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My husband and I were very lucky to escape Hurricane Irene with no damage and our power intact, but a lot of people and communities weren’t that lucky. There’s an auction going on right now to help people that were affected. The Read for Relief Auction was organized by a group of East Coast writers and features auction items geared towards YA writers and readers and other members of the kidlit community.

Since I don’t have a book out right now, I donated a pack of note cards with my art on them:

Puppy Note Cards: This set of 24 note cards (4 each of 6 designs) features dogs galore! Puppies that want to say hello, happy birthday, or entice you to look for rainbows (or maybe Superman). These cards are great for sending notes, or to say thank you, or even to give as a gift. Printed on bright white linen paper with matching envelopes. All cards have a caption on the outside and are blank on the inside.

The captions are (left to right, top to bottom):

1. Puppy coming out of box: “Happy Birthday”

2. Sheepdog Puppy: “Hello!”

3. Four images of a dog and cat: “Hello There!”

4. Three puppies: “Woof arf ruff? (How are you?)”

5. Dogs with umbrellas: “You never know when you’re going to see a rainbow, or Superman.”

6. Kitty looking for her friend in a sea of lab puppies: “Hi : )”

The bidding for the note cards ends at 10 pm (EST) tonight, Sunday September 18th, so if you’re interested, bid today!

There are lots of other great items up for bid that are closing tonight too (all Day 5 items), like critiques from authors and editors, advance copies of books you can’t get yet, a picture book prize pack, and an author that will write a grisly death scene for you in his next book. So go check out the auction and bid if you are able to. The money will do a lot of good to help those affected by Hurricane Irene (all winning bidders donate directly to The Red Cross). Thanks!

p.s. My mom just bid on the cards. Seriously. She’s going to be away from her computer the rest of the day though, so you still have a chance!

The prompt this week for Illustration Friday is, influence. In this picture, the little birdie is trying to influence his owl friend. He wants the owl to stay and party with the other birds. (There’s also a version of this picture in color.)

The little birdie isn’t very good at influencing anyone yet, or maybe some birds don’t like parties.

His owl friend flies off to be by himself again. Why do you think he didn’t stay?

The prompt for this month on the CBIG blog is, Happy. I recently finished this piece for my new portfolio. It’s from a sketch I did last year of a witch girl and her puppy. They’re both happy because it’s the puppy’s first broom ride. Not only is he managing to hold on, he’s also loving every minute of the ride. It’s even better than being in the car because he doesn’t have to stick his head out a window to get air.

I also have a black and white version.

p.s. Halloween is only 77 days away

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is swell, which according to the dictionary, means to grow in size, or a rise in ocean waves, or stylish, fashionably dressed, or first-rate. It reminded me of this image from my new portfolio, and a story that could go with it:

The sea swell carried the bowl off the windowsill and out into the ocean, where the goldfish met face to face with a whale. “That’s just swell,” thought the goldfish. The whale thought, “Hooray! A new friend.”

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is, “Remedy.” I’ve been trying to come up with an image idea while working on a story with chickens. Then this sketch popped into my head as the perfect remedy for people, or chickens, that like to play practical jokes. The remedy is a pie to the face! Just make sure they know why you are throwing pie at them, and when you’re done, RUN!

Warning: Throwing a pie in someone’s face might not deter all people, or chickens, that like to play practical jokes. It could also cause them to throw a pie in your face. Proceed with caution.

All the snow this winter has turned the snowmen into zombies!

The remaining snowmen are running for their lives!

The prompt this week for Illustration Friday is “Layer.” Whenever I watch waves, I think of them as having layers of colors. The colors of the waves crash into the colors of the water, blending the layers into one, until the next wave rolls in.

I wish I were at the beach right now! At least the sun is shining today

I love creating new art, but once in a while I like to take an old piece and breathe new life into it.

The CBIG blog is celebrating NYC illustrator’s week by asking members to share a tip and an illustration. My tip is about revising old art to give it new life. When people think of revision, they usually think of text, but pictures can be revised as well. Many times the image gets revised as it goes from sketch to final, but sometimes you have a piece that just doesn’t work out, or a piece you always loved that doesn’t fit your current style. Those are prime candidates for revision.

Things to consider when revising old art: composition, emotion, color, character, and what the illustration is for (fun, portfolio, job, etc.).

Here are a few pieces I’ve revised recently:

First Snow of the Season

What’s new: snow (instead of rain), the cat (instead of a stuffed toy moose and stuffed toy bunny), and multiple changes to the girl on the right. It’s a lot better than it was before, but not perfect. Maybe some day I’ll revise it again!

