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Got a couple of things scanned in, one sketch for a new pen and ink drawing, and one finished pen and ink…
The Walker in Darkness, 11"x14"
This one is going to be part of another hand-made book I’m planning, along with the other drawings on the “New Stuff” page on my site–you can click on it to go look at the other drawings in the series.
The Silver Key, pencil sketch
This little weirdo…it’s a really rough sketch, but I think he’s so cute that I just had to share him :) He’s from an H.P. Lovecraft story I read recently (click on him to go check out more of my sketches at my site).
I had to move all of my posts from Sitekreator by hand because I couldn’t find a way to export them… It was a pain, but I think it was worth it–I really like WordPress’s blog features (still like the rest of my site on Sitekreator better, though, so there it stays). So here I am! I can tag my posts, and categorize them, and oh my gosh do I love sorting things, so I’m really enjoying obsessing over that. Like, for example, since I’m posting this when I should be working on a paper for school, I can tag it with my “things I do instead of schoolwork” tag! Perfecto.
Oh, and and and, I have been working on my Coraline box, and I absolutely *love* what I’m making, and I found the niftiest old cigar box for it! Yay! I wonder if it’s okay if I post pictures of the works in progress…? Probably supposed to be kept hush-hush or something–but I reeeeally want to! I’m going to take in-progress photos anyway, I’ll post them after the swap is over if nothing else.
Okay, now back to work *sigh* on that paper *sigh*
Blah…(Ooh, now I can add the “blah” tag!!)
Yay!! I’m so excited about it…I’ve already got stuff planned and sketches going. I just need to find a box & some red velvet, but I have everything else I’ll need. That’s what I’ll be working on for the next few weeks because it has to get in the mail on March 16th and that timeline is making me just a wee bit nervous…
Oh, and and and–yay again–I saw Coraline for the second time last night! It’s so amazing…well, words fail me. Everyone just has to go see it for themselves. I was just as enthralled the second time around (except for when I was distracted by the persistent smell of neem oil [which smells kind of like weird, not-so-yummy Chinese food] which was squidging its way through the theatre. Maybe someone actually brought Chinese takeout in with them?? That would be an impressive new level of movie-theatre-food-smuggling dedication).
Yay, I’m at WordPress! This “dashboard” view you get when you’re looking at the blog as the administrator is so complicated, I had no idea! Sitekreator is way different.
Anyway, I have nothing at all to say, but I just *had* to get rid of that “Hello world!” post that they automatically give you. You know, I’ve seen so many blogs with that as their first post, and I didn’t realize it’s automatically generated by WordPress to get you started — I thought that everyone just thought that was a cute thing to say!
I was looking around some more at the Coraline movie website and came across Bobinsky’s blog, which I hadn’t read before (really funny!). Anyway, it looks like I’m not the only one still wishing I’d gotten a Coraline box…(Even Bobinsky wishes he had–poor guy, you’d think he’d have been a sure thing!)
Some bloggers are organizing their own Coraline box swap (that’s a really wonderful crafts blog that link goes to–my little mochi, it’s called–look around at all her neat teeny dollies and stuff), and I keep wondering if I should sign up for it. I reeeally want to, I’m just nervous about it. I wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone! Still……
I think I will. Or try to, anyway–only the first fifty people to sign up tomorrow get to do it, so even if I try I might not get in. But I think I’ll give it a shot. Eek, I’m scared! (but now that I’ve decided to try you just know I won’t get in, heh…)
Oh, and look, here’s my kitty with button eyes (scary!):
You can make your own button-eyed picture at coraline.com–go to the Other Mother’s Workshop!
I decided a while ago that Owen’s Uncles would be illustrated after all–I hadn’t thought I would do illustrations for it because it’s aimed at older kids, but then I thought, nah, it’s too perfectly suited to some lovely little weird pen and ink drawings not to have them. And they are turning out to be a ton of fun to do, so I just have to share some of them now, even though they’re not done yet!
