How to use this Page

Muhlenberg County High School Visual Arts

Add a Comment

Muhlenberg County High School Visual Arts

Add a Comment

Muhlenberg County High School Visual Arts

Add a Comment

Muhlenberg County High School Visual Arts

Add a Comment

What is the Katherine Paterson Prize for YA and Children’s Writing?

Filed under: children writing, Competition, Contests, Middle Grade Novels, opportunity, picture books, Places to sumit, Young Adult Novel Tagged: $1000 prize and publication, Hunger Mountain, Katherine Paterson Prize

Display Comments Add a Comment

Lots of news and more art!  Josh and I found out that we are having a baby boy just last week, I started a new book project with a new company (that for the time being is still top secret- although I was given the ok to post an occasional work-in-progress image so long as I blur any text and don't give too much away), and I still have final images to create for Fadenrot!

Phew!

I wish so much that I could post the entire PDF of my storyboards for this story as it is very funny... and I'm pretty happy with the images.  I tried to be a lot more loose and a little more "cartoony" with the figures... I think it just fit the story more.  So far, this has been a fun project!

I'm also well into the second trimester of the pregnancy and the morning sickness is truly behind me.  That was SO hard.  Four months of being sick as a dog, and sometimes for the entire day (!!), and just in a total haze... I missed feeling normal... but as I said, I am back, and working hard!  :)  This has been already pretty crazy but at the same time, I'm sure things have yet to change... hee hee... lucky for me I have plenty of girl friends who have just gone through or are going through this at the same time.  I'm sure having a little guy to draw will be very fun, too, and hopefully, we can draw together in the future, my little bean and I... ;)

Fadenrot is always going to be my favorite client... I describe the way we work together to other artists and it is always the "ideal" situation/relationship... I get a theme (and these themes are always wonderfully inspiring and something I would LOVE to draw) and then I sketch like crazy these things that come to mind and my client picks and chooses what she likes... I do some revising, some fine-tuning, and then there it is!!  A new image for her to print and show the world!  It's the best... especially because sketching always inspires some really great ideas for me... :)  It's also just kind of cool to see your art on clothing!  :)

I'm just feeling very grateful, I suppose, and had to share... :)
So here are images to reflect what I am writing here...

First, our Benjamin Lee Yoshimitsu at 5 months:

Second, a single spread of my storyboards for this new project:

I already posted the sketches I made for Fadenrot so I will wait to post the final images when they are finished.

:)
Cheers!

Add a Comment

I feel like a curmudgeon for saying this, but what is happening with girl's toys and play costumes? Everything is pink, glitter and bling. I understand many little girls of a certain age love the color pink and go through a princess stage. But it looks to me like a rather disproportionate number of girls toys are promoting limited ideals for girls: be a princess, rock star or a celebrity. 

Where is this all going? I don't know. It would take up too much time and space on this post and I'm sure you don't want to read it. But I do like books like this one illustrated by Jack Keats - How Animals Sleep. It's interesting and real life. There. Off my podium. Nuff said.

Add a Comment

I feel like a curmudgeon for saying this, but what is happening with girl's toys and play costumes? Everything is pink, glitter and bling. I understand many little girls of a certain age love the color pink and go through a princess stage. But it looks to me like a rather disproportionate number of girls toys are promoting limited ideals for girls: be a princess, rock star or a celebrity. 

Where is this all going? I don't know. It would take up too much time and space on this post and I'm sure you don't want to read it. But I do like books like this one illustrated by Jack Keats - How Animals Sleep. It's interesting and real life. There. Off my podium. Nuff said.

Add a Comment

Yes, Moleskine, the European makers of those expensive little pocket sketchbooks and other diaries has gone public. Read about it in the Wall Street Journal.

                                   Here's a page from my little 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch sketchbook

Add a Comment

Often when I'm working, I listen to This American Life. This week's show turned out to be a foreshadowing of today's huge tornado in Oklahoma. This is SO worth a listen, please listen. 