Paisley Whale Singing

What’s new: almost everything! All I kept from the original image was the shape of the whale and the water. This is one of my favorite revisions. I also did a second paisley whale image. See all three pictures here. (Note: the original whale image was inspired by a whale I had done years earlier, but that image only showed the face, not the entire whale.)

Never play with a lit firecracker!

What’s new: the clouds and grass (plain blue BG before), the expression on the dog’s face, and the caption. This revision is for Illustration Friday this week; the prompt is, “burning.” A person running into this dog might say, “The firecracker is about to go off! The wick is already burning! Everybody run!” (Note: the old drawing was based on an even older watercolor painting of a firecracker wielding wiener dog.)

Secret NaNoWriMo Novel: Speaking of revision, I had a lot of time to think the first week of November (at least food poisoning is good for something). I decided to let my zombie novel sit for a while before rewriting it. Sheila the zombie cheerleader has some other things she wants to star in first, like the art for my Sketchbook Project (my theme is dirigibles and submersibles … and zombies – I added the zombies). She’s also been bugging me to create a new mini comic for her. Once I started feeling better, I started writing a new novel for NaNoWriMo that I’m really excited about (I officially started Nov. 8th). I’m keeping most of the deta

This morning, the song, “Signs,” by Five Man Electrical Band got stuck in my head, which made me think, “I need a ‘Gone Fishing’ sign, only I want it to say, ‘Gone Painting.’” I could put it on my blog for times when I’ve got a lot of artwork to do and won’t be around for a while. Then I wondered if anyone would get a, “Gone Painting,” sign. Or one that says, “Gone Drawing.” Or, “Creative at Work.” Or one that says, “Am Writing.” Then I started to question my sudden need for a sign. I’d never needed a sign before.

ACK!

Since I couldn’t think of which sign to make, Daria the chicken offered to make one for me. This is what she came up with:

Silly chicken!

Nobody would believe that sign. I don’t even know how to surf! Although, with the weather getting colder, maybe I should learn how to surf this winter. I could go some place warm and tropical and … ack! A surfing sign is not going to help me to get my work done. I shook my head to clear out the surf fantasies.

“Meow!” Remus woke up from his catnap and offered to make me a sign, which was weird. Remus likes walking though my paintings when they are still wet and making a trail of colorful kitty tracks, but signs aren’t usually his thing. I went to make lunch. When I came back, Remus was finished with his sign:

Silly kitty!

I started to worry about what Remus was trying to tell me. I gave him a toy mouse to play with/attack, just in case. It looked like I’d have to make my own sign, one that shows people that I’m working, even when it looks like I’m not. I still didn’t know what to put on it, until I remembered the mouse I used to write about and draw pictures of. Here’s my sign:

Plotting out the great mouse novel.

What kind of sign do you wish you had? Or have you already made your sign?

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is transportation. If you could travel any way you wanted, what mode of transportation would you choose? I’d pick something fun, like flying by paper airplane, if it were possible.

Paper Airplane Night Flight

Jumping out of the airplane might be fun too …

Parachute Chicken

… as long as your parachute opens! Eep! Maybe I should stick to something closer to the ground, like skateboarding.

Skateboarding Chicken

Then again, since I don’t have a skateboard anymore and I’m not a chicken, I’ll pick something I do on a regular basis.

Fun While Grocery Shopping

But only until they invent paper airplanes that you can fly in. What kind of transportation would you choose, if you could choose anything? Have you ever had grocery cart races? (I have!)

The theme for Illustration Friday this week was dessert, so of course I thought, “Ice Cream!” Then I remembered that I did a series of images with cows and ice cream a while back for Project Cow (I drew a cow a day for a year; it was leap year, so there were 366 cows) and also for my cafepress shop. Feast your eyes on the ice cream cows!

Mint and Chocolate Cow

The mint chocolate cow is my favorite of the series. The cow is chocolate with mint spots and the ice cream is mint with chocolate chips.

Sherbet Cows

It seems like you can’t get just plain orange sherbet these days but everyone has rainbow sherbet. I broke out the flavors in this drawing of sherbet cows.

Neapolitan Cow

Funny story about the Neapolitan cow:  when I put the drawing on t-shirts in my shop, I didn’t realize that I’d made a typo. In fact, I didn’t realize it until I my mom ordered a t-shirt and I saw her wearing it. Ack! Luckily, nobody else ordered the misspelled version and it has since been corrected.

Marble Swirl

I had so much fun making the Neapolitan cow that I flipped it and added a swirl of chocolate and caramel!

Ice Cream Sandwich Cow

How can you have ice cream cows without having an ice cream sandwich cow? You can’t. Therefore I made this drawing. This cow has a fraternal twin with cookies and cream instead of ice cream.

