Belated Halloween

Happy November blog-readers!

This is not exactly a timely post, as Halloween has come and gone, but I just finished uploading photos and wanted to share. This year I ended up carving not one, but seven pumpkins - one for myself and six for a friend's Halloween party. I must say, I'm rather proud of the silly lot.

First one carved at home... he's so happy!

Party pumpkins.

The big guy in action.

Bleeeeeh!

Two more party pumpkins, note Jack Skellington on the left.

Boo!

I also did a bunch of crafting to pull together my costume - a sort of masquerade style peacock.

And of course, one gratuitous cat photo...

Mail!

I don't know about the rest of you out there in blog-land, but email just doesn't cut it for me. I like big yellow envelopes and brightly colored stamps and packages that arrive unexpectedly on your doorstep.

Recently an out-of-town friend and I agreed to start sending one another a piece of mail each week. I've been using my weekly letters as an excuse to do a little doodling and goofing around with my art. I started working on my first letter on the train and turned a subway doodle into a little four page book with a pop up letter. (Just a quick note... I didn't want to post any of the art from the letters until N had received my packages, so I made this particular piece about three weeks ago.)

Front page (note the purple tab at the top)

Interior pages (the purple tab is actually the letter!)

Back cover

Subway doodle

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

The Book Cover Club - Murakami

Hey there everyone.

I'm still trucking along on Coco & Oscar sketches, thumbnails, and preliminary book dummy, but in the meantime, I took on a few additional projects. (Do I smell a freelance job? Maaaybe! But I shall save that project for another day.) Today I wanted to share another book cover.

This month, Nowness.com hosted a competition for Murakami inspired artwork in honor of the release of his latest title, 1Q84. The Book Cover Club saw this as an excellent opportunity. Alas I missed the deadline, so my piece is not on the Nowness. It is, however, posted on the Book Cover Club blog. But do head over and check out all of the fab submissions (especially those by the inimitable Ryan Hartley, Philip Cheaney, Kristy Caldwell, and Jess Worby) and cast your vote.

In the meantime, here's a look at my cover for Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicles.

Coco & Oscar

Hey there blog-readers,

It's autumn in Brooklyn, and what better way to celebrate the best of all seasons than with a post full of new characters?

Meet Coco. She's cute and silly and in desperate need of a best friend, someone to be the Selma to her Louise, the Laurel to her Hardy, the Robin to her Batman.

And then there's Oscar. He just wants someone to appreciate his love of checkers, tango, and the fine art of muffin-making.

Hilarity ensues.

And a few final images. A preliminary spread for the book -

Finally, in honor of the changing season, a few autumn related images of Coco & Oscar fun.

Double Self-Portrait

So this post requires a bit of pictorial explanation before I post the actual piece.

For those of you who I haven't seen in recent days, while I was out in Minneapolis visiting a friend, I chopped off all of my hair. (Do not despair, I donated it.)

Haircut:

I had a particularly inspired working day the other morning...

and yes, I work better in a silly hat

Gratuitous cat photo.

So pre-haircut, I had started a self-portrait project for a contest. The contest is being run by Tony DiTerlizzi's facebook fan page. The title is "Re-imagine Yourself", and the goal is to create a portrait of yourself within one of the many DiTerlizzi stories. There was no end to the possibilities, and the brainstorming itself was incredibly fun; I almost had too many choices.

In any case, I finally settled on a self-portrait as an imaginary monster in Tony's hilarious and ridiculous alphabet book, "G is for One Gzonk", using my crazy ginormous hair as a jumping off point. I created a monster not only entirely engulfed by the crazy ocean of red, but also whose hair becomes a character itself, creeping about and nabbing odds and ends and even other creatures from the original book.

But then I cut all of my hair off.

So I went back to the portrait, did a little revision, and voila double self-portrait, pre- and post-new-do.

The Rumprunkus

Double Self-Portrait

in the style of Tony DiTerlizzi's

"G is for One Gzonk: An Alpha-Number-Bet Book"

The rhyme in it's entirety:

The Rare and Red Rumprunkus

Is barely visible, you see.

Covered with a vibrant mane,

Her hair's as wild as can be.

That monstrous RED hides many things -

It hides baubles, bits, and bangles.

Even ribbons, rocks, and riches

Are caught up among the tangles.

But beware the creeping tendrils,

As they slither through the air.

With a strange life of their own,

They might drag you under there.

The Book Cover Club

Hallooo everyone,

Recently, a few friends from SVA started a new blog, The Book Cover Club. The premise - read a book, design a cover. In short, awesome. After I saw the first three posts, I knew that I wanted to get involved. So for the fourth book, the Club chose "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann. (For cliff notes.)

