kate berube : illustrations

rejection

2012-02-05T22:23:00.000-08:00

Making a drawing out of a rejection letter is really fun. You should try it.

more valentines

2012-01-25T14:12:00.000-08:00

Head over to my shop to purchase.

valentines

2012-01-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

I've got a few new Valentine's Day cards I'll be putting up in my shop in the next week. Here's a preview:

I don't know about you, but whenever I think of Valentine's day I think of Rachel Dratch on 30 Rock saying "Happy Valentime's!"

twit

2012-01-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm now a twit. Read more here.

(it's twitter, of course, silly!)

doodles

2012-01-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

Ronald Searle

2012-01-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

One of my favorites passed away last week. Head over to this site to peruse more lovely work.

Essentially bemused.

2011-12-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

Wee! The holidays are almost here! Hop over to etsy to pick up some of my holiday greeting cards.

Or if you're in Portland, the lovely Escential Lotions and Oils on Hawthorne is now carrying my latest greeting cards - and is a fabulous place to pick up some last minute Christmas gifts. It's a small, family owned business selling natural beauty products and local goods - can't beat it.

And the adorable be*Mused on Burnside is now carrying my latest cards and just picked up my prints (yay!) I stopped in today to say hello and drop off some goods and I found some great little locally made items for Christmas gifts.

I love all these cute little Portland shops - remember to support them this holiday season - times is tough and I sure would love to see these places stick around.

bikecraft bikecraft... don't forget bikecraft!

2011-11-30T18:12:00.001-08:00

BikeCraft!

This Saturday and Sunday - 11 to 6. I won't be able to make it (I'll be busy busting a move at my cousin's wedding) but my cards and prints will be there. There will be lots of other goodies too - wish I could go. You should check it out!

Our bodies, our bikes

2011-11-22T22:22:00.001-08:00

It's always fun to be part of one of Elly Blue's projects. Her latest is Our Bodies, Our Bikes, the fifth volume of Taking the Lane, "a zine that explores the bicycle movement from a feminist perspective."

I'm really looking forward to reading this one - "bikesexuality"!?! (Who knew!?) My only concern is that my drawing may be a little chaste in this company. Ahh well, I am a children's book illustrator after all. :)

Elly says: "Our Bodies, Our Bikes is at the printer. Copies should be available at the beginning of December. You can pre-order the zine via Kickstarter or directly from me and I might have a few copies available at BikeCraft on December 2nd and 3rd."

She'll also have some cards and prints of mine for sale at BikeCraft (which is a holiday gift fair held December 3 and 4. It's from 11am to 6pm at Sandbox Studio on 420 NE 9th Ave in Portland, of course.)

how to write a book - lesson one

2011-11-19T16:56:00.001-08:00

(subtitle: Do not be like a koala.)

I'm starting to learn a few things about writing a book. Today I became conscious of something rather important, I think. I'll try to describe it as best I can and maybe it'll help one of you readers out there.

I think there's a feeling you have for your story before you even write anything down. It's like an emotional blueprint for the book. And it's more important than anything else - this is why you can change your main character from a boy to a girl, or a boy to an aardvark, or you can take out 12 pages and put the beginning at the end and the end at the beginning and still be writing the same story. The emotional blueprint is your story and you are trying to get that feeling out into the world for other people to experience.

When I write, all of my efforting goes toward trying to make the words and pictures express this emotional blueprint. I know when something isn't right because it's veering from that original sense of the book. And I go back to that feeling over and over, all the way through writing and drawing and editing.

Ahhh, but here's where things get tricky. At some point, after all this careful construction, you have a book. (Hooray!) And you need to sit (preferably somewhere comfy, with a nice hot cup of coffee and quiet - complete quiet) and read your book. BUT, you need to read it in the proper way (this is what I'm just learning to do.) The proper way is to read it like you've never seen it before, like you've never heard of any of the characters. But even more importantly, before you start reading, you need to completely and totally forget that feeling - that emotional blueprint you started with. You need to wipe it clean out of your brain. Because, most likely, you didn't quite capture that original feeling. Sad, I know. (But you did make a book, which is cool.) So, you need let go of your original intentions and start looking at this book as it's own being. And you need to discern what feeling it IS expressing - and then you need to edit it so that feeling is expressed as best and fully as possible.

Well, this is my theory anyway. And I think most of life works this way - you have to have focus and determination - but at some point you have to let go and accept what is and be adaptable. We are humans - we don't have to stick with just eucalyptus. I'll let you know how it goes.