Raspberry Parfait

Last, but not least is the raspberry parfait cow. I have to admit that whenever I hear Prince’s song, Raspberry Beret, this is what I think of. The lyrics are changed in my head to: “She ate a raspberry parfait, the kind you’d find in an ice cram store. Raspberry parfait …” Sorry Prince!

I hope my ice cream cows made you scream for ice cream! Well not

Here are my notes from the LA conference (finally). They are a mix and jumble of inspiration and tips on craft and are not direct quotes unless you see quote marks (and even then, a word or two could be missing if they talked faster than I could scribble notes). I would have posted them earlier, but I’ve been traveling. The pictures with this post are the doodles I drew in my notebook while taking notes. There were birds on the cover of the notebook and a bird on the back side of each page, but there weren’t any birds on the front of the pages, you know, where I was writing and would have been able to actually see the birds. So I drew my own birdies on top of and around the little non-birdie flower design.

Birdie Drawings

M.T. Anderson (keynote)

- Does some things just for artistic pleasure, not necessarily for the book or for marketing.

- “Those books that take us away from what we expect show us the world anew.”

- “Don’t be afraid of your eccentricities.”  (Love that quote!)

Courtney Bongiolatti (on boy books)

- Recommended Guys Read website.

- She also recommended that you know your genre. Are you writing Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery, Humorous Mystery, Sports, School Stories, Historical Fiction, Combination of Genres, Relatable, or Out of the Box?

- Boy books should have a boy main character, be about a kid that the reader wants to be like, and have series potential.

Carolyn Mackler (on characters)

- Quirks, details and language help define characters. Make them consistent throughout the book.

- Writing exercise: What does your character keep hidden in their underwear drawer, and if nothing, where do they hide things and what do they hide?

- “Number one challenge is figuring out what to omit. What you omit is more important than what you keep in the story.”

More Birdie Drawings

E.B. Lewis (keynote)

- “Keep forging forward – there is life after you feel like the inspiration has died.”

- “As artists you need to fill yourself up to overflowing and then give it all back.”

Gail Carson Levine (keynote)

- If a character is going to change, we have to see how it happens (the set up) or understand later how it came to be.

- Grow in the writing – as you write you get to know your characters better and develop them through writing.

- Writing exercise: 3 characters are getting ready for school. How does each one prepare? Reveal the thoughts and feelings of each; they should all be different.

Jon Scieszka (stories across multiple media)

- Websites, blogs, etc. that are mentioned in the book are live and each character has their own online presence. (Talking about his Spaceheadz books.)

- Multimedia platform books are a hard sell even for an established author, but more publishers are starting to look for these books.

- Fully half of hi

I’ve been experimenting with my digital style to make it more painterly and yet retain the flat color that I like so much. This first piece of new art is an example of that experiment and works for the CBIG blog prompt this month (outside) and the Illustration Friday prompt for this week (atmosphere). Instead of raining cats and dogs, it’s raining on the cats and dogs!

Dogs and Cats and Umbrellas

The other new piece of art I have is a drawing of a lantern fish that I did for Ripple. It sold before I could post it here, but I still wanted to share the drawing because it works for the WaWe oceans prompt. Plus, it cracks me up. Hope it gives you a laugh too!

Fishy With A Built In Flashlight

The third piece of new art you may have noticed already. I have a new avatar because my hair is all chopped off. It will grow back (eventually) right? What happened was that I got a really bad haircut, which I tried to grow out for two months. Then I went to MN and asked a friend of mine that’s a hairstylist if she could fix it. She said no, so she chopped it all off and I’m starting over. The new avatar will be around until I have more hair again (I’m guessing 6 months, or maybe 9 … or 12). Eep!

Updates and new plans: A while back I announced that I was taking a break from Twitter, Facebook and the BlueBoards. The break was supposed to be for four months. Shortly after my update for the first month I had to answer a message on Facebook (for a commitment I’d previously agreed to). Since I was going on to Facebook, I also decided to visit Twitter and the BlueBoards. It was really hard to tear myself away again. For me, a month wasn’t long enough. After two months, I was cruising along, getting work done and blogging. Now it’s three months later and for me, three months is enough. I miss my friends and the industry news and the fun of hanging out online. So, I’m going to start (slowly) getting back into things. I might still take a few days off here and there, or a week, or maybe even a month if I have a deadline. That seems like the smart thing to do when I need to work and/or clear my head. However, as important as it was for me to step back and catch my breath, it’s even more important for me to jump back in. It’s more fun, not to mention more inspiring and productive to be surrounded by all the wonderful and creative children’s book people online!

p.s. Now that I’m home again, I’ll be posting notes from the LA conference and a new website design soon!

