Here it is:

http://wondrouswonder.blogspot.com/2010/04/magic-of-nm-bodecker.html

I hope that you like it!  Let me know what you think.

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I'll post more over the next several days... I may remove the blue bird as his angle is a little off (he doesn't look like he's seen from below like the others).  Also 'crib' may go. We'll see. Next I'll do the background pattern....

I've been working away at online promotional stuff.  Not only am I working my way (slowly, arrggghh) (I am so impatient with myself!  But I deserve it, dammit!  Get to work!) through Alex Mathers' ' 10 steps to powerful online promotion...' , I am also participating in zero2illo's '12 week challenge',  which will be a series of activities/exercises intended to turn fledgling freelancers into veritable self-promotion machines!  Cyborgs, perhaps!  Should be good.  More about that later.  So that gives me another reason to park myself in front of the computer.  Amongst the things that I have done as suggested by Mr. Mathers is create another blog!  To which I will provide a link after I do another post, a better one.  That first one was just an introduction.  The next will be much more interesting!  I have also finally set up my facebook 'fan page'.  Still, so much to do... I have the feeling that somehow,  there is an ever-increasing number of things that I must accomplish before I am 'ready' to do the next thing that I must do.  These preliminary things just appear, rise up, like dust bunnies.  The next thing that I'll do is install a 'sign-up' box on my blogs so as to accumulate an email list for 'news updates' and the like.  It's not currently possible for me to install html code on my actual website (something of a problem, but which can be worked around right at this very moment), so I'm looking around to change hosts.  (You see? Dust bunny right there!)  Anyhow.  I think that that's all for now, y'all.....

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I don't remember whether or not I posted the original version of this- I doubt that I did, actually, as I was dissatisfied with it just about as soon as it was finished. This version I am happier with (although I still may fiddle around with the colour of the couch). I'm particularly happy with the pattern- here it is closer up:



I'm continuing with re-doing pages with which I am not pleased, and am working on developing more interesting perspectives, scale etc. for these and the 'new' pages (i.e. pages I've not already done at least once!).

Oh, and I'm continuing with the online promotion plan. I've been bogged down by (apparently!) needing to get any number of things done before the next step can be completed. For example, before I can proceed with facebook- which includes installing 'join my mailing list' buttons (which in itself will require signing up with another service), setting up my facebook 'fan page' and proceeding to solicit fans, and so on, I must first obtain a reasonable photograph that I am willing to use elsewhere online, too. For reasons of busy-ness, this has proven strangely difficult. Similar ridiculous complications have hindered the launch of the new blog (which will also, when finished, point back to my website, feature 'join my mailing list' button, etc.). I am setting up the blog to my satisfaction right now, and have already written two posts. It will be up by the end of this weekend!

I remain impressed with the thoroughly excellent advice contained within Alex Mathers' online promotion blog and e-book and do not blame him in the least for the way in which everything seems to be taking me so long... I progress, I progress, I do tend to want everything now, which is a certain way to wind up disappointed in yourself...

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Oh, that reminds me... I do believe that I mentioned here that I was going to review Holly DeWolf's book, Breaking Into Freelance Illustration for the wonderful site Escape From Illustration Island? I'm sure of it, in fact. Well, I did. A month and a half ago, almost! I plumb forgot to post a link to it here. So, without further ado, a link to it here.

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...is the newly released e-book by Alex Mathers, founder of the most excellent site the Red Lemon Club (and also of the equally great contemporary illustration blog, Ape on the Moon).

I have not yet finished the book, but am mightily impressed with how the individual steps he outlines REALLY and TRULY are step-by-step. I need that. For me, for whom the very word 'networking' produces a sense of horror and fear, such things do not come easily, nor is it in any way obvious what is the most effective way to go about it. It's intimidating! (Surely I am not alone here...!) But Alex Mathers has broken it down into concise, bite-sized pieces that don't seem quite so...overwhelming. So...I am impressed thus far. I have begun implementing his suggestions, starting with.... the facebook. (I won't go into the reasons for which, for years, I have turned my nose up at facebook.... now, at long last, I have seen the light, apparently.) I will be installing 'sign up' boxes for mailing lists on all of my various sites, which will help me in sending out newsletters (which I've been meaning to do for a while!)

But wait... there's more!

I will also be starting a new blog in addition to this one (which I will keep as my 'process diary'/general progress record). The new blog will focus on various aspects of book illustration, old and new. I have a number of ideas for posts already... I am hoping to make an inaugural post this weekend! I will let you know when. It will be here! (don't look NOW, there's nothing!)


This past week was busy; I worked on another page overhaul but haven't gotten very far. Why can't I be triplets? Oh, I would hate that... anyhow. Back with more soon!

