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and, i've been under the weather (hence my lack of blogging). with that being said, let's play catch up, shall we? ;)

ok...first things first. with some commissions going on, there is still beautiful little lily who i have been working on for what seems like forever (no complaints though because i have fallen in love with her) and i am happy to say...she is just about DONE! another day or two and she'll be ready to be scanned and ready to SELL! :) here'a peek at the lovely flowers that gave her her name....

©the enchanted easel 2015

©the enchanted easel 2015

©the enchanted easel 2015

©the enchanted easel 2015

Remember Moose and his motley crew? He’s hard to forget with that superhuman (supermoosian?) determination and antlers tuned toward mischief. Let me turn the reigns over to Tom Lichtenheld himself, so he can give you a look at his process, sketches, and creative problem solving. It’s a fascinating look at how an illustrator responds to an author’s manuscript, and a glimpse at the evolution of a picture book.

Welcome back, Tom!When I receive a manuscript and like it, the first thing I do is start doodling. That initial moment of inspiration only comes once, so I try to capture the first images that pop into my head.Then I start refining and exploring options.The director was initially a raccoon, but a duck felt more manic.I spent a lot of time on film sets during my career in advertising, so I know it’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait.No, giraffe don’t live in the woods, but I like to draw them, so a giraffe it is.Lots of gags get left on the cutting-room floor, but it’s all part of the process.Boom!An idea revealing that the movie was actually made, which makes no sense.First crack at a title page. (click to enlarge)

First version of the opening scene. The narrator was a monkey, and part of the scene. We quickly realized that the director had to be “off-camera” until the end.First version of the spread where Director Duck realizes none of the animals are playing by the rules. I liked the simplicity of having only his eyes move, but it was a bit too subtle, so I changed it to his entire head looking from side to side.(click to enlarge)

The Moosenest 

Turning this marvelously manic manuscript into a logical sequence of pictures required complete immersion, so I made a foamcore enclosure around my desk, with only Moose material within my sight lines, and dubbed it The Moosenest. It sounds like a joke, but there’s a point in sketching out a book where you need to have the entire book suspended in your mind at once, so you can mentally move the pieces around without losing sight of any elements. It’s challenging, but one of my favorite parts of the process and I don’t think I could have done it for This Is A Moose without The Moosenest.

A marvelously manic manuscript with mayhem in the pictures. Thanks for letting us in to The Moosenest, Tom!

(I love that moose-like alien. I’m glad he got his day here.)

by Arree Chung

published June 2014 by Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of Macmillan.

Friends, I’m so excited to have Arree Chung in this corner of the internet today. I met Arree last summer at SCBWI in Los Angeles, and am humbled every time I think about how we share an agent and a friendship. He’s an expert storyteller with a bright, animated style and a fresh perspective. Ninja! is his debut picture book, and it will be far from his last.

First, you should watch this short film. And here’s my confession. Arree sent this to me a number of weeks ago with the caveat that it was unreleased and not to share. Except: it was too awesome not to. So I showed it to my students, because single-digit-aged kids are pretty good at secrets and don’t have Twitter accounts anyway.

They loved it. And I mean L O V E D  I T. Each class, without fail, asked to watch it many, many times in a row. So we did.

Meet Maxwell, and then meet Arree.

What has been the most surprising thing about this whole debut picture book thing?

The most surprising thing about the publishing process is how long it takes to actually bring a book to market (1.5 – 2 years).  My background is in games, where companies can publish with the click of a button and make updates via the internet.  The process gives me appreciation for the care that goes into the publishing process.  It also helps to have a great team of people to work with.  Everyone from your agent, publisher, editor and art director in making the book and then there’s publicity, marketing and sales folks that help in getting the book out.An early cover design.revision notes.

I’m fortunate to have a supportive publisher in Macmillan.  They have a great team of experts.  Each one helps you with a specific aspect of the publishing process.  I’ve learned so much.  I’m so grateful I’ve been in good hands.  I’ve worked hard to hold up my end of the deal and make something special.  With Ninja it was easy, because I loved it so much.

Who are your creative and/or literary heroes?

Oh, so many!

Authors:
Roald Dahl
E.B. White
Jack Gantos
Judy Blume
Jeff Kinney

Illustrators:
Russell Patterson
Chris Ware
Yuko Shimitzo

Author/Illustrators:
Shel Silverstien
Wolf Erlbruch
William Steig
Mo Willems
Peter Brown
Leo Lionni
Maurice Sendak
Ian Falconer
Jon Klassen
David Shannon
Bill Peet
Calef Brown

Comics:
Jim Lee
Scott McFarlane
Jeffrey Brown
Bill Watterson
Jim Davis
Charles Schulz

Animation/Film:
Brad Bird
John Lassetter
Guillermo Del Toro
Chris Sanders
Danny Boyle
Tim Burton
Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit)
Steven Spielberg
Hayao Miyazaki

Can you talk about the similarities and differences in animation and the picture book form?