Illustration Friday: Stripes

2011-11-10T08:32:00.001-08:00

One of my 2011 Christmas cards. I'm getting excited for the holiday season!

A single card can be purchased here.
Or a package of 5 can be purchased here.

daylight savings is the worst.

2011-11-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

I've had a bad day. And then it got dark at like 5 o'clock. Ugh.

So, I took a minute at work, as the daylight faded, to make a list. It's titled "things that make me feel better". Here it is (in no particular order):
-yoga
-running
-time with friends, kidlets and family
-painting
-hot baths
-good food
-kissing
-dancing
-reading

I intend to spend as much time doing these things as possible in the next few months as the sun slips away and then slowly comes back. If you too are struggling with the sudden winter blues I highly recommend you make yourself a list. (And if you do make a list - I'd love to hear it!)

words of wisdom

2011-11-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

"It's ongoing, you still are mystified by the construction of songs. You don't ever really get to a plateau where you feel like oh well, I'm done, I know how to do this. You stay rather curious and puzzled by the whole affair really." -Tom Waits (from 10/31/11 Fresh Air interview.)

PiBoIdmo

2011-10-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Starting Tuesday I'll be joining this little group and coming up with a new story idea every day in November! 30 picture books! No problem. (Wish me luck.)

doodling

2011-10-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Nikki Mcclure

2011-10-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to PNCA to see Nikki Mcclure chat about her cut paper art. She's awesome. I love her work and was pleased to like her in person just as much.

When I first moved to the Pacific Northwest (almost 10 years ago) I saw her calendars in many of my new friend's homes. The images and words were all about what I was discovering out here, nature and a more grounded and thoughtful way of life. I was a little intimidated by all these sincere and unselfish people, but I caught on after awhile.

Since I've lived in Portland, I've started to grow food:

I've slowed down:

I've ditched the car (ok, that's not true, I never had a car in Chicago either, but now I have some pretty strong ideas about why I don't have a car and don't want one.) :

I mend things, I reuse, (I fricking wash plastic baggies!), I fix:

and I've even started to ferment foods on top of my refrigerator! :

She told us she thinks the world is a mess and people need to get to work to fix it. Her art is basically her way of telling people what to do. But she's clever and makes it all very lovely so you want to hang it up in your kitchen.

She also talked a lot about being an artist and gave some good advice:
-"Don't wait for permission, and don't wait for that phone call, just start."
-"Make plenty of mistakes."
-"Make your own economy - give your work to nonprofits, trade it for food, hang it up in local shops."
-"When all else fails, sweep your studio floor."

Well, now I'm off to

to all this.

Wordstock

2011-10-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

Wordstock was quite fun last weekend, here's a few highlights:

Marc Brown (Arthur's creator) and Judy Sierra (who lives in Oregon and said Wild About Books was inspired by Portland's zoo and library!) have a cute new book called Zoozical. They were great story tellers and seem quite sweet. They have a rather unique working relationship, unlike most author illustrator teams, they do communicate with each other as they work. Judy said she will email Marc with questions like "would you rather draw a hippo or a giraffe?" And Marc takes photos of his works in progress and sends them to Judy. Very interesting!

In this photo, from left to right, we have - Nancy Tillman, Marla Frazee, Julie Paschkis and Brie Spangler. Kudos to the Wordstock organizer who put together this panel of illustrators! I do love attending these writing conferences, but sometimes feel out of place as a writer/illustrator.

Marla's latest book (written by Mary Lyn Ray) is Stars.

You should run out right now and buy it, it's brilliant!

Anyhow, Marla said that she made 7 dummies for this book! It's a good reminder to me that someone as obviously talented and experienced at making picture books as Marla Frazee still needs to put lots of time and sweat in to get it right. She said that she thinks the problem most new illustrators have is not putting enough time into preliminary planning stages of a book.

Something I'm always curious about is whether illustrators draw bigger than the final printed size of the book. Interestingly, all the illustrators on this panel work at 100%. And Marla said she will sometimes work smaller and the work will be blown up! That was surprising to me as I've always thought the tendency was to work bigger because shrinking a drawing cleans it up a bit.

Pseudonymous Bosch - who had the longest line for book signing and seemed nervous about all the attention (and don't you just love that he's wearing sneakers?!)