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Work, work, work on the book project. Working right now on finishing a few pages that I started a while ago; I have also gone back and started new versions of pages that I was not satisfied with. It took me a little while to get the style right, and now some of the pages that I finished earlier are less than satisfactory. To be honest, some of them were never satisfactory- I knew even as I was finishing a couple of them that I would be back sooner or later to do it again. This is the first of these most recent overhauls that I have completed- I am much happier with it. I increased the scale of the girl/window and also made the 'sky' pattern larger. I also put a pattern behind the girl that looks fine even if the pattern doesn't line up in square with the window frames. Many more to come! I have been urged just to move on and start more pages, but I just wasn't happy knowing that these existed in such an unsatisfactory state. I want all of the pages to be good, dammit! No, just good isn't good enough!

I recently received a request for a quote for a series of illustrations for a children's cookbook- which would have been a fun project, I think- but I had to write back asking for further information before I could give a quote (they had given me no indication of size, colour or not, time frame, etc.). They never responded. It might well be for the best; I may have been wrong, but I had a strange feeling about the correspondence. Alas nonetheless!

I'm working on many things- besides the book, I'm also making a new postcard for my next series of mailings and writing emails to potential client after potential client. SOON I will also, finally, begin my 'Montreal' card series! Cookbook or no cookbook, I am always busy...

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Another contest entry, selected candidates to be (possibly?) collected into an upcoming book. It's been a couple of weeks since my last post... what else has been going on? Well, I wrote a review of Holly DeWolf's book Breaking into freelance illustration that you can read on the Escape from Illustration Island website here (it's at the bottom of the page, scroll down!)
Now, back to my book! I'm going to begin a series of architectural drawings to sell as cards and prints.

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So, here is my entry for the 'mail me art' contest in the u.k. I'm reasonably pleased with it, although I had to put packing tape on the edges to hold it closed. I made my own envelope out of bristol (because I wanted to paint on it and wanted to be sure that it would hold up), and did all of the painting/pasting etc. BEFORE gluing the envelope closed. It wouldn't stay closed, due to the thickness, multiple layers of thick paper and slight warping (BECAUSE of painting)...alas. Next time I'll know better! It looked even better after the guy at the post office put the postage sticker on and postmarked it. Perhaps I'll get to see what it looks like after its travels?!?! I hope...!

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...ta daaaaah! Also to be entered as part of the series. I have not finished the facing page yet; have yet to make final decisions on which birds to put where, and am re-doing one bird right now.... ah, perfectionism, you are a cruel and yet often ultimately very satisfying mistress....

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So, here it is, another page from this book I keep going on about... This time I have done a more thorough job of documenting its progress from start to finish (I did scan the origami birds before I cut them out, but can't seem to locate the scan- humf...). It's all done by hand, of course, including all of the patterns... I have just entered this (as a part of a series, all taken from the book) into the Communication Arts illustration contest. This year, I will participate in more contests- within the next month, not including this one, there are two more that I plan to enter. But wait! There's more! Not only will I enter contests, I plan to diligently post AS NEWS on various forums that I have finished this and that, that I have updated my site, etc. In a former life, I would not have accepted this as suitable for 'news'- but it seems to be the thing to do. Ah well. It's one of those things... it's hard to get over the vague sense that drawing attention to yourself is somehow distasteful, or not nice, or something... but truly, waiting for people to notice you seems not to be terribly productive, either. I've become familiar with several illustrator's names and work solely through their repeated appearance ON said news sections of various forums.... Shameless self-promotion full steam ahead! I've been reading Holly DeWolf's book, too, which emphasizes without any question the necessity of continuous, ongoing, creative self-promotion. I'm going to write a review of her book for Escape From Illustration Island this weekend. I'll post it here, also....

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The two top (red) images are the pages themselves- they are to be facing pages. The red pattern is hand-drawn and painted in gouache on rice paper. The following several bird images I drew separately and painted in gouache; they will be cut out and pasted onto the two pages in something like a composition. Almost finished with these, finally, hurrrrah! This page (pages) has been particularly painstaking. I redrew the girl and her grandfather twice (the first time I was dissatisfied with the colours I chose for the clothing- made background pattern colour choice difficile); also I drew and painted- I just looked at this- four different background patterns before deciding on this one. I am quite pleased with the result though..... I will be sure to post the pages once I place the birds.

The past month has been busy with the usual holid

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This book appeared to me quite by chance, unbidden, and completely fortuitously, a couple of years ago. I was, at the time, working at a to-be-unspecified job for a very small chain of independent Canadian bookstores that shall remain nameless. It SHOULD have, been a good job, it COULD have been a good job; working for someone else, it might have been. But it wasn't. It made me miserable, completely miserable. Not only was I not left with sufficient TIME for any of my various art projects, I was so completely consumed by how much I hated my job that I was hardly even inclined.