I love both mediums for different reasons.  Both mediums can transport the reader into new worlds.  I love it when a book or movie captures my imagination and I am completely immersed in a world that has been built.  The world is invented but it feels familiar and the story resonates with honesty.  I hate it when a story is force feeding me a message and it feels like an infomercial or when a story rambles without a focus.  Storytelling is magical when it has both the imagination and heart and speaks to you directly and honestly.  A great story is so exhilarating.  There’s nothing in the world that feels like it.  I love both animation and picture books because they have the ability to create magic.

How they are different?  Well, I think the main difference is that film tends to be a passive experience.  The viewer is in a dream like state that watches the story unfold.  It’s like being suspended in a time capsule and you watch everything that happens.  You take the story in a more subliminal kind of way.Books on the other hand I think are active experiences.  You as the reader actively interact with the words and pictures.  It’s like your brain is the film projector and is working to play the story.  Because of this, I think books are much more intimate experiences.  You go at your own pace.  You stop, question and wonder.  Sometimes you’re so engaged, you speed all the way through and sometimes you like to read slowly just because.  Readers engage books with their imaginations and a lot of the story is told in-between the words, the page turns and the illustrations whereas films are full experiences that use all the arts of composition, acting, music and visuals to put you in a state of suspension.

Both are magical and I love doing both so much.

Can you give us any behind-the-scenes information on how you created the short film? Did you get to know Maxwell differently in that format?

Yeah!  It was so thrilling to bring Maxwell to life.  I had a pretty good idea of who he is as a character after creating the book but actually seeing him move and casting Taylor Wong as Maxwell brought another whole dimension.

As for production, here’s a quick behind the scenes look of what it took to make the short film.  I plan on doing a much more in-depth look in a separate blog post.

We used 4 software tools: Photoshop, Flash, After Effects and Final Cut Pro.  The process was a highly collaborative effort between folks at MacMillan, myself and David Shovlin, the animator.  It was a ton of work to do but a ton of fun as well.

In all, it took about 5 weeks of work.  David and I worked really hard on it and I’m really proud of what we created in a relatively short period of time.Where did Ninja! come from?

It’s been my dream to make my own picture books for a long time.  The first conception of Ninja came when I was in art school.  I jotted down “A boy goes creeping around the house dressed as a Ninja and causes trouble.”  That was probably in 2007 or so.

        Early Ninja! thumbnails and character sketches.

In 2012, I decided to do the Illustrator Intensive at the SCBWI Summer Conference.  We were given an assignment to submit a story along with a manuscript, thumbnails, character sketches, and a finished illustration.  Up to that point, I had been writing stories for years but was stuck on many of them.  For the workshop we had to write down answers to the following questions:

WHO
WHAT is the dilemma?
WHERE does it take place?
HOW is the problem solved?

This really helped me a lot.  Previous to this, many of my stories didn’t have focus and wandered a lot.  Ninja was a big break through for me as a storyteller and I had lots of people who helped guide me through it.   I’m so thankful for Rubin, my agent, and Kate, my editor.  The more I worked on it, the more the world and character took shape and gained depth.  It was so much fun to make.

Do you remember any art you made as a kid? What was it?!

Yeah, I made a lot of ninja stars and origami.  I was also obsessed with Legos.  I loved to build cruiser space ships and large fortresses armed to the teeth.  Whenever my uncle bought us Legos, we would make the thing we were supposed to make and then tear it apart and then make what we wanted to make.  Making your own thing was much more fun.

I was a huge comic book reader and collector as well.  I bought all of the X-men, Spiderman, Spider-ham, Batman and Spawn comics.  I still buy comics.

I also really love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  I used to record all of the episodes.  In fact, I used to press pause on the VCR and trace drawings of the Ninja Turtles by overlaying paper onto the TV.  At school, everyone thought I was the best drawer, but I never told anyone my technique til now!  Eventually I copied so many drawings I could draw it out of memory.  I tried to do the same technique with Transformers but that wasn’t nearly as successful because I didn’t understand perspective as at 12 year old.

And now what’s next for you?I’ve got a lot of things I’m working on.  I have lots of Ninja stories to tell with Maxwell. (I’m so excited about all of them!)  One of them involves an old Chinese folktale involving ghosts!