So here are some works in progress…
“Owen meets the Uncles” –still finishing up some background details, the door, etc…
“Arrival at Cragview Manor” — this one I’m not too sure about…it needs quite a bit of fiddling still before I’m happy with it–if I ever will be. I can’t quite come up with a view of the house that seems like I picture it in my head.
“Strange Figures in the Standing Stones”
–See that poor doggie? Yeah…he’s going to be edited out of the story :( I feel awful about it! Tsk! It’s hard to switch from Doting Creator to Ruthless Editor mode.
According to their site, this is the number one unicorn and rainbow service WORLDWIDE. This is serious stuff here, kids — big business. Check it out: Cornify.com.
Really, I don’t know how we’ve all used the intertubes without this thing! I have a sparkly, hot pink unicorn-pegasus-pony thing and a big unicorn-leaping-through-crashing-waves plastered across this page as I type, and my gosh–how to express it, the love, the joy? –well, I’ll never blog without them again, put it that way. Go on, go Cornify a depressing website! It’s lovely, and it’s perfect for Valentine’s Day.
Yes, I’ve been kind of remiss lately, I know. Blogging is hard! I don’t always have stuff to talk about, you know? When a day was nothing but working on library school assignments, there’s not a lot of interest in it to tell other people about–I’m sparing you crippling boredom, honestly. And lately the main thing outside of schoolwork that I’ve been working on is Owen’s Uncles, and there’s nothing to post about that…when I work on drawings I have something to show for it that I can post–when I work on stories I’d feel kinda silly posting the paragraphs I wrote that day!
But I do have news now–I finished Owen’s Uncles!! This is a big deal to me…I’ve been writing that thing a little at a time longer than I’ve been in college–so over four years now. Whew! I can’t describe how good it felt to get it thing done–like my head felt pounds lighter all of a sudden. It was lovely. I still have some editing to do of course, but basically I’m ready to figure out which publisher I can send it to first (“first,” you note–I’m SO ready to be rejected!). Exciting and terrifying all at once…So yeah, that’s done and also I have a bunch of new projects in mind, a lot of almost-done new drawings, and an idea or two for another handmade book like The Lettuce Rancher. Anyway, I’ll come back shortly and add a scan of a new drawing here–I just don’t want to use the scanner right now b/c Billy’s still asleep & the computer is right against the bedroom wall…I’m even trying to type quietly…
Edit: Okay, the dude has arisen (finally), so I got some stuff scanned in. I’m thinking I should just set up a page for new stuff, don’t you think? (whoever it is I’m talking to here) So I’m going to just put one scan here and then the rest on the (new) new stuff page…okay!
This is called “At Night” — I’m not explaining the title, as it has to do with another crazypants phobia ^_^ Here ’tis, click on it to go to the new page to see the rest of the new, well, you know, stuff…
At Night. 14"x17", pen and ink.
I just found a quote from William Steig, who wrote and illustrated absolutely brilliant books (Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, The Amazing Bone, Abel’s Island, Dominic, just for a start), and I wanted to share it:
“I often ask myself, ‘What would be an ideal life?’ –I think an ideal life would be just drawing.”
Aww. So sweet, so simple and so true…man, I just loved that guy. I’m so sad he’s not with us any longer; he passed away in 2003. The Jewish Museum has a nice tribute to his work right now: From the New Yorker to Shrek: The art of Willam Steig. Very much worth taking a look at. Thank you for your wonderful work, Mr. Steig.
Just wanted to post a link to an interesting interview with the director of Coraline (you remember, I was raving about his cool movies in an earlier entry), Henry Selick… very fun read!
I love this part where he’s talking about what he loves about stop-motion–this is exactly what’s so magical about it:
“Stop-motion is what I keep coming back to, because it has a primal nature. It can never be perfect. There’s always something like—[Points to the Coraline puppet on the table.] Coraline’s sweater, you can notice here that it’s sort of boiling. And that’s because people are touching it and moving it for every frame. There’s an undeniable reality that I don’t think any of the other mediums give you. You know these things are real even if you don’t know exactly how they move, how big they are. [. . . ] It’s never going to be the dominant filmmaking style. It’s always going to be the cousin off to the side. You know, the more eccentric relative of yours that some of the kids like.”
