veritable force of nature in the publishing industry. Cecilia (far left in the photo below) is not only a board member at SCBWI, but also an Art Director and Vice President of G.P. Putnam & Sons and Philomel, imprints at Penguin.

Saturday was similarly action-packed. We started off with a keynote address by Lois Lowry. Lois Lowry!!

If you haven't read The Giver or Number the Stars or Anastasia Krupnik, you should head to the nearest book store or log onto Amazon RIGHT NOW. Your twelve-year-old-self will thank you. Not only was her address inspiring and interesting, but it was really funny. She shared a number of letters that kids have sent her over the years. A couple favorites:

After Lois Lowry, the day continued with a star-studded faculty list. The following panel, about creating and recreating the picture book, featured Jane Yolen, Mark Teague, and Patricia Lee Gauch. Again, if you have never of these folks, do fix that. Jane Yolen, a former Smithie, is a prolific children's writer; Mark Teague, a kids' book illustrator with a great sense of humor; and Patricia Lee Gauch, another force of nature in the publishing industry who has perspective from both sides of the editor's desk.

During the day there were a number of break-out workshop sessions with individual art directors, editors, and agents. Later, however, we heard from two more of the greats, R.L. Stein...

and Jules Feiffer.

Sunday was a shorter day, but still action packed, with a really thoughtful and honest keynote by Sara Zarr, a newer author of children's fiction.

"They say, write the book you want to read. I'm going to give the speech that I need to hear," she began. "The time between when you're no longer a beginner but have yet to break into the business is probably the hardest in your career. Your greatest creation is your creatie life. It's all in your hands. Rejection can't take it away; reviews can't take it away. The life you create for yourself as an artist may be the only thing that's really yours. Create a life you can center yourself in calmly as you wait for your work to grow." (vaguely paraphrased)

After a panel on humor with Mo Willems, Lenore Look, and Marvin Terban, Linda Sue Park was our final speaker for the day. She is also another new-ish author who I am not as familiar with, but after hearing her speak, I will definitely be checking out her books.

I came away from the weekend with pages of notes,

some really excellent advice from a talented group of people, a small head cold, a whole bunch of silly doodles (including but not limited to the following...),

and a whole bunch of inspiration.

And on that note, of to the studio I go!

The Family Anchin

Halloo dear blog-readers.

I haven't ever posted anything about my family, but I come from a home of absurd and absurdly talented folks. I've always said that before dropping everything and going to art school, I never really thought about making art and illustration a career. That being said, when looking at the sorts of things my parents make, I can't help but feeling rather dense (in a how-could-I-not-consider-making-art sort of way). My folks are both teachers, and though they don't currently do art professionally, they are both exceptionally talented. One of these days, I'll post some actual samples of their work, not to mention my sister's work. Dina is talented, on a level that exceeds jaw-dropping.

For the moment however...

Yesterday my folks came into the city for an impromptu early dinner. We had fun with the brown paper on the table. And so I shall leave you with a few of our table doodles:

Landscape by Papa Anchin

Froggy by Mama Anchin

(My mom has been drawing this one for as long as I can remember... I have

postcards and notes dating back to the 80s with this little frog drawn on them.)

A Boy and His Chicken by Mama Anchin

A Girl and her Fish by Yours Truly

(In response to A Boy and His Chicken)

Evolution of a Character

Howdy folks. Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.

Break has been lovely thus far. I haven't done a ton of art of late - some quick sketches here and there and the usual journal doodles; most of my attention of late has been turned towards writing and reassuring (in person) all of the folks I neglected all semester long that I am indeed alive and well. Fab!

In any case, I was looking in the aforementioned journal and realized I haven't posted any of my sketches. So I thought I'd take a brief little trip into my journal and share some whatnot.

During the fall term, one of our projects for Marshall involved creating a promotional piece to send to publishers and art directors. He showed us a lot of great examples from previous students... all super creative... so I started wracking my brains. Whenever I start thinking about such things, I inevitably go back to my journal for some new visual brainstorming or to get ideas from old work.

And this character (who I had been doodling a bunch at the time) stood out...

I've been doodling this marionette for a while now and have spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what her story is... but let's trace her back to her roots, shall we? She actually started out in my very early crap-o sketches as a kid dressed up for Halloween.

Which I used as the basis for my fall themed digital project in October...

And for whatever reason, I was still doodling her a month later... and I added some strings...

And the lines became more refined in this doodle...

And this one...

So after I found my little marionette as inspiration, I spent the next day and a half doodling five pages of sketches.

And I put them together on a loooong, single sheet of paper that I figured I would roll up and send out. Imagine the two halves stuck together continuously:

I will eventually use this for a promo piece, but probably for a publisher/art director who focuses on books for an older audience or perhaps even to graphic novel folks. We shall see. For the moment, though, as most of you know, I want to focus on the kids' book market, so my final promo actually ended up being a mini five-page fold-out book with some of the illustrations from Buying Lenin.