Shannon Wheeler - who told me how he got started as a New Yorker comics artist. He sent 10 comics a week for three or four months before they even bought one! That's like 160 comics! And he continues to send 10 a week. I've long harbored a secret fantasy to have something (anything!) in the New Yorker - I guess this means comics is out - I mean jeez! 10 a week! I'm definitely not that funny.

Maile Meloy- said writing for her is editing and that it's hard to ever stop editing. She compared herself to Bonnard, who would sneak into museums in order to touch up his own paintings! The Apothecary is her first book for young readers. I love that cover - think I'll definitely have to read this one.

Not bad for a $10 event! Ok, back to work now - I may not surface for a couple weeks, need to get some serious editing in myself!

invitation

2011-10-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

I was hired to make some baby shower invitations this week, how fun! Will have to come up with the "It's a boy!" version and get them up in my shop soon.

_______________________________________________________

In other news, this is my 200th blog post! I don't even know how that's possible. And I've had over 10,000 page views! Crazy! Having a blog has been a nice way for me to keep track of my creative process. And it's a really great bonus that people come by and actually read it once in awhile. Thank you for that!

I was a kid once too.

2011-10-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

Here's my 2nd grade class picture (thanks to Amanda S. for sharing it on fb!) I'm the one in the front row with the bruised knee. On good days I feel like exactly the same person.

Mrs. Zaleski was a great teacher - although I was totally afraid of her. She's the grey haired giant on the right.

My best (and only) friend was the adorable girl next to me in the purple tights. We lived in our own secret world.

The boy on the left in the grey sweatshirt was named Nick. He moved away that year. I had a giant crush on him and left a farewell note on his desk on his last day in school. He was the first of many Nicks I've had giant crushes on in my life. I dunno, there's just something about that name...

The boy on the right in the red and white striped tee shirt was named Bobak Johandari (or something like that) and he fascinated me. He was always getting into trouble. I distinctly remember watching him try to pick up a pencil from the floor with a pair of scissors - unsuccessfully - for like, hours. He was so strange!

A lot of the other kids I saw recently at our class reunion. They are all, of course, so much older but I still see them as they are in this photo - memories from childhood are strong in my mind.

It's great to have a photo to look at to tap into that place. I think I need to go dig up my preschool class photo.
_______________________________________________________
What with moving and being sick I've done very little drawing or writing in the last couple of weeks. But I'm headed to Wordstock this weekend and will certainly be inspired to get back to work next week. (Piles of unpacked boxes be damned, as long as I can get to my paints I'm all set.)

moving

2011-09-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

I move into my new home on Friday. I knew it was the right home as soon as I walked in. And in my mind I keep seeing an image of myself in it, drawing peacefully and glancing out at the rain. Doesn't that sound lovely?! It will be a good winter.

collage

2011-09-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

my next book?

2011-09-20T12:38:00.001-07:00

Drawing by Chris

2011-09-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Chris made this drawing of me maybe 10 years ago. I was 21 or so. I still feel like that girl. It's amazing how much changes in ten years and how much stays exactly the same.

“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” – Buddha

escape

2011-09-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

There are a few big changes happening in my life right now. I gave myself a little break and escaped to Montana last week. I mostly swam and hiked but I also made a few paintings. Here's my favorite:

Russian watercolors

2011-08-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Dasha uses old Yarka paints that she brought from Russia like 20 years ago. She was raving about them to me just last week. Then, yesterday I stopped by my favorite art supply store, Muse, and there they were! Yarka watercolors! I think I'm going to love that taupe color, feels like cheating!

benefits of travel

2011-08-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

I've been drawing and painting like a madwoman since I returned from the East Coast. It's reminded me of a fascinating article by the wonderful Jonah Lehrer from a few years back, which is about how and why travel makes us more creative.

A few excerpts: (but the article is super interesting so you really ought to read the whole thing: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/12/why_we_travel.php )

"The reason such travels are mentally useful involves a quirk of cognition, in which problems that feel "close"--and the closeness can be physical, temporal, or even emotional--get contemplated in a more concrete manner. As a result, when we think about things that are nearby, our thoughts are constricted, bound by a more limited set of associations. While this habit can be helpful--it allows us to focus on the facts at hand--it also inhibits our imagination."

"The larger lesson, though, is that our thoughts are shackled by the familiar. The brain is a neural tangle of near infinite possibility, which means that it spends alot of time and energy choosing what not to notice. As a result, creativity is traded away for efficiency; we think in literal prose, not symbolist poetry. A bit of distance, however, helps loosen the chains of cognition, making it easier to see something new in the old; the mundane is grasped from a slightly more abstract perspective. As T. S. Eliot wrote in the Four Quartets: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

doodling

2011-08-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

field trip!

