How to use this Page

There is good money in writing and illustrating your own stuff though - you might get less books done but you'd get marketed as the originator and author and get more leverage - and full royalties - and the money for the writing...
You could get a picture book agent if you like when you like, they deal with the whole package. Or an illustration agent who also deals with picture books and doesn't expect you to churn out commissions full-time while you're working on a book. Maybe you'll find you can write and draw your own stuff and still do part-time one-off commissions - you do so much work all the time!

Josephine looks lovelyyy!

Thanks Viviane!
I have it in my head that I have to establish a name doing other peoples stories before I do my own.
I'm hoping that doing the Jo Pebbles book will help me take that leap. I like the idea of having an agent and doing my own stories. That reall hadn't ocurred to me. When I was a kid I always pictured myself writing and drawing my own stories and now I'm in that position that I have to really think about it and how I can make that happen. I really admire the fact that you and Alexis do that. It's very inspiring. Some of my ideas will take some time and that's really what's putting me off.

Eric, your artwork is lovely!:)

I'm currently working on my own comic book. Like you,I'm interested in creating & illustrating my own stories, but I have to juggle between comissions, other personal projects...etc. Such a lifestyle requires disciline, but once you put your foot in the door, as they say...:) I have many thoughts on this, but there's not enough space here;) Good luck with your work, I'll be coming back!

I love seeing the Pebbles book come together. Great drawings as usual.
Sorry I have no advice to offer on your question.

Josephine is even more beautiful than what I imagined.... I really love her...

Thank you so much, Bojana!
It's good to know you share my thoughts on this.I'm going ahead with my own projects but it makes me so nervous. Thank for your kind words too. Your work is lovely and I'll be buying your comic!( wether I can read it or not.)

Thanks Frank! There's not much to say, I guess. I'm really just venting my frustration. Not that I'm not greatful for what I'm doing, I am.

Thank you so much, Alicia! I'll post more drawings as I finish them.

Josephine looks to have lots of character.
The hand in the post below is really scary.......

Thanks Elizabeth!
I'm really excited about this book.
I'll tell you more about it as it progresses.

I think the ship is totally awesome. If I were a kid, that's exactly what I'd want it to look like: full of bells and whistles.
Balance is so tough. I say, as long as you're working on SOMEthing, you're good. Writing it down and making lists does wonders too, if you have a lot on the go.

Thanks Ambera!

I really love the flying pirate ship! Good luke in the project!!!

Thanks Claudia!

This work is lovely!

Thanks Merce!

Whoah! Pirate action scene!

MM, no-contract time is unpleasant... you'll have contracts enough to re-paper the walls soon I believe.

I love mermaids and this one is no exception! What paper do you use? Will you paint on top of this pencil drawing?

Thanks Viviane! You've inspired me to work hard on Josephine Pebbles!

Thanks Jess! These are "roughs" which I transfer to watercolour paper with tracing paper. This one's already done and is much longer than what I've shown. The finished piece is in my new book.
I usually don't paint on top of pencil drawings, although looking at Arnold Lobel's stuff, I may start. I do most of these drawings on inexpensive Fabriano paper.

Oh I know Eric.. the waiting is just awful isn't it? Try to concentrate on your drawings and your writing, that helps to get the mind off things. I'm sure you'll hear great news soon!! :o)

Thanks Alicia!

oohhh thats good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Jannie!

Join the club.......working hard and not quite knowing what one's doing.
however, you seem to be doing it with panache!

Ha! Thanks Elizabeth!
You just made me feel a whole lot better about it!

well my friend looks like you;ve been busy psting! All the previous posts are quite amazing as always. I know what you mean by having too many things going on at once, patience. It will come do you, sometimes it takes longer than we want it too. I'm dealing with the same thing. Keep making that amazing art of yours. cheers!

Thanks Albert!
I really appreciate your words.
It's such a relief to know that other artists know what I'm talking about.

Thanks Albert!
I really appreciate your words.
It's such a relief to know that other artists know what I'm talking about.

Eric, this is magnificent!! Everything about it is wonderful ~ Dawn

Thank you so much, Dawn! I'm pretty happy with it.

This is great!
The textures and characters are awesome.
I kinda miss the lighter areas that you had in your value drawing though.
What happened to them?

Thanks Manelle!

I think it scanned a bit dark, but you're right, I did lose some of the contrasts. That's one of the difficulties gouache, it's hard to have strong values like you have in pencil or water colour.

Oh! I love the mouse! He's got a real twinkle in his eye...
Julie

Thanks Julie!

Gouache cool. I have hardly used it. I really liked it though because it is like acrylic and water color mixed. I hate using acrylic and love watercolor so yeah anyway. I'll have to keep that in mind about the contrast if I ever try it again.
It is a great painting.

Thanks Manelle, looking at it again, I think it is a pretty dark scan.

Love her rich red hair Eric! It does look like it took a lot of time. It's very beautiful. I do miss the lighting like the other one had though.. but I know gouache is not as easy to do this as other mediums.. well at least for me.

Thanks Alicia.

I forgot to mention that I love the texture of the hair on the rat. It's amazing... I can't wait to see your piece on Jack and the beanstalk!

Thanks! I'm tempted to rescan it, butI think I'll leave it for now.

