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I had to do a lightning fast job for the School Magazine - in between all the book work I have on, I literally had half a day to come up with three illustrations for a lovely story about a little West African girl who finds and falls in love with a scrap of fabric, and then finds a way to get herself a robe made of the precious cloth. I ended up trying a new technique, because I needed to be quick but also wanted the illustrations to feel rich and not rushed. So I did underdrawings with charcoal, then sprayed them with fixative, glued on orange tissue paper for the cloth, scanned the charcoal/collage mess and tinted it in Corel Painter, using a transparent gel layer so all the charcoal texture shows through. The borders were made in Illustrator, based on West African Adinkra symbols, which are used traditionally. I chose symbols that represented resourcefulness, cooperation, community, intelligence, ingenuity and independence to fit the themes of the story. And Phew! Job done and sent.... and I quite like the effect. It fits the feel of the story, anyway.

"Mr. Funny Bunny was so happy driving his carrot car on a beautiful spring day, he didn't even notice the upcoming dip in the road!"

I know, I know, Easter is over! I tried to get this done yesterday, but it just didn't happen. Life just gets in the way sometimes! I've sure been having fun creating bunnies and other Eastery goodness, but I guess it's time to move on now. Just had to get this last one in for Illustration Friday. This carrot car image is based on a stamp design I did for A Muse, last year.

We of course did some biking too, well, everyone else did some biking- I sketched....biking or having a few hours uninterrupted to sketch- I'll take sketching. So....

2 Comments on Tucson Trip- Biking at Fantasy Island, last added: 4/7/2010

The new challenge is:

Ancient Civilization!

Illustrate an Ancient Civilization. Or "Civilisation" for you non-Yanks. Egypt, Aztec, Sumeria...

The "Awake" challenge is over. The new challenge is "Ancient Civilization" and ends on April 19, 2010. The "Flight" challenge continues for another week and ends on April 12, 2010.

[this post was created in advance and scheduled for posting at a later date - I am unavailable for a while so play nice - I will judge challenges on my return]

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I found this picture on agent Jill Corcoran’s blog.  Don’t you love it?  I think we should print it out.  Maybe it will help us feel better when we are waiting forever to hear back from an editor.  

Now let’s talk about Cheryl Klein, editor at Arthor A. Levine.  I am sure most of you are familiar with Cheryl and already visit her blog, but if you haven’t visited you should.   She posts a lot of great information on her blog and website.  Last week Cheryl answered nine questions from writers.  Jill Corcoran liked number two.  I didn’t need anyone to point out the importance of getting an agent, but if I was an agent, I am sure question two and the answer would be my favorite, too.

I listed question five and six.  Six because we were talking about synopsis last week and I totally agree with Cheryl.  Question five, because I like the way Cheryl gives you an insiders view of what publishers consider before offering a contract for a book.  Click the link at the bottom to read all nine questions and answers.

5.  In a review for *House Rules* by Jodi Picoult, a critic referred to Asperger’s as the “disease du jour” (which shows some measure of ignorance since AS is not a disease.) There do seem to be a number of books, movies, TV shows, etc that have characters on the Autism Spectrum. When does the market become saturated? Is it like vampires (although I cringe to make the comparison) and there is room for more protagonists with different ways of being? How do publishers gauge which underlying topics have room left to explore and which do not?

We publishers know the market is saturated when (a) bookstore buyers start rolling their eyes and passing on the books when sales reps present them (a dangerous warning sign we try to avoid before we get there), or (b) the books stop selling (ditto). Another warning sign is when a manuscript involving the trend du jour presents all the cliches of that trend rather than any original thought involving it, but then that could just be the fault of one unimaginative writer rather than the fault of the trend. . . . Maybe many manuscripts like that would form sign (c).

With something like Asperger’s, which is (or should be) a factor of a character’s personality rather than the whole plot itself (in contrast to vampirism, where a vampire’s mere existence in the real world alongside regular humans usually becomes the central problem/plotline of the book), I think there’s still a lot of room to explore, because there are so many plots that might involve it in so many different ways. Also, the most recent statistic I’ve seen regarding autism said that 1 in 110 children born today are somewhere on the autistic spectrum — which is up considerably (and distressingly) from the 1 in 150 statistic I saw when I was working on Marcelo in the Real World a couple years ago. If that’s true, the interest in autism isn’t going away anytime soon, though the subject will need to continue to be covered relatively well in order to be respectable. (Though those numbers should certainly be taken with a grain of salt: “lies, damned lies . . .”)

6.  For a YA novel, what length of a synopsis makes you smile?

One page, single spaced.