2011-08-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

I had an excellent chat with a couple of the lovely folks at Candlewick Press (in the Boston area) last week. They showed me around the office - very neat - and shared some soon to be released titles with me - awesome - and gave me some very helpful feedback on The Toothachers - I have work to do! It was a great time.

I also stopped in to the Museum of Fine Art and was swept up and a little giddy over all the great stuff they have. I love art museums!

My old friend Dubuffet - love, love, love him! -

New (to me) Azechi Umetaro:

"Wicked awesome" sculptures from Papua New Guinea:

And even though it was a bit chilly and rainy, I just had to have my favorite frozen treat, Del's Lemonade! Man, there's nothing like it, I sure wish we had Del's out here in Portland.

tv!

2011-07-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

here it is:

Click here for full screen version.

(Before me they had segments on pigs and Hugh Hefner's sex life. Classy.)

Getting organized

2011-07-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've been busy getting some new work made for my portfolio and getting my etsy page polished up. I put up new photos for everything and I now have prints for sale of a few of my drawings. I'm also trying to get a new book dummy finished up this week. Busy busy busy!

TV!

2011-07-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

One week from today I'm going to be on Good Day Oregon!

(It's a local morning news program on Fox.) They invited me on to talk about my Etsy page. It's very exciting but I'm a bit nervous that I'll embarrass myself. Wish me luck! In the meantime I'm working on getting some art prints made and some better photos for my Etsy site.

I'll post the link to the episode when it's up. If you want to watch me and/or send good vibes to protect me from embarrassing myself - it'll air on Thursday, July 28th at about 9am.

character studies

2011-07-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a new story and have been drawing the characters over and over and over again, trying to find out who they are and what they look like.

I think these two are getting close but still have a ways to go. I wonder how other people create their characters? I'd love to see a goofy first sketch of toot or puddle!

card hawking

2011-07-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

oof!

My friend Camille and I have been pounding the pavement all week trying to get our greeting cards in some local shops. Success! You can see the shops that are now carrying my cards to the left. More to come soon!

Camille has her own lovely line of cards, like this one:

worms!

2011-07-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

My worm card was featured on this fun blog:

A post of all things wormy from etsy, I love it!

morning collages

2011-07-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've filled another couple of sketchbooks with collages and thought I'd share a few here.

(Yes, that does say "get rid of reeses." It was post-halloween and I needed to stop eating those things.)

(read more about my morning collages in this post.)

card designing

2011-07-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

I've made up a few more greeting cards and posted them to etsy. Head over and check them out. I also set myself up at last Thursday last week and sold a few. This "Hooray" card sold the best.

(Here's it in two versions, one with my handwriting, the other with type. I'm still learning about card design and not sure which I prefer. Going with handwriting for now. But perhaps I need to make my handwriting a bit neater? hm...)

book covers

2011-06-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

I've been making drawings of some of these covers that I found on the side of the road last week. I won't post my copies since the originals are much more interesting. Aren't they great?!

treasures!

2011-06-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

I took a little bike ride in the sunshine yesterday and came across a most excellent free box. It was full of dust jackets of picture books, many from the 60's and 70's. I tried to pick through it and take only my favorites but ended up with the whole shebang!

There are so many amazing looking books to be researched! Here's the first one I looked up:

You must go to this flickr page to read some of the pages. Here's an example:

I'll scan some of the best covers when I get a chance.

(Thank you Lydia! All your years of saving these will not be for naught!)

found face and fellowship fun

2011-06-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

My watercolor set's ochre looked like he had a little mouth so I gave him some eyes. Hee!

(Taking a mini break from a literary fellowship application I'm working on. Pheww! These things are a lot of work, but I have say writing down my intent and goals has certainly helped me to remember my intent and goals! Will have to remember, even if I don't get any funds, it was immensely helpful to fill out this application just to clarify intentions and goals for myself.)

the children's book bank

2011-06-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

I spent this morning volunteering at The Children's Book Bank, an awesome organization that collects and distributes books to underprivileged preschoolers. What an amazing place! I think I might have to make a weekly habit of volunteering there, let me know if you'd like to join me.

