Illustration Friday: Entangled

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Ours was an untraditional feast this year, with swordfish and tuna steak instead of turkey. It was awesome. There were plenty of leftovers to take home, too, which makes me one happy illustrator.

For Illustration Friday this week I’m submitting a piece from Triangle Top. Members of the Trylican herd are mute, deaf, blind, or a combination of the three, making navigation a cooperative effort. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work well! In this image, an attempt to steer the herd away from a cliff proves futile and “…in no time, the tribe trampled together in a tremendous entanglement.”

Enjoy the rest of the long weekend, everybody!

Illustration Friday: Music

This week’s Illustration Friday submission comes from the bilingual children’s book, Mayte and the Bogeyman / Mayte y el cuco. Mayte makes music on a slide whistle while Don Ricardo, the neighborhood blade sharpener, hones his craft. The story features several types of cart vendors in Puerto Rico, where they are quite common, including grocery vendors, a newspaper man, and “The Bogeyman” himself: the ice cream vendor.

I had initially gotten a few details wrong with the sketches (Mayte was wearing clothes too warm for that climate) and wanted to ask my publisher for a “research trip” down to Puerto Rico to “get all the details right.” However, I suspected that request wouldn’t fly so I didn’t push my luck. Oh well…

The Kerlan's 60th Anniversary Celebration

Guess who reverted to “Giddy Schoolgirl Mode” yesterday? That’s right, I did! I got to meet renowned author and children’s book historian, Leonard Marcus, at the Kerlan Collection’s celebration for their 60th anniversary. He was so cool! Plus, there were so many local children’s book authors, illustrators, librarians, and Kerlan Friends in attendance, it’s no wonder I was star-struck.

Leonard Marcus, author of The Minders of Make Believe (I will forever treasure my autographed copy!) and a slew of other titles, gave a really great presentation. He included some history about Dr. Irvin Kerlan, the founder of the Kerlan Collection, and spoke of Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, the creators behind Goodnight Moon. He was just so calm, collected, and such a nice guy - I was definitely fawning all over him! I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: his work should be required reading for anyone who currently works or is interested in working in any capacity for the children’s book industry.

You can see more photos from the opening reception on my Flickr page. I included several shots of the fabulous materials being shown in the exhibit, such as handwritten story drafts, paintings, and notes. Folks local to the Minneapolis area should trek over the University of Minnesota to see this special exhibit for themselves - it runs through Dec. 31, 2009.

Special thanks to the folks at the Kerlan Collection for throwing such a great party!

A Mashup Gone Wrong

Combining two popular literary creations – the ubiquitous Twilight and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – this Saturday Night Live skit has kept me laughing all week. It’s utterly ridiculous, but sometimes that’s how I like to roll.

I do have my quibbles, though: Frankenstein was name of the scientist, NOT the monster! Everybody seems to get this wrong, along with maintaining the monster’s cheesy Hollywood characterization instead of following the book. Granted, cheese works for parodies such as this, but I’d still love to see a faithful film adaptation of one of my favorite reads from high school. (The Twilight series, however, should be stopped at all costs.)

Enjoy!

Illustration Friday: Unbalanced

Happy Friday the 13th! This week’s Illustration Friday submission is from my newest book release, Triangle Top: The Tale of a Troubled Tribe, written by Mark Johnson. This is the scene when the tangled Trylicans lose their tenuous balance on the edge of Triangle Top and take a tremendous tumble towards trouble. Alas, I'm not as skilled as Mark at alliteration, but I hope you enjoyed my attempt. The illustrations were created by coloring graphite drawings in Photoshop.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Veterans Day

I'd like to use today's post to express my appreciation for our nation's 25 million veterans. Thank you for your service to our country and its people!

Illustration from the award-winning children's book for military families, The Wishing Tree.

Teen Writers Interview

As mentioned in my recap of the Minnesota SCBWI Annual Conference, several speakers and I sat down to talk with Christian and Keagan of the As Written By teen writers group. The interview is now online in their November newsletter. You can check out my attempt to “get down with the cool kids” here, just look for the chick in the bright pink frilly shirt on Page 6.

Thanks again to As Written By for the opportunity!

Homemade Travel Watercolor Case

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and after searching fruitlessly for an inexpensive pocket-sized watercolor kit, I'm inclined to agree. I found that others solved the problem by making their own watercolor kits, and figured I could try doing the same for myself.

I started with an Altoids tin, stripped off the paint, and sprayed the inside with white enamel. The lid now serves nicely as a mixing well and the rest of the interior won’t rust. Then I took the half pans of paint from another watercolor set and glued small strips of magnets to the bottom, so they can be repositioned at will but won't rattle loosely in the tin. The tin is just large enough to hold 8 half pans (or up to 12 if I don’t put anything else in there), a small sponge, a pencil, a bit of kneaded eraser, and a Koi compact water brush. Finally, I decorated the top with a flat metal pendant (set in place with some JB Weld epoxy) I found at Michaels for $1.

The pans are currently stocked with decent-quality cake paint, but I can always refill them with pro-grade tube paint when the time comes. The water brush is my newest discovery - the water is contained in the handle so there is no need to carry along a separate canister of used water to dump later. It was a little strange to paint with at first, but I’m getting the hang of it now.

So there you have it: a delightfully easy and inexpensive craft project for a perfectly pocket-sized watercolor kit. "Homemade" is so often the "best-made!"