Digital Watercolors- Pterodactyl Waterfall

I did this for the conference as well- or something similar. I got a critique, and so have changed the image some from the originally submitted piece. I flipped it, to keep the movement going left to right (as it is now), I enlarged the pterodactyl to push its wing tips off the sides of the pages to really make it seem BIG, and I pushed the contrast between the shadowed background and highlighted foreground (i.e. the pterodactyl itself) to really make it pop as much as I could. What was fun was that I brought in a natural media watercolor abstract that I've been working on, and found the composition in it by digitally inking on it, adding more color, darkening areas, etc. It's definitely a very specific style, but I really liked working this way, and may play more with other abstracts in the future.

Digital Watercolors- The Chickens Are Out!

I'm working on some new portfolio pieces for a conference on Saturday.  This is the piece I finished on Monday.  Done digitally, with line work in Paint Tool Sai and color work in Artrage.

Children's Art- Recent Character Doodles

I've actually been playing around with a lot of approaches-- some inked, some ink brown ink, some in a rough pencil, some real light, some only in pencil with no color, etc. I thought I'd share these.

First, "Big Men do tai chi too"-- digital ink

Second, "The Grumpy Farmer"- in digital charcoal and watercolor

Third, "Little Girl Rules the Roost"- trying out thicker line weight

Children's Art- A Girl and Her Dragon

I inked this over the weekend, then imported it and colored it digitally. This is a rough sketch idea for the same story, "Dandelion and Clover", about a little girl and her dragon.

Children's Art- Little Girl on a Hill

Been a few weeks since I last posted, but I've been active. There should be a flurry of posts in the next few days-- mostly poems and paintings.

This one was done entirely on the computer, though I've been playing around a lot with textures that emulate watercolors and rough pencil sketches. This one started as a cloud doodle and went from there. I've been fishing around for how to visualize a recent story I wrote called "Dandelion and Clover" about a little girl and her dragon, who eats the dandelion puffs made from wishes. This was one of the thoughts.

Picture Book Marathon- Day 19

Well, I've got 10 days to go, and I've got 10 partial or completed drafts done. I doubt I'm going to hit 26, which seems sort of insane to me, frankly ;) , but I'll easily hit 13, even if I take the time to go back and wrap up the first drafts for stuff I couldn't really round out in one go.

That's probably the most difficult part- if you've only got 2 hours to knock something out, I'm finding one tends to default to cliches in terms of plot, OR I find myself writing fun, playful, concept books that don't rely on plot or character motivation, but are really more tone poems. Not that I don't like tone poems. It's just not the only kind of experience I'm interested in creating. I also have noticed I'm defaulting to prose more often too, although I did get a wonderfully fun rhyming first draft of "My Tennis Shoes Have Got the Blues" written out, so there's some production in that field.

But, yes, if I'm writing something with plot, it's very hard to get that done in 2 hours. I find what's happening is I can lay out the setting, introduce the main characters, build the basic tension, and ... that's where the hard part comes. Because, IMO, for plot to be interesting, something really needs to _happen_, the character really needs to _change_, he needs to be _active_, so that, when you get to the end, you feel like character development and plot development are inter-related. Well, that's easier said than done. Or atleast it's so for me. I've always been best at moments, at poems, and always rather frustrated by plots, and impressed with those who can write them. It is not my forte.

Given that, I've just allowed reality to sit in, which means that it's just not always possible to get a draft done each day. I am, however, making writing more of a priority, so I think that really shows what can be done if one puts ones mind to it. There's been more than one time when I thought I'd like to veg out, or read a book, etc. but I said, "No, I'm supposed to be writing. It's important to me, right?" And by God, I actually sat down and wrote! LOL.