Here's a mind blowing quote from their website: "In low income neighborhoods the ratio of books to children is one book per 300 children..." That's shocking! I grew up with loads of books and have even more now. I cannot imagine what life without them is like.

In other news, I took a little holiday last week, my mom came to visit and we ate and drank our way around Portland and out to Cannon Beach. It was just what I needed and I feel quite rejuvenated and ready to get back to work.

illustration friday: shadows

2011-06-07T14:28:00.000-07:00

illustration friday: asleep

2011-06-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

adele

2011-05-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

One nice thing about being a grown up is that I don't feel embarassed anymore for listening to the same song on repeat all day. (Another nice thing is that one can eat ice cream for breakfast if one so chooses. There are definitely perks to being a grown up.) Anyhow, my repeating song this week has been Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." (And before I went out and bought the album I listened by playing this youtube video of it over and over, which is pretty striking and was hard to resist drawing.)

doodling

2011-05-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

inspired by the brown paper and white ink of dasha's cat drawing.

illustration friday: safari

2011-05-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Ohh, that was fun to make. It's my first ever pattern, it's a bit wonky- not at all even - I just eyeballed things.

I love the fabrics of Heather Ross and was bummed to see that I missed a workshop on pattern making here in Portland last year. Maybe she'll come back again-

Dear Heather,

Please come back and teach a workshop in Portland again, I will bring you cupcakes if you do.

Thank you very much!

Sincerely, kate b.

illustration friday: beginner

2011-05-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

doodling

2011-05-09T10:19:00.001-07:00

picnic - a food cart

2011-05-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

My good friend John has opened a food cart!

Picnic! Almost everything is made from scratch, the bread is baked, the pork is smoked, the pickles are pickled, right in the cart! The menu is short and tasty and will be expanding as time and experience allows. Head by SW 9th and Washington, from Tuesday to Friday 11 to 2p.

If you stop by next week you might even see me there helping out a bit.

(This is a bit off topic, but I am very happy for John and just had to share!)

rewriting

2011-05-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

So, I have this little book I'm editing/rewriting/tearing to pieces. I thought it might be interesting to share my latest technique:

It's very high tech, as you can see. It involves taking over the entire floor of my studio and using lots of colorful post it notes! (Green means Go, as in "good to go, no changes needed." Notice how only 5 of the 32 pages get a green post it note... yep, I'm rewriting.)

But in all seriousness it has been a real boon. I can shuffle things around and get a sense of pace visually. When I first laid out the pages I discovered that my set up was much much longer than my climax, which I think made the end feel abrupt. Thank goodness my studio is so roomy! Although, poor Chris has to gingerly step over things to get in and out of the house. But he doesn't complain.

I HAVE AN ETSY SHOP!!!

2011-05-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to introduce my new shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/kateberube

I've been puttering around with this for awhile and have finally gotten things up and running! I will be adding more to it as I can. Right now my brain is like taffy from staring at the computer screen all afternoon. Time for a bath I think!

doodling

2011-05-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

You know you're obsessed when it's finally sunny outside and you want to stay in and draw and work on your webpage. Ah well, I have the windows open, I can see the sunshine out there, that's good enough.

new paint!

2011-04-29T00:03:00.000-07:00

I ordered some big jars of my favorite paint and they came in today! Joy of joys!

(do not be deceived by the sunlight-esque brightness in this photo- it is some kind of photographic illusion. Actually the sky looked like this all day:

blerg! But new paint made me happy even when the hail stones were pelting down upon me.)

Art Speigelman

2011-04-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went to PNCA to see Joe Sacco interview Art Spiegelman about his career as a comic book artist. It was a great talk, both are great artists, and so, we had great fun. (In the blurry photo: Art Spiegelman on the left and Joe Sacco on the right - the image is a hilarious cover Spiegelman made for the New Yorker.)

I took some very brief notes:
-Comics (and children's books too) are explorations of the interaction of words and pictures. Spiegelman kept referring to words and pictures as "unreliable alloys." Ha!

- Spiegelman told us about some advice his father had given him about becoming an artist, "If you're a dentist, at night you can draw your cartoons, but if you're a cartoonist nobody comes at night to see the dentist!"

-Spiegelman did not appreciate fine art paintings until a friend of his told him to "think of them as big comic book panels."

Spiegelman talked just a bit about his children's book:

Which he described as Magritte for kids. I think he said, "It's like "this is not a pipe", except kids can't smoke so it's a dog."

