It’s such a long process — made longer by me constantly chickening out and deciding I didn’t have any pieces that were good enough to send out, doing a whole bunch of new stuff, chickening out again, more new stuff, repeat endlessly, etc.

It’s also been a challenge to figure out exactly how to format a package of illustration samples — all the finicky details, like does it need to be a fancy thing in a binder, or can you just staple a bunch of copies together and call it a day, or what?

I found at least one or two illustrators who advised just good quality copies, one or two pieces on a page, manila envelope, no binder/page protectors/anything else fancy. So that’s what I went with, if any other wanna-be illustrators are reading this and looking for information. I have no idea if that will make me look super unprofessional or what, but hey, it’s a start!

The other horrible part, of course, is the cover letter, but my guess is that it’s probably not as make-or-break as it is with submitting a manuscript. I bet as long as it’s not TERRIBLY unprofessional, whoever opens the envelope will look at the art even if the cover letter’s not the greatest. I mean, all you do is FLIP OVER THE PAGE, and boom, artwork all up in your grill. It’s not like a manuscript where it takes at least a few minutes of reading to get a feel for how good/bad/unbelievably hacky the thing is, and I can totally imagine a bad cover letter getting the whole thing dumped in the recycling right away.

Anyway, blah blah blah, tl;dr… here’s the new stuff:

I don’t mean to sound smug or anything, but… *SMUG!!!*

I mean, maybe it’s just me, but I’m actually happy with these. And I’m NEVER happy with things I do, so don’t think I’m full of myself! Just this once, I’m pleased :)

This one is for a song by Joanna Newsom called — you’d never guess by the title of my post –  “Monkey and Bear.” It’s, um…kind of a folk-y, ballad-y story-song sort of thing that I just love, and since it does tell such a vivid, weird story I thought it would be fun to do some illustrations for it.

Give the song a listen if you don’t mind weird music! :)

1. I’m a full-fledged librarian now – I finished my master’s degree! And my temp job became permanent, so I actually found non-waiting-tables work right out of school. Even at half-time, I feel super, super lucky to have it…now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the new California budget doesn’t kill it. Because of course libraries are a great place to cut lots of money! Who needs the library anymore?! (only poor people, bleh).

2. I just submitted my picture book manuscript for “The Lettuce Rancher” to a publisher, finally. I’ve only been working on that for a year or two, that’s not so long, ha ha.

3. Here’s some new work to pretty up this post:

I still need to fix the colors, it’s way too green, and it’s not quite done (I see now that I’ve scanned it in and spent all morning fiddling with it), but at least I posted something!

4. And I learned just enough xhtml/shtml/php/whateverthehell to put together a better site for my art, so stay tuned for that – and if I don’t post again for nine million years it’ll be because I’m going insane writing code…

I got a job working at the local public library as the temporary youth services librarian, and it’s pretty cool to be putting my very-nearly-completed degree to some use. And it’s (mostly) pretty nice to be back in the working world instead of the school world after spending the last few years being a full-time student. And I get to read lots of children’s books and call it work! Yay!

So it’s working out pretty nicely, but it doesn’t leave oodles of time for blogging– and that’s probably also a good thing :)

But still, I thought I’d do a quick update so that it doesn’t look like this is one of the uncountable millions of dead blogs out there cluttering up the Internet… I do have some bits and bobs of progress on The Lettuce Rancher to post as well, so here’s a new illustration to brighten up this post:

Oof, that’s some tiny text… I’ll fix that & repost this later, really I will! *

*no I won’t.

I have a picture book called “The Lettuce Rancher” that I’m getting ready to submit to publishers, and right now I’m doing a bunch of sketches to lay out a dummy version. It’s turning out kinda cool, I think– here are a few of the sketches:

Moe (our titular guinea pig lettuce rancher) has just discovered that a bunch of his lettuce has been eaten, and he's following a trail of lettuce leaves to find the culprits.

Ah-ha! Here we discover the guilty parties, dozing and digesting their stolen lettuce.

Moe confronts the terrible lettuce thieves!

It’s taken me a while to settle on a style that I feel like is cute and picture-book-friendly but still looks like me, but I think I’m finally feeling satisfied with what I’m doing. At first I had some super generic-looking cute-wittle-animals going on — I started these over about a zillion times — but finally I got some more jaggedy lines and bony knuckles and claws and crazy eyes in there and felt like I got back to doing what I do rather than just trying to make it look “like a picture book”…if that makes sense.

Then, at some point after the last time I looked at the submissions guidelines page (which was just DAYS before I sent it!), this happened:

“As of January 2010″ — hahahahaha. I see what you did there, Fate, you delightful little hussy, you.

Really I think what happened was that I misunderstood their policy– they have another page that says you can send the first fifty pages of a ms., but I guess that’s just for adult books. Now under Children’s Books it links to this OTHER page, which I hadn’t seen before, which says the above. C’est la vie (dammit! dammit! dammit!).

This means I don’t even get a rejection letter to hang on my wall and giggle about, I just got thrown in the TRASH. (Recycling bin, whatevs.)

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ETA: Oh, yay! I guess I must have gotten in just under the wire, because I received a real live rejection letter a day after I posted this. Cool! I mean, yeah, acceptance would be cooler, but still, getting that first rejection letter out of the way is a relief…one step closer to the eventual “yes,” right?

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

--Henry David Thoreau

Isn’t that a cool thought? I feel like that’s exactly where I am in my life right now… Makes you feel better to have Thoreau endorse your course of action.

Oh, and hey, I’m totally sitting around reading Thoreau now, too! Yeah, that’s just, you know, how I unwind.
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Oh, fine, fine, I read it on my Get Fuzzy page-a-day calendar. Still counts.

I think it’s because I’ve been getting better at shutting up my inner critic and just working, which is a thing I haven’t been very good at in the past. Now if I get an idea I just go ahead and try it and see what happens, rather than analyzing it to death before it can even get as far as the sketchbook… The unfortunate result of this is that I inflict more peculiar artwork on everyone around me, but it makes me happy.

"Circulation" pen and ink, watercolor; 12"x16"

At the Window. 11" x 14". watercolor and pen & ink.

But what does it all mean, you ask?

(…You didn’t ask? Oh. Ahem.)

Anyway, it’s probably just my subconscious crying out for me to clean the house more often…

Anyway, just wanted to have a couple of mementos of the show; I was really happy with the way it turned out, so here we are:

"Senator Bicornis Ponders a Vote of No Confidence" -- a new piece I finished for the show & didn't have a chance to post a picture of... And of course I forgot to turn the flash off, so there's a nice big glare right in the middle of the glass -- behold, photography skillz at work!

dig that thermostat -- my favorite part!

Falling Leaves triptych

Okay, yes, I admit things appear to be hanging a bit crookedy. Yes, we could blame me and my poor job of hanging them, but in my defense, it IS a pub — maybe they’ve been drinking??

This is a very cool restaurant, too, so if you’re ever passing through Quincy, CA, check out Pangaea Cafe and Pub. Lots of really yummy organic and local food — aww, man, I’m hungry now, dammit…