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After winning back to back games on Thursday, Small Fry's baseball team was positioned to compete for their division championship. In the giddy moments that followed their second win of the night, the Sprout and I walked up onto the field so that she could run the bases and work out some energy. She had longed to be where brother was all season after being held captive in the dugout for fourteen innings. You think you know what your kids face. After all, I'm the grown-up and the parent, I've already slogged through childhood and lived to tell about it. But when I stepped into the brilliant glare of home plate and looked across the yawning stretch of dirt and grass to the flickering back fence in the outfield, I had but one thought....

.... jesus, I had no idea first base was a million miles away.

In that moment I was extra proud of my Fry for a season of climbing into that harsh light, isolated from teammates and parents, and swinging at the ball with everything he had. To me the distance to first base was unnerving, but Small Fry had never seemed phased by it. Was this because he believed that this time the bat would make contact, this time he would make it to first base before the ball did.....no matter how many times he'd missed in the past? Did he believe better than a grown-up could?

Small Fry says "you just go up there and watch for the ball and then you try to hit it, then you try to run really fast. That's how you do it mommy."



Two days later on a sweltering Saturday morning, the Orioles clinched their championship with a final score of 10-8. One of the points belonged to Small Fry who dashed across home plate to start a points rally that would bring his team from behind to take the lead in the 3rd inning. In the beginning of the season we parents had contributed $10 each to buy our boys a "participation medal." None of the 4, 5, and 6 year olds on our team had ever played baseball before. A championship - and the trophy that came with it - seemed well out of reach, we only hoped for a fun few months in the sun and a positive learning experience. However, not only were they in reach, one by one twelve gleaming, gold and red trophies, emblazoned with the heady word "champions" were handed to our dusty, grinning team. Small Fry hugged his to his chest and said "see Mommy if you hit the ball once you get the biggest trophy ever!"

This past week the kids were out of their WeekDay School Program for the break between spring and summer sessions. I managed to keep the bickering and whining to a minimum . . . and the kids were pretty good also. Memorial Day weekend finally rolled around we spent the entire weekend on the deck. The splash pool was pulled out and two hours later a couple of soggy kids finally came in for lunch. The flagship image of that morning is Small Fry running and jumping into the pool. I don't think my sketchbook was actually big enough to accurately capture how much water is displaced from a 60 inch pool when a 38 pound boy barrels into it.


Small Fry also took part in his first tree planting. A friend had given us a small maple, with the advice that maples do well in rocky soil. Jim Dear dug the hole, while Fry anxiously watched to see if we would hit a giant boulder. Amazingly, we dug right down into soft dark dirt and the tiny tree was planted and watered judiciously by Fry and Sprout, each arguing over who got to roll the hose down to it. Jim Dear and I joked that we play a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors every time we plant something. . . only in our backyard its Rock, Rock, Dirt.

This week I am multi-tasking and combining my Sketchbook Sunday and Illustration Friday post. Illustration Friday's topic this week is stir. I was inspired by one of Baby Sprouts books, Foodie Baby, for this sketch. The whole idea of the book is to answer the question "what do foodie babies do?" So in the book they do things like "say cheese" and "browse in farmer's markets." I decided to add my own "what foodie babies do" (as I've explained in earlier posts that Baby Sprout definitely is a foodie baby) with this illo and caption:
Foodie babies help stir.


On Tuesday this past week, my illustrator's group met to do some life figure drawings. We hired the 12 year old granddaughter of one member as our model. She was beautiful, like drawing a baby racehorse, all long arms and long toes and big eyes. Here's a few of my favorites:




Finally I had to do this illo from Small Fry's spring concert. His class sang Going to the Zoo and they all had these crazy animal masks on their heads. Actually they weren't really animal masks... they were really insect masks. He was a spider. His teacher explained, slightly apologetically, that that's all they had a Target. "No biggie," I said, "there's spiders at the zoo." Fry stood next to his ... ahem.... friend, Anna which, I have to say, definitely seemed to contribute to his improved ability to focus and belt out the song. Almost like he was trying to impress someone...