I’m also illustrating two Potty Training books for kids that are hilarious.illustrations from How to Pee

I have lots of picture book stories I’m developing and I’m also writing a middle grade novel titled Ming Lee, All American.  Ming Lee chronicles my experiences growing up as an ABC (American Born Chinese).  It’s deeply personal and is funny in that Louis CK, embarrassing but honest kind of way.  I would describe it as Judy Blume meets Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Of course, it is its own thing that I am figuring out.  I have a sense of what I want it to be but you never know what it will be until you get there.

A huge thanks to Arree for this peek into the mind of a master craftsman. Be sure to get your hands on Ninja! this week!

Last year PBS came to my house to film a testimonial about the influence of public television in my life. This is what they have released just recently:

I’m sitting here doing thumbnails for a picture book and I’m realizing that once again I’m complicating things. It’s an extremely bad habit of mine. You can see by these first thumbnails that I’ve envisioned one cluttered picture book. 

So, I went looking around the internet for some inspiration for simplification. I came across a very interesting blog about children’s book art and design called The Apple and the Egg. Honestly, for me it is a little bit too weighted towards the hipper-than-thou books made to delight us designers and artists than books I actually believe would appeal to modern children, but it also has a lot of wonderful finds and excellent sketchbook peeks. 

There are some entire books featured too! Among those I found one of my new favorite bedtime books, and a book that couldn’t be more simplified yet complete, Dinosaur vs. Bedtime!

This book is so perfect in its execution that it just puts a big old smile on my face. Also, it remains hip and “designy” without throwing that in your face and knocking away the smile. I’m glad to find out about this author (apparently I’m out of the loop a bit since he seems to be quite popular and this is from 2008). 

By the way, if anyone else out there is doing thumbnails / storyboards for a picture book (or anything sequential in nature) you would be remiss not to check out this excellent tutorial by picture book master Uri Shulevitz.

This past weekend was a workshop I had been looking forward to for a while-- the annual Illustrators' Day in Decatur, GA held at the Decatur Public Library and hosted by the regional chapter of SCBWI, Southern Breeze. I attended last year and got a lot out of the event, but I was really excited to learn that they had extended this year's workshop to include a whole day's worth of activities centered around the craft and business of illustrating for kids!

The event kicked off with a discussion with two amazing, award-winning illustrators, Rick Lovell (a professor of mine at SCAD!) and Bill Mayer. They spoke about their experiences working within the children's book market, tips for navigating freelance business, pros and cons of working with an agent, tips for promotion, and copyright issues. These illustrators have so much experience between them, and every time I hear them speak I pick up some new piece of knowledge of the business.

Loraine Joyner, Art Director for Peachtree Publishers, spoke next about the grabbing an Art Director's attention with promotional material. She brought in a flood of mailers she had received over the past month, which ranged from the awesome to the not so awesome. It was interesting to hear about what grabbed her eye. She also gave some suggestions for some good resources to help develop our craft. Lastly, she went through a manuscript and discussed how an illustrator could interpret the text and turn it into intriguing and memorable pictures.

New South Books' Brian Seidman spoke about book cover design and the opportunities for artists within that avenue. They hire both a designer and an illustrator to work on their books. New South had some really outstanding cover illustrations, and it was interesting to hear about the process of how they are developed.

Published illustrator Shandra Stickland, whose new picture book A Place Where Hurricanes Happen was recently released attended the event and reviewed portfolios and spoke a little about her work. Elizabeth Dulemba, organized the event, and also had some great tips about putting together a print portfolio.

Mark Braught was awesome enough to help the first 25 people who signed up for the workshop, and act as an art director/mentor while developing an image for the topic "Something to Sing About". This assignment was a lot of fun and I thoroughly enjoyed blasting (and singing along to) my favorite musicals while I worked on the project. Mark was extremely generous with his time in reviewing my work! He had some great tips that I will use when developing my work in the future. Below are some of my developmental sketches that Mark helped me with.

For those of us who aren't taking multiple classes there were some optional assignments to choose from.  I choose this option:

Option 2:

Step 1. Choose your top ten paintings of all time. Do one thumbnail of each that studies the shapes, linear design, and tonal pattern. Pay close attention to the principles of design. Pay close attention to where and how symbols are used in the pieces.

Step 2. Choose one of the most personally moving memories of your life that you are comfortable exploring visually and symbolically. Create four thumbnails which compose your ideas into a scene using what you learned from Step 1. (*for me personally, this type of work helps me work through my own inner experiences and situations to a healthy resolution. It is personal art therapy through composition and symbolism. Explore your inner realm and moods in value and tone.)