Also, I learned that Spiegelman was the creator of Garbage Pail Kids! I can't believe I did not know this! I think Garbage Pail Kids were our Grimm's tales. God, I loved those things. He said he got a lot of flack for the cards but that it didn't matter because kids loved them and they were popular anyway.

My favorite card was always Karate Kate of course!

illustration friday: bicycle

2011-04-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Here's some images I made for Taking the Lane. The smooshed helmet woman cracks me up. Yay for bicycling!

Open mike sketching

2011-04-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

C played an open mike last night at Artichoke Music, and I sketched the musicians while they did their thing. It was a great night, I love hearing people play and sing and I love drawing. Here's some of my favorites:

illustration friday: journey

2011-04-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

Only time for a quick sketch today. This prompt reminded me of running away- which I certainly was guilty of attempting a few times.

squibywa (otherwise known as SCBWI Western Washingon)

2011-04-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Oh my! I am filled to the brim with excitement about children's books and thankful to everyone who had anything to do with the fabulous conference I had the good fortune to spend the last few days at. (It was the SCBWI Western Washington annual conference.)

I did a great job chatting and generally being present which means I did a terrible job taking photos. Here's pretty much every photo I took:

My pals, Portland authors Emily Whitman and Victoria Jamieson (she's an illustrator too.) Be sure to check out their books, they are wonderful!

Publisher Justin Chanda and agent Tina Wexler giving us the inside scoop on publisher agent negotiations. This session was so informative that it made me realize how little I know and that I would certainly love to have an agent on my side to work all this stuff out for me.

An unfortunately terrible photo of Holly Black sharing her secret plot creating tricks. Which pretty much boil down to... chat with friends about your plot. Seems simple but I think it's a little bit brilliant.

Myself with author/illustrator Dan Santat, just hours after he brought a crowd of 400 people to tears. Dan really blew me away this weekend. Dan's work is wonderful, as you know, but here's what perhaps you don't know, he's also one of the hardest working illustrators around and a genuinely good guy.

Other noteworthy moments I didn't snap photos of were:
-Author Deborah Wiles' inspiring keynote address
-Editor Liz Waniewski and Agent Marrietta Zacker's picture book first pages session
-Art Resource Coordinator Anne Moore's session on finding and following your passion
-Saturday night's space themed dance party
-The portfolio show - so much great stuff!
-Agent Marietta Zacker's insightful Halloween analogy
-Lovely conversations with children's book writers and illustrators
-All those other things that happened that I cannot remember because my brain is cooked, but I'm sure they were amazing.

Wow. Reminder to self, going to conferences is good.

I'm off now to catch up on many hours of lost sleep. When I wake tomorrow I'll be inspired and unemployed... what could be better?!

bump! bump! bump!

2011-04-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm off to the SCBWI Western Washington Annual Conference in a couple of weeks. Here's a little project I just finished up for a workshop I'll be attending there. The assignment was to illustrate this text:
Bump! Bump! Bump!
Did you ever ride a Wump?
We have a Wump with just one hump!
(from Dr Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)

bump, bump, bump - just like life.

news.

2011-03-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

Here's my news:

I had a neck ultrasound, it confirmed I'm still cancer free.
I got laid off from my office job.
I heard back from a publisher on my book, not an offer to publish it but a pretty positive response.
The plum and cherry blossoms are blooming!

Not a bad week I'd say!

Otherwise haven't had much to post, been mostly working on writing and on the business side of trying to have a business (dull stuff but somebody has to do it!)

picture book marathon - week 4 - finit!

2011-02-28T21:09:00.000-08:00

Today is day 28. The plan was to finish the marathon with 26 new stories (they allowed for 2 mental health days.) My total is....
drum roll...

23!

Yeah, I kinda lost my steam there at the end. BUT I intend to finish this race yet. So, I will be writing 3 new stories this week, (I will by hook or by crook I tell you, I will!) AND I will be perusing the 23 I have to find my next book.
Pheww. Now I'm going to take a bath. I'm pooped.

studio improvements

2011-02-27T17:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend my friend Abbey gave me this baker's sheet pan rack:

Isn't it great!? Thank you Abbey! Now I have somewhere to put all my paper and drawings and flat things of all sorts. Moving all that stuff onto the rack inspired me to rearrange everything. Here's how studio looks now:

I'm excited to have a nice long work surface and to have my chair closer to work space. I also realized I needed to set up my computer work station a little better to try to avoid wrist strain when having long photoshop sessions. I like to sit in my arm chair and use laptop on my lap, but everyone tells me that's killer for my wrist. So, I picked up this little stool at my favorite thrift shop for $6:

and I reupholstered the seat with some cute giraffe fabric I had laying around:

Yay! It feels really lovely in here now. Rearranging a room always feels like a new beginning. I'm ready for spring!

ps. Now all I need is a couch, do let me know if you have an extra one. :)

picture book marathon - week 3

2011-02-20T17:51:00.000-08:00

Still going and I have managed to write a story a day.
Total new story ideas = 20!