I had been thinking that I would like to pursue illustration. All of my interests and predilections seemed to point to it. But I didn't know how, and all of my time/mental energy seemed caught up in work. I had no time to work on a portfolio. I wanted to do it, but how? I would think about it longingly , but week after week after month slipped by. And then Ernie Zelinski appeared.

Real Success Without a Real Job arrived at the warehouse as a 'freebie'- it was accidentally sent to us, unordered. Since it was not sent in PLACE of anything, it wasn't sent back in return for another item. I saw it on the shelf where such things wind up, and snatched it up. It seemed clear that that book was FOR ME!!!

His main points: many, even most people, are unhappy and unfulfilled working for someone else, and most likely wish that they were doing something that they cared about. That real success is what you make it, not living up to the traditional view of success, and that real success is living life in your own way, pursuing things that have meaning to you. That working at an 'unreal job' (something, ideally, that you would want to do even if you weren't getting paid) will give you a sense of freedom, satisfaction and fulfillment that a 'real' job can't.

He tells his own story, which is not a tale of miraculous luck but rather of dogged perseverance and dedication to pursuing his dream. He is not, as he readily admits, a particularly 'good' writer in terms of style or elegance, but he IS a good writer in that he writes clearly, expresses his own unique point of view and his inimitable personality. As he so succinctly put it, " I may not be able to write a book by Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me." Oh, did I mention? He is FUNNY.

Clearly, I had long ago joined the choir. The book served for me more to confirm and elaborate what I already knew or intuited. It is more inspiration and pep talk than a step-by-step guide to achieving your particular objective (although he does suggest numerous other books to consult to help you figure out your path). But WHAT a pep talk... I have re-read it countless times, and it has joined the ranks of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, and A Confederacy of Dunces as a reliable remedy for times of discouragement or depressedness.

He has also written books entitled The Joy of Not Working, How to retire Happy, Wild and Free, and The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness.
His official website: http://www.erniezelinski.com/

p.s. it seems that the edition that I have is no longer available; I suspect that the new book

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Another page of my book-in-progress. I'm thinking of adding some more leaves on the bottom right instead of the sort of strange continuation of the pattern on the house... but for now, I've had enough of fussing with this and will do it later! LATER! I have a lot of work to do; no doubt I'll want to start some pages over again completely by the time I'm finished (in fact, there are already a couple that I have in mind, sigh...).

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Yes, this is something that I posted a little while ago... but I thought that it fit the IF theme for this week, 'crunchy'. 'Crunchy' seems like one of those words that simply MUST be used to describe breakfast cereal. Although I would imagine that this bowl of larvae is mostly soft, I imagine that the legs are fairly 'crunchy' (as is certainly the case with those huge tiger shrimp!) Bon appetit!

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(added 7 december)...It occurs to me that this also fits the Illustration Friday theme for this week- (4 December) (that snowflake is going to be a little crunchier than she was expecting, perhaps!?!?), so I'm adding a link to this one, too.

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So, here's another piece that I did over this past week- I was thinking of using it as a Christmas card, perhaps of making a series of cards for next year. We shall see.

I've been working on several pages of my book, although I took a bit of a break this week and worked on a few other things. I was getting a little too 'close' and hypercritical. Some of the criticism deserved, of course, some just a result of lack of perspective... Some of the pages I will almost undoubtedly wind up re-doing. By the time I am finished, I will probably want to redo all of what I first did! I've been working on, rejecting, and re-starting background patterns.

I listened this a.m. to one of Escape from Illustration Island's earlier podcasts that I had not already heard, the interview with Penelope Dullaghan. It was good; I appreciated her honesty. It's helpful to me to hear 'how others did it' and also, of course, it is always good to hear that those successful others didn't start out having all of the answers (as I think a part of me always worries is the case!). I wouldn't call it Schadenfreude, as I'm not delighting in their past lack of know-how; it's more the idea that well, they didn't know it all and look at them now, so perhaps there is hope for me also...

Ok, back to work. I WILL write the Ernie Zelinsky Adoration post later today (did I say today? I mean...soon!)... very very soon.

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Ok, so not quite finished yet- I have yet to put the guitar strings on the guitars, and, more noticeably, I am going to replace some (all?) of the 'squares' on the lower half with some kind of patterned paper.

More soon!

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...a few more aimless doodles that I've done over the last few days. Not all that I've been up to, but...the rest I will post soon! Other things soon to come: I am going to attempt to document some pieces 'from beginning to end'; that is, from sketches all the way to 'finished'. Also, a post of praise for Mr. Ernie Zelinsky (of The Joy of Not Working and Real Success Without a Real Job fame.

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