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A silhouette of a nighthawk on a telephone pole. 8x10 gouache on Arches watercolor paper. This piece was in the Midnight Wildlife show, and is now available at my shop. 

(psssst: use code MIDNIGHT20 and get 20% through 3/3)

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Since I'm partly on USA-time because of Sketchbookskool, I'd like to say: Happy President's Day, USA! Enjoy your holiday today!
Now how about baking a nice festive cheesecake (ingredients below) for the occasion?

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I've been off the radar because I have to move... to where I don't know. All of my books are now in boxes--over 35 and counting! Yeah, I have a lot of books. This whole process is just really draining for me. The day I'm supposed to be out of my apartment I have a school visit so I've been working on trying to add some material to it today. I have tons of school visits coming up in the next two months. Something I struggle with is how to explain how a book is created. I found a good video FOR ADUTLS. What I'd like to do is create one for kids. But oh, how to find the time... Read the rest of this post

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Just a reminder…new class sessions start on FRIDAY in both EMPATH & FAIRY ONLINE SCHOOL.

To check out the classes, for EMPATH SCHOOL, go HERE. For FAIRY ONLINE SCHOOL, go HERE.

Important Class Change

I need more time! The Storytelling and Intuition class will be moved to MARCH. For those of you who wanted to take this class but didn’t have time now for it, you are in luck. Registrations will be still taken until then.

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I'm so excited to share the 2014-2015 Monthly Planner, Preschool Edition that I worked on towards the end of 2013 for Positive Promotion. I was first commissioned to work on the Helping Young Minds Grow cover design. Soon after, I was selected to create the art for each month as well as the hand lettering. Thank you Marty for such a FUN project! Please share this with your Preschool teachers, friends and family. Below are some sample interiors. You can browse the rest of the interior pages here!

Thank you! Stay warm!

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Is competition good for art students? Here's a historical description of competition in the past, but you can skip over that to the end of the post where I pose some basic questions for discussion.

In his book about Paris in 1900, Richard Whiteing described the kinds of competition that art students engaged in:

"In the atelier you have the stimulus of all sorts of competitions. There is the monthly contest for the right to choose your place. The professor looks at your work, marks it as first, second, third, and so on, in the order of merit; and as it is marked, so you have the right to plant your easel where you will for all the month to come. It registers a step in honor, and it precludes bad blood. Then comes the annual competition for the medal, or a tremendous struggle for a place in some special class....With this we have examinations in history, ornament, perspective, anatomy. Students are supposed to know something about these collaterals of their great subject. Many take the history and the perspective in a perfunctory way, feeling that the strain is not there, and that drawing and painting are still the heart of the mystery."  

"Beyond this, of course, there is the struggle for the Prix de Rome — very properly restricted to Frenchmen. It is something like a prize — the winner has free quarters in the art capital of the world on a liberal allowance from the state. The first heat is a sketch in oils, and the result, of course, leaves many out of the race. The second is a figure in oils. For the third, the few left standing are sent to paint against one another for their lives on a subject given by the school. Now, there are all sorts of possibilities of unfair play in a competition of this sort, and against them authority has taken due precaution. A man may get outside help, and bring in a work that is only half his own; and even if he does every bit of it, he may still have fed his invention on the contraband of borrowed ideas. So, to prevent all that, they put him in a kind of monastic cell in the school itself, and there for three mortal months, until his task is done, he has to live and work, with no communication from the outer world. He is what is called en loge. He brings in his own traps, and he is as effectually under lock and key as any Chinese scholar competing for the prize of Peking. The moving-in day for the Prix de Rome is one of the sights of the Latin Quarter, with its baggage-trains of personal gear ranging from the easel of study to the fiddle of recreation. When it is all over, and the best man has won, he settles for four years in the capital of Italy to rummage at his ease in its treasure-houses of the art of all time. Of course he has to rummage on a plan. Paris requires of him a work every year, to show that he has been making good use of his time. If this is of unusual merit, it is bought by the government."

Some thoughts....and then I want to hear yours.
This description raises a lot of thoughts about competition in the arts in our times. Friendly competition, even if there's no prize in view, can bring out the best in amicable rivals. For those aspiring to professional work in art or music, the number of jobs is far more limited than the number of hopeful applicants. One might argue that being seared in the furnace of competition in the school environment prepares young artists for the rigors of making a living.

But not all art students want to enter that competitive world. What good would competition do for people who are studying art as amateurs--literally for the love of it, people who are trying to top their personal best.

