Life, Little Fox, and Cookies

Hey there blog readers,

Many thanks to all of the folks who checked in after Sandy. We were lucky; our building and neighborhood were just fine, and our loved ones made it through safe and sound. And for the first time since the storm, I can see lights on in most of the buildings in lower Manhattan. I have a lot to be thankful for this week.

Since getting back to Brooklyn, I've been volunteering at a few different places nearby, trying to help those hit hardest by the storm. It feels good to be useful, but at the same time, it's hard knowing that there are so many other folks out there still in need of even the basest of needs - somewhere warm to sleep, a hot meal, clean water, and a little bit of light.

I needed something to cheer me up, so as usual, I grabbed a pencil and started drawing. This little fox found his way onto my drawing table and made me smile.

And later, needing further comfort, I made orange-chocolate biscotti and a cup of tea. 

PiBoIdMo

It's November... which means it's PiBoIdMo! Picture Book Idea Month, for those of you who aren't familiar... it's a fun challenge, 30 ideas in 30 days.

I do solemnly swear
that I will faithfully execute
the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,
and will, to the best of my ability,
parlay my ideas into
picture book manuscripts
throughout the year.

If you want more information about Picture Book Idea Month and a whole bunch of amazing blog posts about writing and children's books, click here.

Forward-ing Work

Hey there everyone,

It's been a fun-filled, exciting sort of weekend. I hope that all of you on the East Coast are well-equipped with extra batteries for flashlights, candles, and water. Stay safe! As for me, I'm actually in Massachusetts right now... and for the next few days. I came up for the weekend, and as of yesterday, all trains and buses were cancelled due to Sandy-related weather. I'll be here for a bit longer, but that's fine by me. I have excellent company and plenty of sketchbook pages to fill.

In the meantime, if you need some extra reading, the latest article in the Forward's InsideOut series is live!

Check it out.

If you're looking for older articles, you can find the full list here.

This week's illustration involved populating a city block with a variety of characters. I really enjoy working with a wide variety of materials. Most of the time I use pencil and paint for my children's illustration, so it's nice to switch things up and play with ink for these pieces.

Thanks to Kurt and Naomi for their art direction.

Guess what! Guess what!

Blog readers!

Guess what, guess what!

I have exciting news... my first ever real life interview as an illustrator is live today!

Kathy Temean, the former Regional Advisor of New Jersey's SCBWI chapter writes an amazing blog on children's writing and illustration. Each Saturday she does a spotlight feature on an illustrator, and yours truly is October 27th.

That's today!

Check it out!

It's here!

The post includes all kinds of art work including a bunch of process work for this recent warm-up painting. Meet Hurricane Zelda. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of her.

Many thanks to Kathy for the amazing opportunity. For anyone out there also interested in this field, her blog has a wealth of information. If not just for the interview, definitely head on over.

Penguin Parade

Hey there blog readers,

The crazy jobs are just about quieting down... juuuust about. As far as I can tell, there actually is a light at the end of the tunnel. Huzzah! Because I'm starting to find a handful of minutes between jobs, I'm finally, finally starting to get back to half-finished projects (and, I swear, the dear, patient folks in my critique groups... I'll have things for you soon!).

One of my recent projects, a silly sort of make-me-giggle-over-my-drawing-table painting features a few of my fave characters - a passel of penguins and one goofy, pink fellow.

As always I started with a whole bunch of sketches,

 that I composited into one ginormous sketch parade. (Click to get a closer view.)

And finally, with a bunch of stolen minutes over a handful of weeks, paint! 

 

Warm up sketch

Tease...

Halloo Internet friends,

Every now and then I get busy. I know, I know... everyone gets busy. But when I get busy, I seem to get extraordinarily-crazy-burning-both-candles-free-time?-what-free-time? sort of busy. It's like that old expression, "if you need something done, ask Lisa to do it".

It's true.

And I'm terrible at saying no to people.

In this case, much of the busy is (or has been) for jobs or volunteering or planning very exciting weekends with dear friends. Which is to say, none of it's bad... just plain, old no-time-to-update-the-blog style busy.

So here are some of the greatest hits...

The last weekend in September, I helped organize a Mountain Day weekend and reun-ed with nine of my dear college friends. (We made t-shirts, so I feel like this is a relevant to mention.)

The fourth article (and illustration) in the InsideOut series for the Forward came out last week, and I'm currently working on illustration number five. They're all good, but number four is a particularly excellent read.

I have eight - yes, I said eight - illustrations due for another job next week, and yet I believe I'm volunteering for the election this weekend. (I shouldn't even have to remind you to register to vote, but if you haven't, go do so.) I've also started volunteering for another stellar organization that I mention on here now and again.

I'm working on a project that requires lots of lovely doodley character sketches.

I visited my sister and helped her winter-proof her windows and hang curtains. (Again, project involved, so completely relevant...)

While we were busy hanging curtains, we ran into a couple of friends.

And took just a couple of photos...

And meanwhile, I've been ever-so-slowly working on a new piece just for me... it features this little fellow.

He's pretty cute, not to mention a bit of a tease... there's actually an entire ten-character extravaganza that you're missing out on.

But, alas, I seem to be a wee bit busy. I'm going to need more time before you get to see the rest of that one.

Sometimes...

I draw lizards...

And, every now and then, those lizards play the accordian.

InsideOut: The Loss

Howdy folks,

The lastest installment of InsideOut is up on the Forward's website and is in this week's print issue of the paper.

This week's piece is about grieving the loss of one's entire community and leaving an old life behind as one starts anew. Judy uses some wonderful images, using colorblindness and seeing colors in a black and white world as metaphors.

I started out, as usual, with a whole bunch of sketches. I played with themes of loss and loneliness and Judy's imagery and color.

The folks at the Forward chose the last sketch, emphasizing her isolation and loneliness, even in the midst of new discovery.

In my mind, the most important part of this image would be the use of color. My initial idea was to only render the sky in color - a vibrant, popping blue.

 This didn't feel quite right to me. There wasn't enough emphasis on the main character. She's having this moment of discovery, so perhaps she ought to be rendered in color as well.

Better still, but something about it felt a bit cold... so I added a warm tone beneath the black ink of the street.

This is ultimately what we decided to go with, but I also went a bit further with the color at the request of the art director... just to see what would happen. 

If the trees were green...

 Or one tree was green...

 Or the whole world was rendered in color...

This was a neat article to illustrate. The piece itself was touching, and the visuals in the text, exceptional. It's especially exciting when the imagery in a written piece practically begs to be illustrated.

Reworking a Character

Hey there folks,

I know that most of the recent posts have been for my editorial work, but don't think I've forgotten my children's book whatnot. Perish the thought!

I've been doing quite a bit of children's illustration - some work on a project I can't yet talk about as well as a bunch of personal projects. After returning home from the conference, I made a list of goals for the coming months. At the top of that list: revising and reworking. I decided to return to older projects - projects I've let sit for a while - and begin the long revision process. And I don't mean changing a comma here and there... I'm working on complete overhauls. First the text - scrapping manuscripts and rewriting from scratch. Then redoing the art - reworking old sketches, tossing said old sketches, and developing new scenes and new characters.

The first story I decided to tackle is an old favorite... one of my thesis stories.

The first order of business was to get to know my character again:

I did a whole bunch of sketches. Pages and pages. In some she's too tall, others too old, or too pointy, too round, too chin-y... and in others, just right. Somewhere along the way, a friend evolved. And finally, when I thought I knew her again, I did a full-color character study.

The Sun

Hey blog-readers,

The second article in the InsideOut series is live on the Forward's website! Check it out here.

InsideOut with The Forward

Hey there blog readers,

It's been a while. Apologies for the hiatus. Since returning from the conference, August has been an incredibly busy month. Ages ago, I hinted at a new project that I can finally talk about. I just started working with the Forward (or פֿאָרווערטס) on a new, bimonthly column called InsideOut. Penned by Judy Brown, the essays are wonderfully written pieces about life as a Hasidic woman and about Judy's very personal process of leaving the community. My work will appear alongside her pieces every two weeks - each month, one article in print and a second online.

The first piece appears in print this week, and I wanted to share a bit about my process. As with the last piece I did with the Forward, the medium and process are different from my children's work.

My favorite part of the process is the initial brainstorming. After reading the article, I sat down and worked my way through a stack of computer paper trying out ideas. Here are a handful that I sent in:

Each sketch dealt with similar ideas - being/looking/feeling different from or at odds with the surrounding crowd - but each had a slightly different emphasis. And, yes, I did send in that last "sketch" (I do use the term veeery loosely), but rest assured, I also sent in notes with those indecipherable chicken-scratch pencil lines.

After some discussion with the folks at the Forward, we agreed that the image that worked best was the  woman in front of the pantyhose display.

Once we settled on an image, I blew the rough sketch up to about 11x17, firmed up the sketch directly onto my good paper, and taped it to my board.

Final sketch

And then it was time to start adding ink...

Beginning ink

 Darker

Until I had something that I was satisfied with.

Once I was happy with the ink, I pulled the image off the board and scanned it into the computer. For this piece, I cheated a little bit... rather than handletter the packaging, writing "Beige" 64 times, I did it once and then copy and pasted it.

 Thank you Photoshop!

Next step, color! The most important color for this piece was clearly the beige of the stockings. It took me a while to find a tone that I liked, but after that, the rest was easy. 

Ta da!

The final piece

You can check out the article and the final illustration in this week's daily Forward or online here.

Many thanks to Naomi and Dan and all the excellent folks at the Forward and of course to Judy for such wonderfully written essays.