Here's your warning: There's a heavy dose of political commentary in this Sketchbook Sunday. This week we watched the State of the Union the night before buying a new(ish) car amid surprised exclamations from the dealership that we were not financing it and that we were not upside down in our trade. Apparently they "see that a lot." All were inspiration, so read on at your own risk . . . but first some kid cuteness:

The Baby Ox
Baby Sprout has a very physical sense of humor. She is always falling into things, falling over things, bashing around and cracking herself up. And she's never happier doing this than when she is naked. She's like a cross between a 70's streaker and Mary Catherine Gallagher. When her performance reaches a fever pitch, Jim Dear and I call her the Baby Ox. This sketch shows her actually being rather demure..... really she's just sitting down to catch her breath.


Cheap at Any Cost
During Tuesday night's State of the Union President Obama (obviously) spoke about the economy and how to rebuild jobs in this country. Now really, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the situation is here: all the stimuli and relief and tax break and tax hike and this-n-that-n-the-kitchen-sink packages have created a blue million jobs. . .

. . . in China.

Obama referenced this in his speech immediately after he spoke in glowing terms about our "innovation", our "colleges and universities that people travel to from the world over", and about the "hard work ethic" of our society. Indeed these terms glowed so brightly for a minute I thought I was watching the Oscars. We have the best, most innovative, most crazy risky-but-with-a-huge-payoff ideas and we work the hardest to make them a reality. And you know what? Obama is right. We did, after all, harness nuclear fission and land a man on the moon. But even for all this radiance, for some reason, businesses are just not creating jobs in this country.

So businesses must not be looking for the best. My guess is they are looking for the cheapest.

As Jim Dear says, "They'd rather have good enough, than the best at any cost." In the race to short term stock price gains we are un-diversifying our economy. We believe we can create a "knowledge-based economy" but we're not smart enough to do that. If we were smart enough we'd see that if we are all high-tech, healthcare, and green industry workers, we will all make less money. Because as the supply of those workers goes up, their wages will go down. Simple supply and demand economics. We are the smartest, best, and most innovative country out there, but the ace-in-the-hole of our economy was its diversity. Instead now we are in a race to the lowest common denominator. Hence, this sketch of the race - the best worker trips over the splinter of our trade agreements as the cheapest crosses the finish line:


My SCBWI Kite
Thursday I got my SCBWI Bulletin in the mail. Always on the cover there's an interesting illustration involving a kite, the Society's m

My new year's post is getting to be a tradition around this blog. And lookee here, I'm actually doing this one in January, unlike last year. 2011 so far as been... uh... eventful. Here's a tally: 3 days after returning from our holiday travels we experienced the second parting of the Red Sea as our hot water heater burst all over the garage, sluicing through the giant oil stain on the floor left from the last owners that Jim Dear and I have been meaning to deal with. The good news is 50 gallons of natural gas heated water does wonders for removing an oil stain...... the bad news is we discovered just how truly horrible the customer service with our American Home Shield warranty is. For a minute by minute replay of that debacle go visit my Facebook page. The short story is that Jim Dear spent the second weekend of the new year learning how to replace a water heater. This weekend was quickly followed by a snow Armageddon, Jim Dear having a wisdom tooth suddenly removed and Mommy having a stomach virus for 3 days. Whew! Maybe 2011 wants to slow down a bit and save up some of the hassles for after daylight savings time. At any rate I wanted to do a post about my resolutions for this year and revisit 2010's just for the heckuvit.

First 2010:
Resolution #1: Create another picture book.
I'm happy to report I did do this one. Myself and some other local SCBWI friends started a blog critique group and all through the summer each of us worked together to get a book ready for the fall Mid-South conference. I wrote about it here and here. I'm still brushing up my book, Nothing All Day, but plan to start submitting in a few months.

Resolution #2: Work on loosening up my work
This was much harder.... as I stated in my 2010 post a lot of my tightness is related to drawing hands and details on characters. Really late last year I had an epiphany about hands, that maybe I just didn't need to draw them anymore. That would be loose. So I've tried doing some characters with just gesture for hands..... its a step, but I think I'm still working on Resolution #2

Resolution #3 Work on licensing ideas.
yes and no on this one. I haven't created any new pieces but in the process of moving I had to sort through several stored pieces that I haven't seen in a few years. Some of these were for jobs, others were just pieces I did for fun, but a few of them could have a second life as a licensed piece. I've started placing them on calendars and cards to submit to some agents.