Read the rest by clicking: http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2010/03/nine-questions-answers.html

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers by Gloria Whelan, illustrated by Yan Nascimbene (Sleeping Bear Press, 2008) is the story of a young girl from seventeenth century Japan who travels with her family in a palanquin to the imperial palace of Edo.  Little Yuki’s father is a samurai, and as such, must make the ritual visit to the shogun to pay his respects.  Yuki, however, is not excited by the prospect of this long  journey that will require the ‘thousand carriers’ to bear them and all their gifts and goods to the capital.   Yuki’s teacher suggest she write haikus on her journey about the things she experiences.

Yuki’s first haiku is wistful about her departure, but eventually she goes on to observe exciting things that keep her attention away from her homesickness like the trail of the thousand carriers and the appearance of blossoms in the rain and fishermen at sea.  The illustrations by Yan Nascimbene illustrate in a very Hiroshige-esque way the many sights Yuki witnesses.  One of the other illustrated delights of the book are the colorful kimono Yuki wears.

I enjoyed reading this book to my daughter.  In Japan, we traveled to sites like the castles, riverbanks and bridges that are depicted in the story.  We once even took a tour of an old inn, especially used for samurai lords and their entourages.  Reading Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers reminded us of that time.  My daughter also mentioned not understanding the word ‘palanquin’ until I explained to her how she had one as part of her Girls’ Day doll set.   Her eyes lit up in recognition when I mentioned it.   Little Yuki, of course, being a young female of the nobility, rode in the palanquin with her mother.

This is a good picture book to share with a young girl as a bedtime read.

Here's a picture I'm working on for John Reppion and Leah Moore; comic book friends and very talented writers. I'm really happy with this one, I think it's one of the better pieces I've done in a while. As I've been working on it I've been watching Hammer horror films...I hope not too much of that gothic sensibility finds its way in.

A Cat Named Twitter: http://www.shelter-cats.com/2010/03/twitter/

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A little graphic design from josh pincus is crying.

JPiC

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Weeee! is that feeling reserved for stuff that makes you feel like you’re more alive than usual. The kind of thing that makes you notice your involuntary bodily functions.

You can’t fake the weee! because you can’t really fake yourself out about that stuff. You can put on a weee! face for other people and if they don’t know you very well, they might be fooled. Your close friends will talk about you in the car on the way home because they’ll sense the anti-weee! vibe you were throwing off.

Real, authentic weee! is unfakable. You can’t even control real weee!, it just happens.

Weee! is part fear, part awesome, part who cares, and part I don’t even know who I am right now.

Weee! is sometimes felt more on the inside than the outside, which is why you can fool strangers and not those close to you with fake weee!

People close to you can see inside.

Representing weee! in a visual way can be tricky. It’s not always obvious, like blood-curdling fear. It’s not easy to spot like disappointment, which for some reason you can glimpse even on a stranger when they try to fake that everything’s cool.

One person’s weee! is wide mouth, limbs reaching for the sky, and loud weee! sounds. Another person’s weee! is so subtle you might miss it if you didn’t know them well. I have a friend who’s weee! is an ever-so-slight clench of fists and slight widening of the eyes. You might think he farted, but I know it as his unmistakable weee! look. He can’t fake his authentic weee! with me.

Since everyone has their own version of weee!, it can be tough to represent visually in a subtle way. That’s why a lot of artists will go over the top to show weee!, because you don’t know who will be interpreting the weee!  Context is needed, or it can look like “Oh boy!” “Gnarly!” or even “I farted (you know, like if I drew my friend).”

What’s your personal brand of weee!? What makes weee! happen for you? Share in the comments or on Twitter. Weee!

In a dimly lighted room,     In a scruffy beat up chair,

Orin sat amongst the memories…. and wished that she was there.

stay tuned…..

For my Cinefamily animation screening this month we’re going twelve rounds with an all-star championship card that pits Tom vs. Jerry, Popeye vs. Bluto, and Bugs vs The Crusher. I’ve compiled a brutal collection of animation’s “funniest beatings” (as John K. might say); headbanging, eye-bulging cartoon entertainment they don’t show on TV anymore, with rare 35mm and 16mm film prints (including several in Technicolor).

Join us tonight (4/6) at 8pm, in Hollywood, at the CineFamily/Silent Movie Theatre.
And remember the first rule of Cartoon Fight Club — tell everyone about Cartoon Fight Club!

Weeee! is that feeling reserved for stuff that makes you feel like you’re more alive than usual. The kind of thing that makes you notice your involuntary bodily functions.

You can’t fake the weee! because you can’t really fake yourself out about that stuff. You can put on a weee! face for other people and if they don’t know you very well, they might be fooled. Your close friends will talk about you in the car on the way home because they’ll sense the anti-weee! vibe you were throwing off.

