Where I've been lately...

I haven't stopped blogging but lately I've been hanging out at the Sub It Club a lot. Why not join me there? 

This is the Sub It Club badge I designed. Grab one for your blog!

Here's the link to the blog to which I contribute a couple times a month:

Sub It Club

 
And more specifically, you can find all The Postcards Posts here in the archive:

The Postcard Post

 
Here's about two years worth of The Monthly Goalpost just in case you need a pep talk or want to ruminate on time management, resilience and keeping the creativity going:

The Monthly Goalpost

I will be back very soon with a Book Love Blog Hop entry on picture books. (I even designed the logo for it but more on that soon.)

Fiery Potential

Living in a small city is okay. Most of the time I'm just concerned with how it functions: public transportation, shops in walking distance, schools, work... This isn't a grand city that people can't believe I live in like when I lived in New York or Versailles. It's got bridges, ports and a tramway but it was rebuilt quickly after it got blasted to bits during World War II and it shows. 

On occasion,  it doesn't look half bad. Sometimes there's a beautiful sunset or a murmuration of starlings outside my window. I want to take a photo but there's always an eyesore like the roadworks depot, a stray crane or an old TV antenna poking into my frame. I either crop them out or contort myself to get an angle where they don't show. Or I just don't take the picture.

Sunday morning, I woke up and looked out my bedroom window. I saw a flaming arrow midair over the zinc roofs of nearby row houses. I ran downstairs to get the camera and looked out the studio window. No more flaming arrow. I ran back upstairs. And there it was.

I had to look from that spot, at that angle to see this serendipitous message in the sky. An arrow. 

Pointing at what? Maybe it wasn't pointing at anything; maybe it was pointing out something. Point of view is essential. I could only see this from here. I had to know where and when to look to know that things can be more than they seem. When the sun rose higher in the sky, it was gone. The old TV antenna was back but it's potential to blaze in a fiery form was still there.

Latest post over at the Sub It Club

I just posted The Monthly Goalpost for November at the Sub It Club. This month features time management and my hunt for the perfect kitchen timer to use in the studio to help me complete ongoing work. This Holy Grail got me thinking... then sketching.

Here's the link to the complete blog post: http://bit.ly/1ggXaR1

And here are my ideas for possible motivational (or not) kitchen timers to use for timed periods of concentrated activity.

What do you do when procrastination sets in and you need to get stuff done? Ever try a kitchen timer to encourage focused work periods? For me at times, getting started is hardest so this idea of working for a set number of minutes works. No pressure to keep working but once I've begun, I usually keep going.

Doodling

 

My entry to Doodle Day for Friday.

I like this kitty and want to draw him/her so more to get to know him/her better.
A cat that dresses up for the weekend is OK by me.

A whole lot of links

I wrote a post over at the Sub It Club:
"The Monthly Goalpost for October: Science + Wisdom (yup, that's right)".
I love the 3 minute video at the end.
Here's the link: bit.ly/1bo1EUu

While you're over there, you can check out the latest Postcard Post featuring illustrator, Hazel Mitchell:
Link: http://bit.ly/18GNV3j

And why not peruse the archives?
Link for the Postcard Post archives:http://bit.ly/10oEFy
and the Monthly Goalpost archives too: http://bit.ly/1eX9UeI

I made a doodle for Doodler's Anonymous' theme: Draw Your Dream Class. 

Fun stuff. I'm almost ready to go public on an event I'm planning for SCBWI France. Can't wait!

Heads Shapes and Characters

To get in the spirit of doodling every day, I went to Alison Kipnis Hertz's blog and copied the character head shapes from a page from Christopher Hart's HUMUNGOUS BOOK OF CARTOONING. Not sure I followed the directions faithfully but I had fun. I tried to draw as fast as possible and go with whatever the shape brought to mind first. Here's what I came up with:

 I see some characters emerging. This just may feed into my writing.

Sunday is Market Day in Brest

These are some random sketches and photos from Sunday when I took the tram into town to pick up this and that for lunch.

This is pain au cacao. OUi! Chocolate bread. Not cake or pastry but organic bread made with cocoa powder and a few chocolate chips. It is divine which is fitting since I did buy this on a Sunday. The little loaf behind it is pain au conté et noix (cheese and walnuts). It's good too but it's hard not to take second billing to cAcaO!

After buying fresh turkey breast and a beautiful stainless steel pot and lid (opportunity knocks and you've got to answer), I headed over to the little square where parents take kids to play. I sketched.

 

 

 

 
While I was strolling around, Gemma was running a 5K with her friends from lycée to benefit breast cancer research. Bravo les filles!

This café sketch is from Friday when I had a day on the town with my friend, Sue. We hit the art supply store and I tried out my new colored pencils right away. Sue tried out her new pencil called "The Shaker" and a crisp new pad of drawing paper.