Here's a drawing my 6 year old pal Violet made of me:

Isn't it awesome!? Violet apologized for giving me long hair, but I think all the little girls I know wish I had long hair, so it makes sense. If you look closely you will see our names on my shirt!

doodling

2011-02-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

rough week

2011-02-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

How come some weeks everything goes wrong all at once? It seemed like troubles were coming in from every direction. For example, my landlord called to tell me she didn't have any record of receiving any rent for the last 6 months! Crazy right?! It took her 6 months to notice? And of course we had paid it all. And that problem probably caused me the least amount of worry this week compared to the others.

Oh la la. Here's hoping for better a week next time.

picture book marathon - week 2

2011-02-13T15:35:00.000-08:00

Another week, another 7 stories!! It's amazing what you can do if you just make a decision to do it.

I've started coming up with more story ideas than I can keep up with. Very exciting! Are any of them real winners? Probably not. But editing starts in March and I have high hopes for a couple of these little ideas, they could go far.

My latest story is about farts! Inspired by my lovely boyfriend (hee hee.) Of course, I don't know if I can do any better than this awesome book:

But it's worth a shot...

picture book marathon

2011-02-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

A couple of picture books writers in Salt Lake City have created a picture book marathon:
http://www.picturebookmarathon.org/

The challenge is to write a story a day during the Month of February. (You get 2 days off of your choosing, I took one yesterday.) But, I managed to write 7 stories in the first 6 days! Hooray for me!

I'm excited about my new stories but also, I have learned something new about my writing process. If I hand write with pen on paper I get a very different tone and kind of story structure then if I type on my laptop. And I think I prefer the hand written stories. What a great discovery!

I wrote one by hand because I knew I'd be too tired to write by the time I got home to my computer so scrawled out a story at work one night. Another I wrote while in the bath, laptops and bathtubs do not mix, actually, even my sketchbook is a little wonky now. And yes, it was a story about taking a bath. And the third handwritten story came about because I had some talented singing songwriting friends over and a fun story popped into my head while they were entertaining me. I couldn't very well hop on my computer right in the middle of that! (Hm... maybe the real discovery is that I should always have musicians serenading me while I write? Wouldn't that be dreamy?!)

Wish me luck next week!

portfolio

2011-01-31T13:30:00.000-08:00

I spent all morning cleaning up my portfolio. Here's a screenshot of what's in it now. I wish carbonmade made it possible to display this grid to visitors to my page (it's only available to me while editing.)

Click here to scroll through. What do you think?

guilty pleasure doodling

2011-01-24T14:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I can't resist those photos from award ceremonies, you know the ones; tall beauties in elaborate gowns, bizarrely handsome men in suits, red carpet underfoot. Today I discovered the recent Golden Globe photos in the New York Times. I figure as long as I find some inspiration for drawing it's a productive activity!
(In case you were wondering, this is based on "Christina Hendricks, in Donna Karan." I had to look up who she was, apparently she's in Mad Men. I loved all the red and the ruffles!)

A cautionary tale

2011-01-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

The first book I ever completed a full dummy of has just been published. But not by me.

It's Have You Ever Seen a Smack of Jellyfish?: An Alphabet Book, by Sarah Asper-Smith. The book is quite different than mine, but the basic idea is the same. It is an exploration of all the wonderful names there are for groups of animals, such as a wisdom of owls or a prickle of porcupines. I ran into it today at Powells. I never mailed my dummy out to any publishers, I had thought it wasn't good enough and wasn't sure how to make it better. Lesson learned. (Back in September of 2009 I made a post with an image from my dummy, see it here.)

But here's the thing, ideas are indeed a dime a dozen and execution is everything. And anyway, I came up with an exciting new story on my walk home today! So, tra la la!

subway napper

2011-01-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

I miss taking public transportation for the sketching opportunities. Here's a little drawing I made on the train to my sister's house in the Bronx.

illustration friday: chicken

2011-01-20T18:11:00.000-08:00

chicken.