Add a Comment

 I first saw her work at the UC Art Museum here in Berkeley, way back in the 1990s, when I went to hear her lecture about her art. She's a fabulous storyteller, and incredibly funny. She had been painting on canvas for years, but was having trouble getting her work into galleries. After seeing an exhibit of Tibetan Thangkas, paintings on fabric, she decided to try painting on fabric, making quilted borders or frames around the paintings. She had learned to sew from her mother, a fashion designer. Faith wrote stories to go with her paintings. Easy to roll up and mail cheaply, she started getting exhibits around the country, first at university galleries, then larger venues.

Add a Comment

 I first saw her work at the UC Art Museum here in Berkeley, way back in the 1990s, when I went to hear her lecture about her art. She's a fabulous storyteller, and incredibly funny. She had been painting on canvas for years, but was having trouble getting her work into galleries. After seeing an exhibit of Tibetan Thangkas, paintings on fabric, she decided to try painting on fabric, making quilted borders or frames around the paintings. She had learned to sew from her mother, a fashion designer. Faith wrote stories to go with her paintings. Easy to roll up and mail cheaply, she started getting exhibits around the country, first at university galleries, then larger venues.

Add a Comment

This week we’re taking a look at some of the artists who contributed their artistry to the production of Blue Sky’s Epic, which opens in the United States on May 24th.

First up is Stephen P. Neary, a story artist at Blue Sky who has worked on two Ice Ages and Rio, in addition to Epic. He also creates his own short films such as Dr. Breakfast (embedded below) and Let’s Make Out, which you can find on his YouTube channel.

Stephen’s train commute provides daily sketchbook time and he shares a lot of drawings on his blog and Tumblr. Also being a pie enthusiast, Stephen naturally has a pie blog.

Add a Comment

Hey SFGer's...it's been awhile but I just wanted to announce I've published a book on Blurb and would appreciate any support you can provide...I know it's tough out there for most of us and just trying to keep the proverbial "Wolves at Bay".  Even sharing the link would be greatly appreciated...many, many thanks!

Display Comments Add a Comment

At first, I just wanted to make anything... just to see how the app worked..


Then I decided to try to make something in particular. So I made this giraffe.

I like the lights and how you apply the textures. Very similar to 123D Sculpt but more powerful. Less guessing and more exacting.

Add a Comment

© the enchanted easel 2013

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Hi! My name’s Victoria and no, I don’t have a secret (unless it’s my undying love for Chinese food which, let’s face it, is public knowledge by now).  I’m a junior at Columbus School for Girls who is spending the week interning at Thurber House. When it came time to pick my first choice, Thurber seemed like the only logical option because, well, I love to write.  Thurber House is a place where I can not only write but also have fun and be myself too – why wouldn’t I want to intern here?

Other than that, I’m just your average seventeen year old – one part confused, another part overwhelmed, and two parts recklessly eager to try everything and anything. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that I have a big list of things I enjoy. I like reading, writing, trying new things, football, card games, old movies, driving, horoscopes, Mahjong, beaches, daydreaming, sleeping, ticket stubs, watching entire seasons of TV in one day, coffee, getting lost, and black pens.

I like to write because when I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. And a doctor. As well as a lawyer, a secret agent, a firefighter, a teacher, a police officer, a movie star, a coffee shop owner, a pilot, a chemist, a mailman, and a pirate. It took me a while to realize that meant I should be a writer, the only job that lets me be all those things and more. Ideally, I’d like to become a writer for Film/TV because A) I love to write and B) it would be pretty awesome to win an Oscar/Emmy.

And that’s basically me in two hundred and seventy-one words. I’m really happy to have the opportunity to intern here at Thurber House and I know this week will be a great one!

Staff Note: Victoria is here through Columbus School for Girls’ Junior May Experience. Students completing their junior year give their top three choices of internship experiences and they are paired with a participating organization for 4-9 days in May. We are really excited to have Victoria with us! Check back on our blog and Facebook posts to see what she’s up to this week.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Having a great time working on several jobs this month. One of the more brain-teasing projects is work for Highlights on new Hidden Picture Books for the very young. I was thinking very young meant "very easy," but I was wrong. Hidden picture puzzles take some doing to find creative and interesting ways to hide objects! Since the puzzles are in color, you can't just add objects willy, nilly. They have to fit the illustration so that their color is reasonable in a real world context, i.e. no blue tomatoes. And objects can't be hidden in logical places either.  If you're going to hide a leaf, it can't be in a tree :) So far I've hidden a zipper in a stalk of corn, a mop in a haystack, and a horseshoe in a trumpet. Some have come easy, and some I've had to work at, but it's been super fun to combine a puzzle with an illustration.

Add a Comment

And as the kiddos of the racers "tried out"  the trail the night before...
We finally went to get a beer, well some really good Mexican Food and I had a margarita, cause the kids were away and we would have to be back to the fairground in 12 hours- starting a 6:00 in the morning to trail marshal and man the time tables...

Add a Comment

Last Friday I had the opportunity to do a CAREER DAY talk…well 6, 15 min talks… to 6 groups of about 25 first and second graders at one of my grandson’s schools here in Williamsburg VA(Matoaka Elementary). (that’s my Coady with dark hair in left corner.) It was a hoot to do, and I was so impressed with how interested they were!  Could they, at this tender age, be interested in the difference between a ‘job’ and a ‘career?’  and my industry particularly? They seemed to get it!  wow….

One question has haunted me since.  A cute little 2nd grader asked me just at the end “why do we have to have books?”    GULP

Now in the minute I had left to answer that on going industry question, I couldn’t even ask what she meant by that. Was she asking why Books rather than iPad’s etc? or why we have to make, distribute and sell Books of any kind…and why do they ‘have’ to read them?  I had to answer fast as the exit bell rang…. and jumped in with - ”both books and electronics are equally as viable and wonderful and fun! But do you prefer to cuddle up in bed with your iPad? or a book?”  the class yelled out “BOOKS!”

I don’t know if I assumed her question correctly, thus the ‘haunting’.  What a question!  I suspect we might have a future editor or maybe techie there!  Now you think on that question too…. love to hear what you might have answered in a quick half a minute.

And now as to OUR “Career Days” at BEA… I’m missing it this year due to conflicts but I’ll be watching, reading and listening to any and all coming out about that weekend.  If YOU are there, please write my email ([email protected]) and share!  I’ll write about it….

Display Comments Add a Comment

My next book to be released, Oliver and His Alligator, which comes out next month, has started to garner some accolades. The American Booksellers Association has placed Oliver among their top ten Summer 2013 Next List, coming in at #7. Here is their review:

Oliver and His Alligator, by Paul Schmid

Add a Comment

Just two months after Disney cancelled the Cartoon Network series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, they have announced a new series called Star Wars Rebels. The show will debut on the Disney Channel as a one-hour special in 2014, before continuing as a regular series on Disney XD. The show will be set during the two-decade timespan between Episode III and IV, at a time when “the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape.”

Dave Filoni, who was supervising diretor on Clone Wars, will head up the production as exec producer. He will be joined by Clone Wars veterans Kilian Plunkett (Art Director) and Joel Aron (CG Supervisor), as well as some fresh faces:

Leading the development of the series is a creative team of exceptional talent. Screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg (X-Men: First Class, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) is an executive producer on Star Wars Rebels and will write the premiere episode. He is joined by Dave Filoni as executive producer, who served as supervising director of the Emmy nominated Star Wars: The Clone Wars since 2008. Executive producer Greg Weisman brings with him a wealth of animation experience with credits such as Young Justice, The Spectacular Spider-Man and Gargoyles.

Add a Comment

Just two months after Disney cancelled the Cartoon Network series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, they have announced a new series called Star Wars Rebels. The show will debut on the Disney Channel as a one-hour special in 2014, before continuing as a regular series on Disney XD. The show will be set during the two-decade timespan between Episode III and IV, at a time when “the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape.”

Dave Filoni, who was supervising diretor on Clone Wars, will head up the production as exec producer. He will be joined by Clone Wars veterans Kilian Plunkett (Art Director) and Joel Aron (CG Supervisor), as well as some fresh faces:

Leading the development of the series is a creative team of exceptional talent. Screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg (X-Men: First Class, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) is an executive producer on Star Wars Rebels and will write the premiere episode. He is joined by Dave Filoni as executive producer, who served as supervising director of the Emmy nominated Star Wars: The Clone Wars since 2008. Executive producer Greg Weisman brings with him a wealth of animation experience with credits such as Young Justice, The Spectacular Spider-Man and Gargoyles.

Add a Comment