Resolution #4: finally we get to the one everyone was waiting for - Lose 10 pounds.
OK.
No. I didn't lose 10 pounds. I did gain 3 pounds, then lost that! Then I lost 3 more pounds with a stomach bug I caught in February. Then I gained back 1 pound. Then I lost 5 pounds while walking and eating a bunch of salads right before my 20 year high school reunion. Then I gained that back over Christmas. Then I lost 3 pounds again with the latest round of stomach flu. Let's see where does that leave me?
Oh, I see.....exactly where I was this time last year (sound of grinding teeth).

Well, I'm moving my career forward, I guess I don't have to win a swimsuit competition any time soon.... so there.

So that does it for 2010..... moving right along to 2011, at the moment I have only one resolution: Draw every day.

A few days ago I sat with the Fry and

It has been a freaking long day. After getting the Sprout down for her nap, I'd hoped to have an afternoon of sketching on some projects and maybe, maybe, even getting to work on my new story idea. After all the submission deadline for my regional SCBWI conference is fast approaching and this year I intend to have my dummy critiqued by an editor as well as an art director. So with baby quiet and Morning Edition streaming I looked forward to a few hours of creative combustion. Then the phone started ringing with calls and e-mails about projects that, well, I'm not that excited about but frankly the money's good. So there went my nice afternoon of sketching. So throw in baby Sprout being cranky after her nap and a contractor working on our new deck being ornery and I'm now sitting her sipping white zin, scanning in what sketches I did get done and saying thank goodness its 10pm. At any rate to cheer myself up I thought I'd post some sketches from the new story idea (not the ones I didn't get to today obviously) these were done over the last few weeks. The story is Nothing All Day, about a little boy (played by a mouse with attitude here) who is having, well, kind of a crappy day also.

Ok this time I'm not even going to come up with some witty story to explain why I haven't kept up with posting. Instead I'll just say 2 kids, plus one house for sale, divided by one house sold, multiplied by one move to a fabulous new house. You do the math. At any rate in my last post I explained how we were about to put our house on the market. . . and now badda bing badda boom. . . we are 7 days away from closing on the old and moving into the new. As I have referenced many times I love love love my studio here so I am more than a little sad to be leaving it, however I am focusing on the walk-closets and extra 1000 square feet my kids to get to "decorate" in the new house.

To give an update on my New Year's resolutions.... I have, in fact, started another book based on a conversation the Small Fry and I have on a regular basis. The title at the moment is Nothing All Day. I'll post sketches shortly (read: after moving). A few other illustrators and I have formed an online critique group and its been a great inspiration.

On becoming more loose with my work - still working on this one, but I have been enjoying being loose with the sketches for Nothing. My deadline is early August so that I can get it into the critique sessions for the SCBWI Midsouth conference. Having to get 30 spreads sketched out in 3 months on top of work (and did I mention moving?) means I don't have time to get jammed up drawing each and every hair on my characters' heads.

As for an update on Zoo in the Tub, the word from my recent communication with the publisher is that it is "still under consideration." Okaaayyyyy. I'm going to take that as good news. I have actually gotten very positive feedback from the other pubs I submitted it to, which while not an acceptance, is better than a form rejection letter photocopied crookedly on a piece of scrap paper and I have had my share of those many years ago. Most of the other editors wrote that they thought it was funny though just not quite right for them - basically the equivalent of you telling your girlfriend that you love her outfit but thinking I could never get away with wearing that myself. Oh well, there is a publisher out there somewhere that does dress in my taste.

To sign off here's a couple of sketches from Nothing All Day. For no other reason than animals are easier to draw than people, these characters are mice. I've been reading the Fry and the Sprout a spate of mouse-populated books and noticed that their (the mice, not my children) facial structures and very similar to people's. Enjoy: