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I’m getting ready for a show next month and hoping to get a bunch of new things finished for it; just got this one finished up last night & thought I’d share it.
Malevolent Spirits. 12"x18"; pen and ink, watercolor.
I would explain the story behind it, but everyone who has ever known a cat understands anyway…
I wish the scan did the colors justice, but watercolors are SO tricky to get to scan decently. My strategy now is just to adjust the colors in Photoshop using the selective color tool, and the results are passable, but I sure wish I knew of a better way of going about it. I had found a tutorial with some tips, but the site’s down now… so if anyone out there has any suggestions, let me know!
See, didn’t I say I’d be updating soon? It’s so helpful to have a real workspace now–I love being able to go up to my studio and work and have everything organized and accessible… So in just the last few days I’ve gotten four things done that I’d been working on for months, which is very satisfying. Anyway, these are the sample illos I’m planning on sending along with my manuscript:
So, there we are–what I’m hoping is that this bunch shows my best work, and also shows that I can draw characters consistently from one scene to another, show people in motion, and do outside and inside settings… I don’t know if it’s really the best strategy to send my sample illustrations with my story or not, but I’d really love to write AND illustrate this story, so I’m just going to chance it. I do keep seeing submission guidelines for various publishers that sound like they are interested in people who both write and illustrate, so I think if I just keep at it eventually I’d find someone open to both… Anyway, I’m going to give it a shot. We’ll see!
What a hectic couple of months! First getting ready to move away from foggy, cold Humboldt County, while dealing with finals at the same time; then actually moving (that was a hellish weekend, for sure); then summer classes started just a week after we moved into our new house. The good news is that the new house is great, and I actually have a studio, and it’s all sunny and roomy and lovely. And it’s SO nice to be back in our hometown, where summer is just gorgeous and we can go creek swimming all the time, and our family is here and everything. I just feel so much better about everything, now that I’m back here with the beautiful mountains I grew up with all around again. Here’s a photo of one of my favorite places in the county, so you can see I’m not exaggerating how nice it is here:
Spanish Creek, Plumas County, CA
I feel so much happier and more creative and inspired being back here… I know, I’m sickeningly happy, aren’t I? ^_^
Anyway, the real reason for posting: Finally finished a new drawing, and here it is…
Woman with Mask. pen and ink, 11"x14"
I’m also just about ready to start submitting a manuscript & sample illustrations to publishers, and I’m serious this time…I even have the cover letters written, THAT’S how serious I am! Will be updating soon…
Just finished a new drawing last night, finally. It’s been so hard to get time to work because it’s that part of the semester when everything is due all at once, and it’s really frustrating because I have a lot of ideas floating around that I wish I could work on–not to mention a story completely finished but for a few little bits of editing that I can’t seem to get time to do. Arrgh!
Oh well, at least this one drawing is done, that’s better than nothing–and I’m always amazed what a difference it makes to my mood and outlook on days when I get time to draw, even if it’s just for a little while. Anyhow, here’s the point of this post:
The Silver Key. 11"x14", pen & ink
One of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories is “The Silver Key.” It’s about a man who has always had these wonderfully vivid dreams where he travels to other worlds and sees all these fantastic things, but as he ages, he finds that he has “lost the key to the gate of dreams.” (Isn’t that a nice phrase?) Then he finds a strange key hidden in the attic of his house, and he hopes if he takes this key back to the home he grew up in it will somehow allow him to get back to his dream worlds… it’s a really good story. The ending revolves around the main character’s ten-year-old self — hence this drawing.
Do I talk about anything else these days?!
I just thought I ought to post some pictures of my finished box for the swap, because if nothing else I know my mommy wants to see them…
So here we go:
Outside of box
the latch is made from two old earrings and a copper wire (that I annealed and shaped wif my own two hands in jewelry-making class *smug*)
–detail view of latch, and Douglas Fairbanks’ handsomely be-buttoned eyes…
outside of box
opened, with everything packed inside
–Those are handmade teeny tiny clay buttons Douglas is sporting, in traditional black.
Unpacked.
The finished Other Mother portrait. I have to find another picture of it where you can see her articulated arm better–there are tiny brass eyelets that let her arm move when you pull the thread, so she in turn pulls the thread that she’s sewing the doll’s eye on with. She also has a very tiny real needle in her hand…I was pretty happy with how she turned out.
Tortoise and little box
And finally, the seeing stone, in its little velvet-lined box–it turned out really pretty (it’s polished polymer clay). I might have to do one for myself, too…
So that’s it! It was so much fun to make…I even tea-dyed the paper for the labels and burned the edges to make it look old… I really think I’m going to look for another vintage cigar box and make another one soon–I have more ideas!
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 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.
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.