I've never designed a book cover before, so I took a stab. Not my favorite piece, but it was a good experience. I knew that I wanted something dark and moody - which hardly describes my usual work - so I decided to experiment a little with the medium. I actually rendered the art by entirely coating a piece of foam core with dark watercolor. Then using a paintbrush loaded with water, I began to slowly remove bits of the paint off of the board. It's a subtractive process, rather than additive, and allows you to start with a really dark background and get progressively lighter.

I'm okay with the final product; I like the overall image and the texture, but there are things I would reconsider, especially the type treatment (thanks ESup). It was my first attempt at a book cover, I'm glad I did it, and I will definitely try another. My cover is below, but you should absolutely click on over to the Book Cover blog and check out the amazing things the other SVA kids created.

SCBWI Thank You

Hey there blog-readers,

I just realized that I never posted this. I set up a post about the conference back in August, started writing, and never posted it. Oops.

I don't know I can really do the entire experience justice. It was jaw-dropping, exciting, exhausting, inspiring, overwhelming, refreshing, satisfying, hope-inducing, doubt-banishing, jam-packed with people I absolutely adore and admire... I could continue adding adjectives to that list, but I still don't know that it would adequately capture the amazingness of the weekend. It was a very reaffirming sort of experience. I cannot imagine spending my life doing anything but this. And part of my love of children's publishing is absolutely the other people in the field; I have never met a group of folks more passionate about what they do. Just one example of dozens from the weekend - I went to a break-out workshop on picture books (an amazing soup-to-nuts overview from first manuscript to printed page), and the art director running it stepped up to the podium. Before even beginning her talk, she stopped and took a look around the packed room (and I do mean packed... wall-to-wall artists, writers and publishers).

"Who here loves picture books?" she asked. And before waiting for an answer, she raised her hand, "I do!"

Everyone I met at the conference loves what they do, loves the field, and loves books. That in and of itself was incredibly inspiring.

I was so grateful for the experience that I threw together a little thank you card for the staff, art directors, and editors who I met. (You may recognize part of the image. There's a reason I carry a sketchbook.)

And now just a couple of photos from the Illustrator Intensive Day. After the main conference weekend, there was a full day intensive, during which seven working professionals did a live demonstration of how they work. It was incredible. All seven artists are amazing, and I would absolutely recommend checking out their books.

Paul Zelinsky - Underpainting techniques

Marla Frazee - Stretching paper and gouache paint

Kadir Nelson - Portraiture in oil

(Note: the gentleman in the chair is the inimitable Dan Santat, also of picture book fame)

Denise Flemming - Paper Pulp Painting (SO messy and fun!!)

Richard Jesse Watson - egg tempera and applying gold leaf

David Small - Drawing of all sorts

Jerry Pinkney - Watercolor

And two bonus photos -

Judy Blume!!! (a surprise guest)

Me and a new friend (Kathy Ellen) at the 40 Winks Pajama Gala

Sketchbook Dump!

Hallooo everyone!

I realize that it has been a most silent summer on my part, but autumn is fast approaching, bringing with it wonderful things like colored leaves, colder weather, cider donuts, and an entirely new schedule for me. With said new schedule - that of full time freelancer - there will be some designated update-blog-with-new-work time. Exciting I know.

In the meantime, I'm on vacation in Minneapolis, hanging out at the Book Arts Center on a slightly drizzly day, and figured it was the perfect moment to do a big ole sketchbook drop. These are all recent character sketches, some random doodles, others beginning character studies for a few new stories. Enjoy!

Good News Follow Up

Turns out, I was also featured in this month's SCBWI bulletin!

Oh hey... that looks familiar...

SWEET!

Good News

Halloo everyone,

A while back, I mentioned that I might have some good news. Life got so busy with the thesis show, graduation, and then internship that I completely forgot to update you all with an explanation. Every year the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) hosts an international conference out in L.A., and for the first time ever, this year they offered student scholarships. Turns out, I won one of two student scholarships to this enormous and amazing conference. (!) The scholarship not only includes entry to the conference, but also covers fees for a special illustration master class, a one-on-one portfolio consultation with an art director, entry into the juried portfolio showcase (there are prizes!), and a year's membership to SCBWI. (There was much jumping up and down and squealing when I found out about it.) Exciting stuff.

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of prepping materials, finishing a few new pieces, readying my portfolio, printing new promos, and going over the conference schedule with a fine-toothed comb. A little crazy, admittedly, but it's really exciting. What does a conference full of picture book people even look like? Well, let me give you an example. The theme of this year's annual gala is "40 Winks" - for their 40th anniversary - which means that appropriate dress is going to be pajamas. A fancy party in PAJAMAS!! Break out your best bunny slippers! I LOVE MY FIELD.

So, I'm heading out to L.A. bright and early on Thursday. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a new piece -

I'm using it for my L.A. promo. =)