Competition has other downsides. It is great if you're the winner, but winning every competition, especially in a regional environment, can lead to complacency. It might inspire those who lose out to work harder, but it can discourage or demoralize others. Or it might force them to conform for the sake of winning and thereby extinguish their flame of uniqueness.

Although some art schools and ateliers have a rigid set of expectations and standards that everyone agrees to upon enrolling, it's not that way in the larger art world. Our art world is so different from that of 19th century Paris that it's hard to imagine any group of students or academics agreeing on universal standards for judging. Do competitions in our day then become an exercise in second-guessing what the judge is likely to pick, and whether the dollar cost of entering a competition makes it worth the marketing value of getting a prize? That's a lot different from the Prix de Rome: it's more like an advertising roulette based on commercial concerns.

I would especially love to hear from teachers who have seen the good or bad results of competition in their classrooms. I'm hoping to hear how the contemporary ateliers with rigorous standards use competition in their pedagogy. And I'd like to hear from students who would like to share stories of the sting or stimulus of being engaged in a competition.
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The quote is from Paris of To-Day by Richard Whiteing

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There's the Wrekin again, popping it's head up.

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Delve into the art of creating a strong story through plot, tension, characters, and delivery. We'll discuss the difference between writing for children versus adults, and the marriage of images and text. Learn the rules of a good critique, and then evaluate manuscripts with the group. Also gain insight into the children's publishing industry. All levels welcome, but students MUST have one children's story ready for critique, 2,000 words or less. (Illustrators are welcome, I adjust the class accordingly.) I'll be teaching this class at the Buckhead Binders Art Supply. CLICK HERE for more information!

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Yesterday at the Imagine Festival in the Royal Festival Hall, I got to launch my new Shark Seawig!



My Oliver and the Seawigs co-author Philip Reeve and I joined the magnificent Madame Lark on stage in the central Clore Ballroom for a session of BIG HAIR. Madame Lark totally gets the big hair thing.



We had loads of fun leading families in drawing Sea Monkeys and treated them to our special Sea Monkey sea shanty (also known as The Eep Song).



Several people asked me if I'd made the Shark Wig myself, and no, I didn't make my headgear this time! We have some theatre designers working downstairs at our studio and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to commission something. Here's Laura Drake Chambers in the studio she shares with Sam Wyer, working on the Shark Wig. (Sam made the matching shark tooth necklace.) You can follow them both on Twitter as @LauraDrakeC and @Woodenfingers.




And here's Laura in my studio, presenting the finished Shark Wig! I added some little fishing lures to the hair, and it was set to go.



Here's a close-up. The wig's made from things you could find in a bathroom. Then I had some pretty fishing lures tucked into a hidden pocket in my suitcase (I'd totally forgotten they were there!), so I tied them onto the hairpiece.



The sharks in There's a Shark in the Bath love bathroom wigs, too.



But Madame Lark and I weren't the only ones wearing fancy headgear; check out these Seawigs! Zaman Wong e-mailed this photo to us of Firoz - sporting a shipwreck from the Spring 2014 collection - and Surayya - with the classic mermaid, accessorized with mackeral and starfish. Zaman reported that both kids were extremely jealous that my Seawig had a rubber duck.



And more awesome Seawigs by Orlaith, Esme and Elias! (You can print out a Seawig template from the website.)



We also has a special guest appearance from Dulcie, the real-life star of my picture book There's a Shark in the Bath. Dulcie came up on stage for a clap, then Philip and I serenaded her after our signing.



A little glimpse of Madame Lark at work: she's doing that with her voice!



Big thanks to Tamsin Ace, Ruth Huddleston, Jessica Ihejetoh and everyone who have been working so hard to make the Imagine Festival happen! And thanks to Foyles Southbank for supplying our books! (That's Nora Goldberg on the right; you can follow her on Twitter as ExLibrisNora.)



There are lots more Imagine Festival events happening, until Sun 23 Feb, so if you're anywhere near London, do check out the website!

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Runners can never, ever fear ‘failure’. In fact, failures are NOT a bad thing. To fail means that you set a high enough goal. You stepped outside your comfort zone, you DREAMED you could achieve something great.

Failures are often the most powerful learning tools. Bad race, horrendous workout…you have to not only experience them you have to FORCE yourself to get through them. Soak up the experience, actually feel how much that suckiness that was.

Take those sucky feelings and channel them into:
motivation
determination
confidence.

Confidence, you say? Yes, confidence.

A runner who pushes through when things really suck should be brimming with confidence. It’s way too easy to run an amazing workout when your legs feel like gold. To have a phenomenal race when it happens to be one of those ‘magic days’. Magic days are the exception, legs that feel like they’re running on clouds are the rarity.