I think it helps that I've enrolled Kat into it as well. I've asked for her help in carving out some real blocks on the weekends, and occasionally on the weeknights. Thus, when I have time, she's often asking me if I'm going to be sitting down and writing. Once, she set aside some time and took care of Tasha. I sat upstairs and putzed. When she came up, she had presumed I'd be writing, and I honestly felt a little guilty. I've set up a bit of an expectation that this was important to me, and here she was, helping, and I wasn't taking advantage of it. So, it's good to have someone on your side, prodding you a bit. :)

Whatever the case, I'm definitely writing more recently than I have in a while. I've even found I'm writing more in general-- not just PB's. Over the last month or two I've started dictating poems to myself using my bluetooth headset and my Iphone, while driving to or from a job. Today, I played hookey from PB's, and used my time to finally pound out some drafts of those poems as well, which felt really good. The count? I didn't count exactly, but it must be about 10 since mid-December, and half since the beginning of this month-- a very good number for me.

What this has really got me thinking about is drawing and painting, and really working on my portfolio. It would be nice if I could somehow apply this discipline between the two activities (writing and painting), and still get something done. Probably one of the issues is that I'm not just wanting to illustrate and write picture books. I've got poems in my head, and I want to do more abstract watercolors as well. That was terribly fun to step back in to during the XMas season, and I don't want to lose that.

I know some people think you should winnow it down and pick those things you want to focus on, but I've not agreed with that approach for a long time. This is it, right? Either you're going to do, or you're not.

Concepts of Failure-- Half way through the Picture Book Marathon

So far, it's been very difficult to get this writing in daily. I really need 2 hours minimum, but that's just not feasible unless I sleep less. Screw that. I can't do that on a regular basis and still function.

So, I've been trying out some alternative methods. The other day I used my bluetooth earpiece to recite voice memos to myself for a story. Then I came home and typed them up piece meal. That worked ok. Was the text very good? No. But sometimes puking it out helps you figure out how to make it better. More about beginnings than anything else.

Comparatively, today I got rained out of work, but I just didn't feel right sitting down and really using the afternoon to write. Instead, I did something more "productive". And it was productive, truthfully, but putting up shelves in my office and cleaning out the laundry room is almost as bad as saying I cleaned out the oven or some such thing. Perhaps I should have taken advantage of the time, but one wants to feel like one's doing one's part for the house and family. First work, then play....

Still, just sitting down and failing to write has sometimes ended up being really productive. I sat down to write today, and just couldn't really generate a plot, tension, a problem to solve. Have been chewing on that kernel all day though, since, and may have some ideas now. So, perhaps that's why you try and force yourself to sit down and just do it. All good writing is almost always revision. Barely anything comes out well the first time round, in my experience.

Anyways, even if I don't get the 26, I've pounded out more drafts so far this month than I've done in 6 months previously. So that's good. And, as usual, having my time totally accounted for to the nth degree, has made me want to do other creative things- I went out to the Crocket reading series this last Sunday and shared a poem. Got the bug again. I've also been wanting to paint.

Clearly my creative brain is sort of like a wet rag. You have over-schedule me and really wring it out before I produce anything. ;)

I'm doing the Picture Book Marathon this month!!

Just an update on my picture book life. In conjunction with having done the Picture Book Idea Month back in November, I'm now doing the Picture Book Marathon this month. The goal? To hammer out 26 semi-crappy first drafts of picture books over the course of a month.

Now, that sort of sounded insane to me, personally. ;) But, having done the Picture Book Idea month, and having had those ideas stew around for a few months, I now have a sort of store of ideas from which to draw that have been slightly developed. This is good.

Well, I started on Wednesday, and the results so far? 1 and a 1/2 stories. Pretty sad. The problem? I've been very very busy.

I tried setting up a sort of schedule. I even wrote it into my work schedule, so I'd see how it was going to work, but these last few days have just been insane. Even more so than normal.

On Wednesday I helped Sarah Studdard move all day. All day. On Thursday, I had some free time while the girls were at Preschool, but I spent my time getting stuff done in anticipation of the Tasha's birthday party at my house today. Friday I worked and then went to Fred and Deb's (Tasha's grandparents) for her birthday party there. Today, I'm hosting Tasha's birthday (which is actually tomorrw, for those not in the know), which means clean up and then (admittedly very fun) hosting duties.

And truth be told, when I have had a bit of time, I've been so busy that I have truthfully spent it vegging out or doing things like this post. Am I just dodging doing it and making excuses? I hope not. I'd really like to hammer out these drafts and make them real.