Great assignment, isn't it?

This is the second of the two book covers that I was asked to do for PM Press. Amazingly this piece was a great sounding board for the other piece The Chieu Hoi Saloon. Both pieces were a lot of fun to work on, and they provided a great point and counterpoint to work between. For instance this piece for Pike called for a cold harsh feeling, where as The Chieu Hoi Saloon required something warmer, although still gritty.

It was that "gritty" aspect that was one of the major challenges that I had to work with. Considering that often times watercolor, as a medium, tends to be softer and smoother. So, to build in some good ol' Noir Grit was a challenge. With this piece in particular you'll notice that I've spattered a lot of paint about, some to be the falling snow, and some to just be noisy on the picture plane.

Here is the progression from one of the initial concepts to final sketch. I was initially drawn to this concept for it's graphic quality. I liked the stark tree as an emblem of this character's family tree, that it would be desolate, broken, and dark, it's seen dormant during the wintertime. While the story's main character is actually Pike { for whom the book is named }, the character of the estranged grand-daughter, Wendy, is actually the epicenter of the story. She provides the touch stone between the main character and the mystery of his daughter's death. You can read more about my initial thoughts from the first blog post here.

Here is the expanded final sketch which shows both the front and back panels for the book. I had some fun putting that little wispy weed at the bottom of the spine. That's totally just for fun, I like books that have a tiny picture on the spine. Given the chance to do more book covers, I can see really pushing that tiny spine illustration.

When moving from here to the finish, I knew that one aspect that I wanted to show in both this and the other cover, was that the piece should be something that couldn't be created on the computer. I wanted it to be expressly "a painting." There just seems to be so many great up and coming artists working digitally that I don't even want to compete with them, so my answer is to create a something that is wholly original and difficult to do digitally. So, in this piece that is evident in the sky. The washes, upon washes are ripe with accidents and recoveries { I'll leave it to you to find those! } I found myself thinking a lot about the

Hey all, so Dame fortune and Santa have smiled upon me and delivered me two book covers to paint. I am very happy to be ushering in 2010 with some illustration work.

Here's both the brief's that I've received thus far, hopefully the manuscripts will be emailed to me soon so I can parse out some more details.

The Chieu Hoi Saloon
It’s 1992 and three people’s lives are about to collide against the flaming backdrop of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Vietnam vet Harry Hudson is a journalist fleeing his past: the war, a failed marriage, and a fear-ridden childhood. Rootless, he stutters, wrestles with depression, and is aware he's passed the point at which victim becomes victimizer. He explores the city's lowest dives, the only places where he feels at home. He meets Mama Thuy, a Vietnamese woman struggling to run a Navy bar in a tough Long Beach neighborhood, and Kelly Crenshaw, an African-American prostitute whose husband is in prison. They give Harry insight that maybe he can do something to change his fate in a gripping story that is both a character study and thriller.

Here are the thumbnails for The Chieu Hoi Saloon. After reading the brief on this story, I felt that it was a story about a reconciliation between Harry's past and his present. I drew a strong connection between his Vietnam War experience and that one of the other main characters is a Vietnamese woman. As a supporting element I realized that LA/ Long Beach and Vietnam both have a lot of palm trees in them.
The first thumbnail reads quite well and is graphically very strong. The viewer is looking down on Harry as he's walking along a boardwalk/ sidewalk. The shadow is cast as that of a soldier; his shadow is his past self. The palm trees help to frame him and reference both LA and Vietnam. This is my personal favorite. It works well from across the room, and communicates an idea from the story. There is still some room to communicate the feeling and mood of the story here as well.



The second thumbnail is another variation on the shadowy past, but in this image we're in closer on Harry, and his shadow is cast upon a wall next to him. I think there's some room here to draw connections between a pitted and scarred wall, and the lined and weathered face of Harry. It is a more personal perspective.



Pike:
Douglas Pike is no longer the murderous hustler he was in his youth, but reforming hasn't made him much kinder. He's just living out his life in his Appalachian hometown, working odd jobs with his partner, Rory, hemming in his demons the best he can. And his best seems just good enough until his estranged daughter overdoses and he takes in his twelve-year-old granddaughter, Wendy.

Wendy bears with her all of Pike’s failures to his family, enough heartache to last a lifetime and a few unanswer

"Life is short, art is long. Get the habit."
-Danny Gregory, The Creative License

Well, I've fallen off the boat for a bit. I missed two days of my 15 minute writing on Friday and Saturday. Call it the feast or famine lifestyle of a freelancer, but of course after I committed to this challenge the work started pouring in. And last week I got a huge map commission that will keep me swamped through the end of May.

But have no fear, I'm still in it. The thing is, I'm actually in it for life, not just the 21 days. (I'll bet most of the other participating artists are, too.) Because on days I don't get to the writing, I still at least scribble in my journal. Here are pages from yesterday:















I was thinking about simplified expressions, and then my brain started to go into graphic designer mode, thinking about shapes and balance on the page. Why was I thinking this? I'm not quite sure! Maybe it was the subconscious kicking in, having to do with things I've been reading and thinking about lately.

I hesitated to post these, because I was really tired and they felt like nonsense pages. But it's all in the spirit of sharing, right?

 Friday after I took my sister to the airport, I started sorting through all the library books I'd checked out for my Saturday Loft workshop on Writing Children's Nonfiction Books for the Educational Market. I put together series, chose books to show various topics covered for different age ranges, marked passages I'd read aloud to prepare for a writing exercise, made sure I had all my overhead transparencies, etc.

The high Saturday was 7 degrees, but road conditions were good. Only a few of the registered 23 students didn't show up.

It was a great class with smart, well-qualified writers. The class was full of lots of teachers, journalists, PR people, etc. They asked lots of questions and seemed very happy with the workshop, and many stopped me on their way in or out of class, in the bathroom, after lunch, etc., to say how much they were learning. 

I love that feeling. When you teach kids, it's rewarding, but the kids themselves rarely tell you, "Thank you for putting together all this information for  us." (Ha--I only remember one suckup student, Allen, actually saying that. Others showed it by coming to class early, spending time in my room before school, asking for extra credit projects even if they already had an A, etc.) But teaching adults, especially on a topic that's not covered much, like writing for the education market, really gives you a lot of kind and excited feedback. Only two women in the back looked bored and/or hung over and spent much of the day whispering behind paper. What can I say? There's at least one in every class. But they weren't disruptive, so I ignored them.

Anyway.

Here are a few pictures from the workshop.



Students listen to my special lunchtime guest speaker.



Nick Healy, Editorial Director of Picture Window Books and Compass Point Books, volunteered to come explain those companies' editorial process to my workshop. He drove up from Mankato, 1-1/2 hours south of Minneapolis, which was great of him. He was a huge hit!



Students choose their door prize books at the end of the day.

I've invited students to email me any questions they have in the coming week, and if I receive any, I'll post and answer them here on the blog.

I always breathe a sigh of relief once an all-day workshop goes well. I imagine all sorts of disasters that could happen. I know lots of you teach writing to adults and/or do school visits. Any memorable moments (good or bad) you can share with me?

I had a long post with tons of pictures, and I looked for a web page to link to for something, and suddenly my post was gone. That's the second time that's happened recently.

So, a brief recap, because I'm too tired to redo the whole thing. 

Here's what I wore to the Loft Literary Center event last night:





Here's how I felt getting lost on the way there:



Here's Billy Collins, dressed up in suit and tie, doing his fantastic, wonderful, terrific reading. He read lots of poems, including "The Lanyard" and "The Revenant." I didn't want to take flash pictures, so it's kinda blurry. If you ever get a chance to hear him, do it. The crowd was kept laughing almost the entire time, and his droll style is perfect for his poems. Even if you're not a poetry buff, you'll enjoy it!

 

Here's the Nicollet Island Pavillion (on the Mississippi River) after the readings.



People were wearing a range, but I fit comfortably into it, so that was great. I saw one requisite pair of blue jeans, and several whack-job outfits. Studs and skintight leather is fine if that's your taste, but a semi-bondage outfit at a fairly formal gala? That's just a Don't! Ditto on the woman wearing what looked like gold lame saran wrap around her butt. And there were two or three unfortunate kind-of bridesmaid/prom looking dresses, too. But hey, it makes life interesting. As long as I'm not the one everyone's staring at (like the bondage and saran wrap people), I'm happy. And clearly, they did not have the kidlitosphere to help them avoid these fashion faux pas!

Here's the Mississippi River afterward, with Minneapolis on the other side.



And here's the bridge leading to Nicollet Island. I love lights blurring in the darkness.



I sat next to novelist Julie Schumacher, chatted with Mary Cummings (who I'm in a critique group with), heard Robert Bly, Bill Holm, and many other distinguished and entertaining people speak. And I took pictures of nobody because I'm not comfortable asking to do that!

All in all, it was a good night. Thanks for your help and advice and nice words!