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This is another new piece I just finished for the show I have up right now–I finished it weeks ago, but I had to scan it in parts and I only got a chance to go into Photoshop and piece it together today…no time for anything art-related the last few miserable weeks, thanks to the million (read: three–but they were three REALLY BIG, mean projects) giant school projects I had to finish up. But another semester down now, hooray! So, anyway, here’s the picture…
Jenny Greenteeth. watercolor and pen & ink, approx 12"x16"
And now that I have some time, I really want to take some photos of the show before it comes down…it turned out looking pretty cool.
So, projects for the break are: submit “Owen’s Uncles” to the next publisher on my list; research how and where to submit my illustration portfolio; work on the new story idea that’s been bugging me for weeks with no time to work on it; keep working on illos for La Belle Dame Sans Merci (totally stalled out on that before, but I have better ideas on how to do it now); and do some work on “The Lettuce Rancher.”
I gave up on that last one there for a while because I kept seeing advice for would-be children’s book writers saying, “Don’t bother with that cute story you wrote about your pets, you sentimental dolt” (the last part was only implied). But while I was reading zillions of picture books for one of my library school assignments, I kept coming across cute stories about the author’s pets, and I learned two things from this:
1. Nuh-uh, advice-givers, those crappy pet stories totally do too get published; and
2. Yes, they generally do suck. So the advice still makes pretty good sense.
But MY cute-story-about-my-pets doesn’t suck, so I’m going to work on it again…
Got another new piece completed for the show I’m doing in November, so I thought I’d share it. I think this turned out kinda cool, and I had better luck with scanning it than usual, too, so yay. Plus I’m KIND OF getting the hang of seeing where the colors are off, and knowing what I need to do in Photoshop to adjust them. (Although I really cannot emphasize “KIND OF” enough here.)
Anyway, check it out:
Isn’t she cute?! I love my weird, unpleasant-looking little kids…she would so be friends with the little boy in the Silver Key.
Now back to what I should be working on, which, as always, is an assignment for library school.
*pities self*
[eats some potato chips out of boredom and despair]
*loathes self*
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!
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.
You know how every time you see a box on the doorstep you have that instant where you think in the back of your mind that maybe, just this once, it’s not going to be something like new filters for the vacuum cleaner or a car part or whatever, but instead a mysterious present from a stranger? Well…
fig. 1--mysterious box from a stranger arrives.
Ta-da!
Here it is, Box no. 34 in the Coraline Mystery Box Swap (just to clarify, this was a swap of handmade boxes inspired by the ones the makers of the Coraline movie sent out to various lucky bloggers–these aren’t “official” Coraline boxes). Thanks so much to my little mochi for organizing this, it was such fun to participate, and thanks to Carmen of Carmenland for making this amazingly cool box.
It was *so* much fun going through all the lovely little bits and bobs Carmen made… So here are a bunch of pictures of everything so other people can enjoy all this neat stuff too (I struggled mightily to take decent photos for once, to do the box justice!).
fig. 2--mysteries revealed
fig. 3--beautiful mittens!
fig. 4--delightful notecards, with mice, buttons, and jaunty black cats
fig. 5--a seeing stone, a ghost child's eye, and a kit for buttoning one's eyes
…with my inspired-by-Coraline tortoise.
He’s got his shell attached now and I just need to do a couple little nit-picky things and then he’s done. He is very handsome, I think you’ll agree:
Aww! Isn’t he cool? I wish the colors in his shell showed up better, but you can see the texture of it at least.
This one gives you a better view of his face (while kind of making it look like one of his back legs has disappeared–it hasn’t, it’s just my elite photography skillz at work again):
And I didn’t want to post a million views of him because I’m trying not to be TOO boring, but he has teeeny little vertebrae for his neck, and a little bone tail, too. ^_^
Well, as usual I’m doing this instead of doing schoolwork so I guess I’d better get back to it–*snivel*–but The Other Mother drawing is shaping up nicely, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to post a scan of that soon.
Just thought I’d post some photos of what I’ve done so far for the Coraline mystery box swap that my little mochi organized. I just got my cigar box today, and it’s so much cooler than the photos on eBay made it look! I was really nervous after I ordered it that it was not right for this project, but as soon as I saw it in real life I totally fell in love with it.
So now that I’ve built up the suspense, here’s the box (my photos don’t do it justice either–the colors are richer in real life):
Isn’t it great? Douglas Fairbanks! *squee* It’s going to look so good with red velvet inside…I still need to hit some thrift stores and find some red velvet, of course–this week sometime.
I’m planning on doing at least one little sculpture for it, maybe two if I have time. Here is the first one in progress (please excuse the horrible photos…I don’t know why I always take such awful blurry pictures. Anyway…). Here’s my little tortoise, all sad and shell-less and nuuuude:
And his shell, the top half, anyway:
Ugh, those are blurrier than I thought! >_<
They’re the only ones I have, though! Anyway… Let’s just move on and pretend we didn’t see those horrible blurry things, shall we? :)
Here’s a really rough sketch for a pen and ink drawing I’m planning — I don’t know how much it’ll look like this in the end… I have some plans for adding some little 3-d touches (kind of pop-up book style), so this is just kind of a concept drawing.
So that’s the news for today–back to schoolwork, I guess. I’m coming to realize that I’m going to have to tag every single post I make with “things I do instead of schoolwork”. Sigh.
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).
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.
