NaPiBoWriWee and Beyond

Last week I participated in the National Picture Book Writing Week invented and organized by the dynamic Paula Yoo. I did it last year too and I'll do it again next year. It's like everything else; the more you do it the better you get at it. I wrote 7 first drafts of 7 picture books. Might seem easy but the hardest part at times is sitting down, taking out those ideas that have been rattling around in the dark corners of the brain and putting them to the test. Do they hold up on paper? Not always but that's okay because then you can move on. And the other ideas, the ideas that start to look promising— they need revision but that's okay too. I'm always happy when I do something, move it all forward even a little bit and in the context of this challenge it was fun. Paula was rooting for us and provided tons of support and advice. And then there were the other participants: I met some great people in the 'comments' on Paula's website and on twitter. I attempted new things and learned some too. What's not to like?

This week I'm getting back to what I was doing before the NaPiBoWriWee madness began. Some painting and a picture book dummy. I revised the story in places so that requires new illustrations then I decided I needed to rethink the couple of paintings I had already done for it… hmmm

This is another study for the main character.
I'd changed my mind while doing it so this is really for working things out.

Now I'm going to go back and start over. Don't worry! I will figure this out. I'm pretty sure. :-p

This is a little painting of a subject I've done before as an attempt to develop an illustration 'style'.

I've since bagged the idea of working that way… got to keep it natural, me. So I redid it as an exercise to get back to where I was before I started fiddling… That's what you see here. And I'll probably do it over again.

Next week my daughter will be taking a big trip with her Latin/Greek class to Greece and so I'll have lots of uninterrupted time to work. Let's all keep our fingers crossed I use my time very wisely!

Snapshot

This is a little gouache I just did to send to my mother for her birthday, painted from an old photo from a batch she sent me. I love the intimacy of the pose. I love all the memories it brings back. I remember the furniture and objects in the living room and even that wood paneling that was so popular back then. It makes me think of the person taking the photo too; my father. I see him with an old rangefinder camera taking pictures of all five of us kids growing up. I like that he saw my Mom and sister sitting there and felt that the moment was worthy of a photo. This is life. All those little moments.

I hope Mom likes her gift.

Une petite parenthèse pour faire voir un tout petit tableau à la gouache que j'ai peint pour l'anniversaire de ma mère. Enorme nostalgie pour moi. Les petits moments de la vie qui sont quand même poétique...

Thanks for passing by.

Emotion

This is a character study for a picture book I wrote. It isn't definitive; I need to take it a lot further. What emotion do you think the girl's face and posture express? There is no right answer. I'd just like to know what you think.
Thanks!

Kid, Goats, Pigs: Kids' Illustration work

A little show 'n tell!
This work is from personal references. (I can turn any kind of outing into a quest for illustration reference materials.)

First in pencil:


Another version in gouache:


This is a fast gouache that I went back in and touched up with pencil:

We named these piggies Pretty & Gorgeous!

It's good to be back at the drawing board. Now I need to work on some sketches for a picture book I wrote. And revisions to the text. And...

I thought I was in a rut lately until I pictured that word in my mind and saw, well, a rut formed by, say a wheelbarrow wheel and realized that the rut came from doing something over and over. I looked it up in the Oxford American dictionary and it said "a habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive..." and since I've been decidely unproductive but not behaving as I habitually do, that word did not really apply. I only wished I was in my lovely dull habit of painting and writing, productive or not. I wasn't doing anything. Blah. So I looked up "doldrums" and found that definition #2 applies: "a period of inactivity or stagnation." Ahh, I saw myself here. The first definition and synonym is depression but I wouldn't go so far as to say I've been depressed. Not in a clinical sense anyway. But I got to thinking some more (plenty of time for thinking when one is stagnating) and I realized that during these doldrums I was actually doing something and here is a list:

• I thought about all the things I wasn't doing and wondered what would become of me.
• That hurt my head so I slept.
• I read The Twilight Saga, all four books so that, in the words of my Twilight-crazy daughter she and I "could be on the same page."
• When I wasn't immersed in Bella's life of cataloguing the various facial expressions of Edward (he's got like a trillion different smiles each with a very different very deep meaning behind it), I was knitting. I was determined to use up all the odd ends of skeins dating back to my teen years (I kid you not) so I knitted a scarf for aforementioned daughter. I used up a lot but not all of the yarn.
• Started knitting another scarf for no one in particular. I realized I enjoyed the lack of rules, the tiny decisions about which color to use next, just row after row of listening to the radio.
• Read "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott and fell in love with it.
• Started reading "Breaking into Freelance Illustration" by Holly DeWolf. I was keeping in touch with illustration at least!
• I finally planted the three bulbs I sprang for during a school-trip fundraising drive. I'm now enjoying that tiny effort as they give off a beautiful scent.
• When I finished all four Twilight books I started The Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld. They were a gift and much to my surprise I was hooked and read all three. Fantasy isn't my favorite genre but I'm glad I tried it.
  I have my doldrums to thanks for that.

So I didn't move those picture book texts forward, didn't revise that dummy book, didn't get moving on that illustration portfolio. Nope. But the doldrums allowed me to do a few other things and while I'm not saying I don't regret this period, because I do, I decided to stop being so hard on myself and tally up what I did when I wasn't doing "anything". And now I'm coming out of it. I've joined a new gym, have borrowed arm-fulls of picture books from the library and wrote about them in my reading log and I've taken out those texts and dummy book and will face revision.

So now I'm wondering, what do you do when you aren't doing anything?

Illustration Friday

Topic: flying
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand
and walk and run and climb and dance;
one cannot fly into flying.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

This is the first time I've submitted to Illustration Friday even though I've enjoyed browsing their site for years. 'Bout time!

First Day on the Blog

(this pastel is not from the attic or done lately...
just something from a long time ago to kick off this blog)

Welcome.

This is a new place for me to get out of the attic and show what I've been working on lately. I'm an English (as a second language) teacher/graphic designer/painter in France. I'm also an aspiring children's book author/illustrator. (That's a lot of slashes...)

This blog is for my illustrations. Please stop by and take a look at the work I post (studies, sketches and finished paintings). I'd love to read your comments and I'm sure that any feedback on my work will only help to improve it.
Thanks!
Dana