Real, authentic weee! is unfakable. You can’t even control real weee!, it just happens.

Weee! is part fear, part awesome, part who cares, and part I don’t even know who I am right now.

Weee! is sometimes felt more on the inside than the outside, which is why you can fool strangers and not those close to you with fake weee!

People close to you can see inside.

Representing weee! in a visual way can be tricky. It’s not always obvious, like blood-curdling fear. It’s not easy to spot like disappointment, which for some reason you can glimpse even on a stranger when they try to fake that everything’s cool.

One person’s weee! is wide mouth, limbs reaching for the sky, and loud weee! sounds. Another person’s weee! is so subtle you might miss it if you didn’t know them well. I have a friend who’s weee! is an ever-so-slight clench of fists and slight widening of the eyes. You might think he farted, but I know it as his unmistakable weee! look. He can’t fake his authentic weee! with me.

Since everyone has their own version of weee!, it can be tough to represent visually in a subtle way. That’s why a lot of artists will go over the top to show weee!, because you don’t know who will be interpreting the weee!  Context is needed, or it can look like “Oh boy!” “Gnarly!” or even “I farted (you know, like if I drew my friend).”

What’s your personal brand of weee!? What makes weee! happen for you? Share in the comments or on Twitter. Weee!

In a dimly lighted room,   In a scruffy beat up chair,
Orin sat amongst the memories…. and wished that she was there.

stay tuned…..

This past week, I've been listening to the amazing, London-based boys' choir, Libera (formerly called Angel Voices). Unfortunately, one cannot embed their videos, but you can go to their youtube page - and my favorite, well, one of my increasing list of favorite pieces of theirs: Voca Me. I don't know. Salva Me might be my favorite tonight.

In other news, I have just received copies of books 7 and 8 in the Wind Dancer series, and want to pass on my bounty to you, gentle reader....

If you would like to be in the running for this book giveaway, leave a comment on this blog post before midnight, Sunday 11th (pacific time) and I will post the results of the drawing-of-your-names next Monday. I will ship to anywhere in the world, so feel free to participate.

Happy first full week of April!

I've come up with a party pack to go along with my new book with Gillian Rogerson, You Can't Eat a Princess, and I even took it to a party to test drive it! And it worked brilliantly!

You can download all the sheets from my website.
Here are the invitations you can print out, and a party pack sheet with loads of party ideas:


Gillian, her daughter, my friend and I all did some baking and came up with some themed cakes, plus a sheet that tells you how:


And the partygoers can muck in and make their own cupcakes look like aliens:



Party game!


You can make tiaras and alien googly eyes for your costume:


Design your own alien craft session!



And don't forget, STORYTIME!


I'd love to hear from anyone who throws this party, do let me know how it goes and send photos!
Start downloading!

Weeee! is that feeling reserved for stuff that makes you feel like you’re more alive than usual. The kind of thing that makes you notice your involuntary bodily functions.

You can’t fake the weee! because you can’t really fake yourself out about that stuff. You can put on a weee! face for other people and if they don’t know you very well, they might be fooled. Your close friends will talk about you in the car on the way home because they’ll sense the anti-weee! vibe you were throwing off.

Real, authentic weee! is unfakable. You can’t even control real weee!, it just happens.

Weee! is part fear, part awesome, part who cares, and part I don’t even know who I am right now.

Weee! is sometimes felt more on the inside than the outside, which is why you can fool strangers and not those close to you with fake weee!

People close to you can see inside.

Representing weee! in a visual way can be tricky. It’s not always obvious, like blood-curdling fear. It’s not easy to spot like disappointment, which for some reason you can glimpse even on a stranger when they try to fake that everything’s cool.

One person’s weee! is wide mouth, limbs reaching for the sky, and loud weee! sounds. Another person’s weee! is so subtle you might miss it if you didn’t know them well. I have a friend who’s weee! is an ever-so-slight clench of fists and slight widening of the eyes. You might think he farted, but I know it as his unmistakable weee! look. He can’t fake his authentic weee! with me.

Since everyone has their own version of weee!, it can be tough to represent visually in a subtle way. That’s why a lot of artists will go over the top to show weee!, because you don’t know who will be interpreting the weee!  Context is needed, or it can look like “Oh boy!” “Gnarly!” or even “I farted (you know, like if I drew my friend).”

What’s your personal brand of weee!? What makes weee! happen for you? Share in the comments or on Twitter. Weee!

I've only played bridge once in my life and it made me feel rather ill in the head.
Watercolour 20cm x 14cm. Click to enlarge.