It is nice to see this one finished. I would like to see the whole thing.
I can realate to the differences in value from the drawing to the painting. Sometimes you need to exaggerate values in black and white that you can approach differently with color. I like the saturated colors and I think that children will too. If you stuck to the values in the drawing it would be more washed out.

Whew! Thanks Frank! It's nice to hear from someone who shares my thoughts on this one. I'll post a photo of it in a few days so you can see the whole thing.

Oooh lovely...... this will be a killer portfolio!

Thank you so much, Viviane!

It turned out excellent! It's so dark and mysterious Eric, one of your best! You make me love rodents!

Thanks Ambera!

Hi Eric
It's great to see the original pencil work and then the final illustration. This one is lovely.

I really, really love your pencil work, even some of your quick sketches are lovely - so full of life and feeling.

Goodluck with all this new portfolio work.

Thanks Gail!

very nice work! your art has such a timeless feel to it, something I wish to achieve someday! I really like the books actually, especially the design on the binding. Sorry it's taken so long for me to write back. Nope, I have no bboks yet...but SOONER or LATER!! I;ll keep you posted! cheers my friend.

Thanks Albert!
When your first book comes out I'll be first in line!

Eric have you been tagged yet? If not you have been now. Tell us five interesting things about you and then tag five new people.

Hi Manelle! I've already been tagged with that one!

I love these pencil sketches - they are so full of life!

Thank you so much, Gail!

Strong design and well drawn. That's great that you finished the rough script. It sounds like a winner to me.
That is cool that you got to see the rough of the new book too. Must make you feel good after all the wait.

Thanks Frank!I've always really liked this piece. I'll keep you updated on the story, I'm actually looking for some readers to bounce ideas off of.

nice! the cloud sailing post looks very good.

Grazie molto, Allesandra!

For some reason things that work out quickly often seem the most successful.
Struggling with things is awful.........
I particularly liked the previous drawing for this series.

Thanks Elizabeth! My theory is that you struggle with things then one day it all comes together.

I'm really liking this sketch. There are a lot of great posts here that I've missed recently.

I know you've already received one or more, but I'm sending you another 'You Make My Day' Award! :)

Thanks Angela!

Amazing drawing. There's so much happening, and you've tied it all together beautifully.

Thanks Ambera, I find this type of composition really thrilling, both to do myself and to see other people do. I love trying to make sense of complexity.

I find that when I stop thinking about something (or have nothing planned), things just happen:) I can't wait to see what the final product will be.

Thanks, Mary Beth. It's a project I'd like to have done within 6 months. I'm not sure that's realistic but it's what I'm shooting for.

I’d love to have Firefox installed. I do what I can with IE Bookmarklets.

You can read my list in the article I wrote in Library Journal last December: Firefox at the Reference Desk. Library Journal declined to include my list of URLs for each of the add-ons, so I put them up in a post about the article on my blog.

Fiona
Have you seen PortableApps.com - that lets you install things like Firefox to a USB stick. You’d have to do the actual install on a PC where you have install rights (at least, I set most of my PortableApps up on a PC that I had control over, and then tried to add a few other things on one that I don’t. They didn’t install, but I guess it’s possible you might be able to install some of them on a limited PC. I’ve just never managed it with the tools that I’ve tried!)

We currently have Firefox (as well as IE) installed on all of our adult public use computers. I try to remember to direct our patrons toward Firefox when I am helping them. Strangely enough, we have found that some websites that will not open in IE will open in Firefox. Several of our staff prefer the Firefox browser and use it as their main browser.

Hi Emma,

Alas portable apps doesn’t work - security is such that any non-installed exe file simply won’t run on any machine.

At least I can have Firefox at home :)

http://emailofchris.googlepages.com/Snapper1.3.xpi is the new version of Snapper that works in Firefox 2.0

We have Firefox on all our staff and patron machines. Trying to get the IE tab add on added to all the Firefoxs (it allows an IE tab to be opened IN Firefox.)

My library uses Public Web Browsers for our PACs, so there isn’t anything to do there. However, I added three search plugins for our library catalog which can be added from the library homepage. Visit http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/library and you will see the three searches in your search engine dropdown box.

I use Zotero with my Firefox browser to organize my own research.

I recently installed the Meebo Message Notification to help alert us to incoming IM reference questions. We haven’t officially started IM reference yet, but it’s been working during testing.

Also, not a Firefox extension, so I’m cheating here, but a really helpful little tool for IM reference is PhraseExpress, which will save common phrases and type them for you as you start typing (or you can use a keyboard shortcut.) Like MSWord’s Autotext, but you can use it in any program/webpage. Great tool for those lines we tend to repeat.

We have a test PAC Wellfleet, MA, that uses PCLinuxOS, Firefox and Openoffice.org. It also has Skype and IM.

Firefox has some good addons for privacy, :”auto restart” and “public fox” prevent users for seeing other user’s info and also prevent people from altering the Firefox configuration.

Some patrons will no longer use Windows.

The curious thing about PCLinuxOS is the ease of “re-mastering”, so I could send a Live-CD copy. It boots, runs and installs on most any old PC.

All free software. No spyware problems or viri, to speak of.

[…] The usual suspects of course: Jessamyn West. Learn how to Pimp your Firefox. Watch a video on installing Ubuntu. Make friends with Wikipedia. […]