Here's hoping!!

I did National Picture Book Idea Month!

Well, as some of you may well know, this last month I did the NaPiBoIdMo, the national picture book idea month, in which you have to try and create 30 picture book ideas in a month. This was actually quite difficult and fun! It’s very helpful to have a wife that can help generate ideas for you.  In the end, I got over thirty ideas for the month. Of course, for me the most difficult thing is often taking ideas and truly drafting them in to the beginnings of a story. What was nice, was that when you signed up for the challenge you also subscribed to a blog where they had guessed writers for each day of the month. So many of their posts are also hopeful and inspirational! In addition, for the first 10 days after the end of the contest there were more blog posts about what to do with the ideas that you made. As always, the big challenge is to actually do something on your own without having someone else cajole you into action.

Of course, one expects to make 30 ideas (or at least I did!), so that’s not much of a surprise. However, it’s probably all of the extra things that I’ve not expect to receive that made the experience so interesting and fun. Probably the most surprising thing was that there was a clear benefit to thinking about a subject each and every day. Duh! Like most things in life, the more you work on a subject or think about it the more in tune you become with it. I began to see all kinds of picture book ideas everywhere. That was cool, and unexpected. It was also nice to get to read a blog post written by a professional every day on the subject of picture books. It definitely makes you feel like you’re part of a community of like minded people, and that the possibility (or even likelihood!) of getting published is actually achievable. They even had special posts from previous participants who had gone on to you as one of their ideas generated in a previous year’s challenge.

I also have to say that letting others know I was participating in the event helped make the fact that I am writing picture books seem very real—it was as if I was now responsible to others in order to live up to my own image of myself. Ha! It reminds me a little bit of the experience I’ve been having with Tasha, where she wants to wish on a star every night. When we begin to wish on the same thing each and every night, we begin to believe that it just might become real, because you begin to really make.

Anyways, I mostly want to let others, who might considering doing this challenge, know that it’s a lot of fun and well worth your time. I am definitely looking forward to the picture book marathon challenge that comes in February or March, where you’re supposed to write a draft of a picture book each day for a month straight. I figure there’s no better way to move forward than to just gets down to it… And get all those crappy picture book ideas out of the way early in the game! : P

P.S.
Hey, btw, want to know something cool? I dictated this entire post to my computer. How easy was it? LOL. Eh,it's a work in progress. But it was fun to try out!

Chasing Chickens Illustrations

I've been working on some new kid's book ideas. One of them is "Chasing Chickens". These are two rough sketches for that. Both done in Paint Tool Sai . The line work for the second was done in SBP. Chickens are fun! :)

The Fairy Band

This is a drawing I did last week in an attempt to continue building a portfolio for illustrating children's books. I later painted it with watercolors, but was unhappy with that work. The pen and ink went better though.

I used Paint Tool Sai entirely for this portion of the exercise. Went for a fast and loose drawing style- particularly so on the fairies. Give it a click if you want to see it at a larger resolution. Open it in another window instead if you want to view it at it's largest.

One issue I ran into was that I was simply working at too high a zoom level. There's a lot of juicy textural stuff going on with the pen and ink work here, and it's definitely lost at print/screen size. Next time, I'm going to need to work with a large pen tool, and just attack it with what is comparatively a blunt object. The detail is great, but if you lose that sense of reality that comes from texture, what's the point? Here's a close up to give you an example. As always, click for closeup.

A List of Children's Books- with commentary (oh lala!!)

In anticipation of the Fall SCBWI conference (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) this weekend, I thought I'd share a list of books that I've been gathering.  These books were recommended to me as books to check out from various sources-- generally pretty current (within the last 5 years or so), that would give a good sense of the sort of stuff that's being published in today's market.  It took a while, but over the last few months, I've been picking them up from the library, 5-10 at a time, and reading them all with the girls.  It's been a lot of fun, and very instructive. As a starting off point, I thought I'd offer the list to you, with occasional notes from me and my experience with the books.

One of the interesting things I found was that there were a number of "categories" books fell into-- I'll call them Joke, Concept, Character, and Story.

Joke-
The "Joke" books all had a very simple idea that was played out, and has no real story.  Sort of a one trick pony.  Some came off very well with my daughter and nieces (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus or The Biggest Thing in the Ocean for example) largely because of the funny pictures or a simple, clever, wacky idea, while others fell a bit flat for me when reading to a child (It's a Book or Duck Rabbit) because they're essentially written for the adult.

Concept-
The "Concept" books often had a basic setting, mood, or idea they played with, but have no real story, and sometimes even no main character.  They're like the cousin of the joke book.  They're fueled by charm and wonder.  Chick N' Pug was clearly written with a love of pug dogs in mind (which I found unengaging, personally), whereas Itty Bitty was about a very small animal that gets very small things to live in its very small house (which I found charming).  Bat Night at the Library (one of my favorites from the list) is all about a love of books, and bats going to the library.  There's not much story though in any of them.  Almost nothing really "happens".  There's definitely no character arc or climax.  And either you dig the concept they're playing with or you don't.  Some focus on a character (Chick N' Pug) but I found uninteresting, while others focus on a setting (like Bat Night) and have no central character at all, but I loved them-- which I found really thought provoking as a writer!! A bit of an eye-opener.

Character-
These type of books are well known, of course.  Curious George.  Fancy Nancy.  Skippy Jon Jones.  Frog and Toad.  Ah, the culture of personality.  Ladybug Girl at the Beach is a clear example of this, though there wasn't enough to really pull me in, besides the art.  Beautiful Yetta however, IMO, is great-- a wonderfully charming "country chicken in the big city" idea.  LOL.  What's interesting to me about these books is that they often have no real story to them either.  Some do, most don't.  Or it's really very very simple.  Things happen in sequence, but there's no real "arc".  It's all about the character and their antics-- often the mood or setting doesn't really matter either.

Story-
What was also surprising to me is how infrequent kid's books really tell "stories" now.  They're around, but it's not that regular.  Perhaps it's the restriction to 30 pages? Or perhaps the frequent focus, IMO, on the graphic content of the work rather than the literary, compared to many children's books from 50 years ago.  Most play with a simple idea (what I'm calling Joke books), on mood or a setting (Concept books), or just run with a character doing stuff (Character books, clearly) with varying results.  Almost all the stories have a main character though, this is one of the things I noticed.  And they have a sort of commonly recognized act structure, with a climax and a coda.  My favorite from this type was easily Children Make Terrible Pets- a funny concept, that actually has a very endearing story.   

For the sake of having an opinion and sharing, I'm putting stars by those I really liked, or were big hits with the girls.  Two stars for those that were awesome, and we'll probably buy.  One for those that we liked, but might not be buying.

**Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus- Mo Willems-- joke

Ladybug Girl at the Beach- David Soman -- character

**Children Make Terrible Pets- Peter Brown-- story

The Little Yellow Leaf- Carin Berger-- mood/story

Flora's Very Windy Day- Jeanne Birdsall-- story/idea

Chick N' Pug- Jennifer Sattler-- concept

**Beautiful Yetta- Daniel Pinkwater-- story, a chicken story, I'm such a sucker for chickens!

Duck! Rabbitt!- Amy Krouse Rosenthall-- joke

It's A Book- Lane Smith-- joke
*What the Ladybug Heard- Julia Donaldson-- story

*Itty Bitty- Cece Bell-- concept

**Bat Night at the Library- Brian Lies-- concept

Maybe I'll Sleep in the Bathtub Tonight- Debbie Levy-- poems

**I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean- Kevin Sherry-- very simple concept, though fun

Llama llama Red Pajama- Anna Dewdney

The Quiet Book- Deborah Underwood-- concept

Zen Shorts-Jon J Muth

*Calvin Can't Fly- Jennifer Berne-- story

How Rocket Learned to Read- Tad Hills-- story

A Balloon for Isabel- Deborah Underwood-- story

**In a Blue Room- Jim Averback-- bed time book

*The Book That Eats People-- concept

*Harey and Horsie-- story

Everyone knows what a dragon looks like- Jay Williams-- haven't gotten to it yet  ;P