It was delicious.

Today I stepped back from the books for a minute and realized I haven’t painted anything in quite a while… and definitely haven’t put any new images on my little old blog, so here’s a quick sketch from today to try to get into the mood of things. :)

First, the venue:

How’s that for some crazy perspective? It almost makes me want to spend a feverish evening attempting to draw it.

Imagine a gigantic, football field-sized conference room with no windows, situated two floors below the street level. Inside, 1200 writers, illustrators, editors, agents and other miscellaneous folks sat attentively, absorbing speeches and presentations from some of the most talented writers and illustrators in the business. Fortunately they broke up the schedule a bit with some smaller sessions where we could stretch our legs a little. There may have been a lot of us, but we were all conveniently labeled, as you can see in the (dorky) (and blurry) picture below:

That’s me posing with Ashley Bryan, illustrious illustrator of over 30 books, storyteller extraordinaire, and a fine player of the recorder. You have not lived until you have heard him recite poetry.

Clearly, my camera phone was not up to the task of indoor photography, so I had to go outside again in order to have enough pictures for my blog post.  Here, through the trees, you can see the “Avenue of the Stars,” where my portfolio ended up the night before the portfolio showcase. (This is not where it was supposed to be.)

I can now recommend from experience that you should remind yourself of the value of an object before you set it “just for a minute” on the top of your car.

(I tried to make this look forest-y instead of city-y. Did it work?)

I did get the folio back thanks to a wonderful lady named Jean who scooped it up off the pavement and gave me a call. If you’re out there Jean, thanks again! You’re totally my hero. The portfolio showcase was a success, and I had a fantastic time looking through all the great artwork.

Inevitably the time came to go home. A little sad, but probably fortuitous considering the cost of a sandwich around this area.

Now, with all the new inspiration, it’s back to the drawing board…

I have just a couple left to finish. My book is a little long, I ended up with 38 pages even though I was going for 32. (Clearly I need an editor.) I painted this one so I’ll have a color sample:

(Click for a larger version. The real images are 9 x 18 inches.)

(crickets chirping…)

Um yes, I suppose it has been a while. I’ve been busy! Partly because I now have a day job, one of those necessities for the so-called “pre-published” like me, and partly because I’ve been working on my dummy book.

I’ve finished the “writing a hopefully cohesive plot with hopefully interesting characters” part, and worked out the “storyboard of little illegible scribbles that are hopefully well paced.”

After that, I read in a book that the Great Howard Pyle used to do fifty thumbnail sketches for every illustration he made, in order to make sure that the composition was right. FIFTY! That would mean that, with 36 pages or so, I’d be drawing 1800 of them. That was a little too much dedication for me, considering I want to finish by July 30th, so I did two. (Sometimes three.) And then I arranged my “winners” on cards so I could easily shuffle everything around.
Like this: (pages 6-23)

My current goal is to take each of these small sketches and work it into a more developed drawing. In particular I’m trying to figure out any remaining issues of composition and the perspective in any tricky scenes.

I had one strange three-point perspective to do, and had my trusty patent illustrator (I recommend keeping one of these at home) work it out for me:

The illustration will only use a small part of this, perhaps something like the sketch below.  (Of course, when I work out more of the details and decide on the material/lighting for the underside of the table and chairs, it will hopefully be cleaner and make a bit more sense. But for now, here’s the current idea for pages 8-9, when our hero smells something delicious and climbs the furniture to investigate.)

This is for a contest put on by SCBWI-RMC. The prompt for this was “Let creativity take flight.”

I think I got the idea from weeding the garden.

There are usually two or three of these blue jays hanging around the  yard hoping for a handout. I like to call them “bloogs,” I’m  not sure if that’s real slang or just my own personal weirdness.

I first got the idea for the story when I moved to Berlin. I sat with a cup of coffee on a drizzly November day and watched an impromptu dramatic performance by an assortment of animals on the street. They were all the sorts of animals that we don’t usually pay much attention to: sparrows and pigeons, mice and magpies. I made some illustrations for the story and pieced them together into booklets to serve as makeshift gifts for people. In the process I realized that storybooks are harder to make than they seem, and if I were to ever make a decent project out of it, I would have to start at the beginning.

Now a year and a half later or so I’ve decided it’s time to break out the old drafts and storyboards and give it another go. I’ll post more as it progresses. For the moment this is the most visual thing I have to show you:

Until next time,
Jess

The inspiration for this weeks Illustration Friday painting came from a recent visit to a friend’s farm. (Her house, however, is not quite so small and her llama is not quite so determined to escape.) She lives in northeast Colorado and her small farm is home to an assortment of creatures including sheep, ducks, geese, hysterical chickens, and a dog who miraculously has no interest in attacking any of the other animals. Perhaps this is because the llama keeps everything in order, and will kick him if he so much as thinks about having a chicken dinner.

In the meantime I’d love feedback on how it works with your computer/browser, and any changes you’d like to see.

Now that the new site is up, I’m going to get back to regular posting and some more Illustration Friday stuff. I swear!

Until next time,

Jess