I’ve combined my abstract painting roots with my current representational style in this painting for the Ripple Blog.

Octopus and Jellyfish

This piece is approximately 4″ x 5″ and painted with acrylics. This piece can be yours for $10. I’ll update this post when it’s listed on the ripple blog (it’s supposed to post on July 8th). ALL PROCEEDS go to one of these two non-profit charities: The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. The buyer donates directly to one of the charities, ensuring that all the money goes to the relief effort. They then send the email confirmation and the art is shipped out to them.

Note: There are still two other images of mine available. Happy Whale (digital print) and Seagulls (acrylic painting).

Happy Whale print / Seagulls painting

The sea birds have set up a satellite location in the country while the Gulf oil spill is being cleaned up. Have you ever seen seagulls, pelicans and chickens all under one roof? Me neither, but here’s how I imagine it would look:

The chicken coop has a few visitors.

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week was “satellite,” and the prompt for the CBIG Blog this month was “country.” I decided to combine the two in a painting for the ripple blog (to help animals affected by the oil spill). Click here for more info or to purchase this painting.

There’s still a whale print and two paintings, seagulls and pelicans, by me for sale from previous weeks.

Last week I heard that illustrator Kelly Light had started a sketch blog called, Ripple Sketches, where artists could donate art to help the animal victims of the gulf oil spill. Each piece of art is 2.5″ x 3.5″ and sells for $10. ALL PROCEEDS go to one of these two non-profit charities: The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. The buyer donates directly to one of the charities, ensuring that all the money goes to the relief effort. They then send the email confirmation and the art is shipped out to them.

I started sketching right away, thinking that it would be a quick project. Ha. I kept painting and painting and painting, until I felt the pictures were ready to be sold (see the painting process below the finished pictures). It took me a week to paint these four paintings, and in the meantime, Illustration Friday chose “Ripple” as the word for the week to encourage more artists to create ripple sketches for Kelly’s project. There’s a lot of really really great art and more keeps getting added each day. So far Kelly Light and other artists have helped raise over $3000! At $10 per piece of art, it’s a real bargain and helps a great cause. Here are my four ripple paintings (Update: Here’s a direct link to purchase these paintings.):

1 Sea Turtle

2 Hermit Crabs

3 Brown Pelicans

4 Seagulls

All four paintings are done in acrylic paint and are 2.5″ x 3.5.” Here’s the painting process if you want to see how they were created -

Step One: sketch

Step Two: blue

Step Three: Yellow

After I sketched this out, it occurred to me that Dr. Seuss had already drawn a cat wearing a hat. I decided to finish the picture anyway.

Cats Wearing Hats

After finishing the drawing and I realized that it works for three illustration prompts. Here’s my reasoning: The CBIG blog’s May theme is, “Dream.” This picture is obviously a dream. No self respecting cat would ever wear a hat (at least not without a fight). WaWe’s challenge this week, is “Outdoor Fairs Festivals and Markets.” These cats are obviously on their way to a festival. Why else would they be wearing hats? Finally, it also works for the Illustration Friday word this week, “early,” because the early cats get to wear the hats (and that’s an early bird in the upper left, going home after getting her worm).

What do you think? Does it work for all three prompts?

* For those that like to know art supply details, I used Prismacolor pencils, acrylic paint, and acrylic inks (one of my ink bottles spilled all over the table, almost ruining the drawing – I was lucky to be able to save the table and the drawing).

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is, “Fearless.” It reminded me of a series of images I’ve done over the years that I continue to revamp, because I like the visuals but haven’t  found the right story yet. The images below are from the summer of 2007. There’s a more recent version, but I like this one better. There are also older versions, but I couldn’t find them in time for this post.

Here is, “Fearless Mouse” (a.k.a. Circus Mouse, Adventure Mouse, etc.)

A distant relative of the Hickory, Dickory, Dock mouse.

What time is it Ms. Mouse? It’s time to be brave …

This elephant isn't scared of a tiny mouse!

…and slide down the elephant’s trunk! Then it’s off to the Big Top, sporting her top hat and tails, because Ms. Mouse is FEARLESS! Only a fearless mouse would dare to …

They fly though the air with the greatest of ease!

… perform with two daring young sheep on the flying trapeze! After a long night at the circus, Ms. Mouse likes to go back to her tent and relax.

Bath time is better with bubbles.

She slides into a nice warm bubble bath and relives her adventures, while planning for more tomorrow.

Update: After posting this late last night (actually early morning), I had a brainstorm about where and how this might work! It won’t star the mouse, but she’ll still be running around the circus. I scribbled my ideas down and put them away for when I’m done with my zombie novel and chicken graphic novel projects. I love when solutions suddenly present themselves after years of not quite working out!