To grit out a workout and keep your mind IN THE RACE when things are tough, that is mental toughness. The same goes for obstacles and challenges you didn’t expect, sudden curve balls that really test you. Get through them, keep moving forward. Those experiences, those trials, the hard times, even when you put in your best effort and the clock is brutally honest…THOSE are necessary to build a strong runner.

You survive knowing you still put in your best and never mentally gave up when things get tough, and that should give you the most confidence in the world. Those should make you think, “Look, I got through it and stayed tough when I felt like crap. Just imagine how well I’m going to run when my body and my legs feel GREAT.”

Redefine failure in your mind. After a bad workout or race, yes, you are allowed to be miffed, to be peeved. But channel all of that into a productive mindset. Rather than think as a defeatist, use the burning embers of anger as fuel for motivation and determination. Then look for any lessons you can learn from the race. (Did you go out too fast…again?? Wise up! haha)

Then COME BACK. The only time a failure SHOULD make you embarassed is if it’s the end of your road. You give up and stop your story right there.

I want you to now share with me YOUR epic fails turned epic wins. Share your stories about an obstacle you faced, overcame, and came out a stronger runner and person because of it. Tell me also about your epic fail of a race, and either tell me how you came back later to make it a ‘redemption race’ epic win…OR…if you just had this epic fail tell me how you’re going to use that in a way to reach an epic win.

You can blog about, post a picture, make some artage (you know how much I’d really love that!) and then tweet me @caitlinchock with the hashtag #epicfailWIN and a link to your epic fail win moment/story/picture/etc.

So, Runner Friends, embrace your failures because they make you stronger.

1) You know what to do, get to gather your epic fail win moment…I can’t wait to hear all about them! #epicfailWIN

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Question: Why don't companies like:  Disney, Pixar, Sony, Blizzard, Microsoft, Blue Sky, Mattel, Hasbro, Random House, Harper Collins, and Scholastic hire artists based on whether or not they have a college degree? Lets cut to the chase - it's because colleges and Universities routinely give degrees to students who haven't mastered their craft. This really isn't news but I thought I'd briefly write about this so I have a link to copy and paste to artists who ask me for advice on what degree they should get? The other day an artist wrote to me asking what colleges look the best on a resume for animation studios.

If a bachelors degree in visual arts said anything about the quality of students pumped out each year companies would require and interview applicants with BA's and BFA's. The truth is that these companies couldn't care less that you have a degree. They want to see what you can do. They want to look at your portfolio. They also want you to be semi normal but that's another discussion.

BUT - most professional illustrators DID go through a University or art school program. Most artists aren't motivated enough to impose the rigorous hours of practice necessary or even know what to practice to become professional. Schools provide an exposure and immersion to mentors, professionals, markets, networking, methods & techniques, history, standards, and philosophies. These introductions can unlock hidden desires and passions the beginning student never knew they had. So ironically you should probably go to school (and that could mean everything from University to art school to online classes and tutorials - one or a mixture of them) to get good at your craft but don't think too much about the certificate you get - nobody is going to ask for it.

*The bachelors degree is really only valuable if you want to teach at a public or private school, institution, or college and then you will need a masters degree to top it off. Oh yeah - and getting a degree will make your parents happy.

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www.leglessmermaid.blogspot.com

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During the run of my online class 'awesome art journaling', which now has ended, and will be scheduled again for later this year, I was inspired to try something fairly unfamiliar: Using plain watercolours.
Usually I use watercolours for colouring pen drawings or for background washes. I have no idea why I haven't used them more often for simply painting stuff. Well I sat down, took a hand of almonds and switched on the light to create a strong shadow and made this little painting in my journal. I was surprised by the effect, and I really like the result! It's quick, fairly forgiving, and so much easier than I thought.

In two weeks time, the online workshop on drawing food starts again. So if you want to surprise yourself and make some awesome art, why don't you sign up and join?

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I'm planning to cook this for Sunday lunch.
Paper app on iPad. Click to enlarge.

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Guess who's going to be the Grand Marshall of her hometown's Camellia Parade? This girl! So for any of you interested in seeing me and my boys and possibly my husband if i can convince him, ride by in a car and wave like an idiot, come to the parade in Southern California! It's followed by a good old fashioned carnival, all benefitting my lovely old Temple City and its many businesses and schools.

A total side night, it turns out I have pneumonia. i THINK i'll be alright come parade time next Saturday, but if I'm looking wan and pale at all, you insiders will know why...

GO TC RAMS!

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A little something I worked up for my wife on Valentine's Day.

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