Scanner issues.

2011-01-10T23:32:00.000-08:00

Happy new years! and all that. Was hoping to post a few drawings from my travels to the east coast but my scanner and computer are no longer friends. Oh bother! I'll be back soon when I can get these two to reconcile. Until then stay warm and enjoy the quiet of January!

biking ladies- greeting cards!

2010-12-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

I printed up some card sets for thank you gifts for supporters of Taking the Lane volume 2. (They will be available for sale on Elly's Etsy shop at some point.)

And I will soon be selling more greeting cards like these at my friend Emily's shop: Escential.

How exciting! I am really looking forward to coming up with birthday card ideas, I LOVE drawing cupcakes and presents! There are lots of little details to work out still but I hope to have some ready by early January.

christmas gifts!!!

2010-12-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

La la la, I'm trying for all homemade this year. And I'm pretty sure my lovely sister doesn't read my blog so I thought I'd share the crown I made today for my niece Violeta:

Yay for sewing fun! I found the pattern here. Hmm... what's in store for Rosie, Daniel and Olive.... and what about Penny and Riley? Must troll to interweb for more ideas...

playing

2010-12-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

My critique group got together and drew this weekend. It was great! Susan shared this very interesting technique- an oil based ink is rolled onto glass and left to dry for a few minutes (or an hour or ? we couldn't quite find the ideal time) then a piece of paper is delicately placed on top and a drawing is traced onto it with a ball point pen. Here's a few prints I made. (Afterward I painted on the prints to add color and adjust values.) Hm... I think I love it. Perhaps this is how I will make my next project...

what i ate today!

2010-11-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

Dasha made an awesome new blog, WHAT I ATE TODAY. And now that The Toothachers are out of my hands (as of yesterday! hooray hooray! everyone cross fingers for me!) I have time to participate. Here's my first contribution (note celebratory treats- hooray hooray I say!):

Blog birthday!

2010-11-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

Oops I missed my blog's 2nd birthday! Happy birthday little blog! Wow, two whole years since I started this thing. I've been so busy finishing up my book that I haven't had much to post lately. But it does seem fitting that my book is just about ready to go out after exactly 2 years of trying to figure out how to make one! Here's a little drawing I made a couple weeks ago.

And happy Thanksgiving too!

Color!

2010-11-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a detail from a page 7 of The Toothachers. Color is exciting!

Dummy #2 finished!

2010-11-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

Whoopee. Finished layout and printing on second dummy of my book today. Will use this to see what absolutely has to be fixed in next couple weeks before I mail The Toothachers out! Oh la la, so much to do!

Taking the Lane #2

2010-11-11T12:56:00.001-08:00

Just received image of the cover. Pretty neat! Since the kickstarter fundraising is finished up, you can now order copies at Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/61466160/taking-the-lane-2

doodling

2010-11-08T12:03:00.001-08:00

illustration friday: afterwards

2010-11-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

I lay paper down under work while I paint and it protects my drawing table and becomes a messy layered surface over time. Afterwards, I like to cut up the paper and make it into new characters like the ones above.

doodling

2010-10-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

illustration friday: racing

2010-10-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here's another image from Taking the Lane #2.

Only 3 more days left to pre-order on kickstarter. If you pledge $30 you can get a set of 5 greeting cards featuring my drawings--each card has a different drawing!

illustration friday: spooky

2010-10-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

This fellow is pretty spooky i think.

_____________________________________________________
Chris suggested that perhaps he should be viewed like so:

(Yes, he is from the collage project I shared in my previous post.)

warm up collages

2010-10-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

Back in May I started a new sketchbook. I decided to make a warm up collage or two in it each morning before I started drawing, as a way to remind myself how to make an image playfully. The collages were not going to be posted on here or anywhere, nor shared with anyone. It was designed to give me a place to really make ugly and bad things and not worry about it. I filled up the last page of the sketchbook yesterday! It has been a wonderful exercise, one that I plan to keep in my morning routine.

But now that all sixty some odd pages are filled I think I'm ready to share a couple of my favorites. Here some are:

I would highly recommend this exercise to every visual artist. Not only does it really get the creative juices flowing but it is a great way to use up all those little bits of ephemera that gather around the studio; bus tickets, business cards, grocery lists, doodles, junk mail, really anything at all!

(I should add that this idea most likely came to me from the wonderful keri smith. I think? Well, even if not it is always nice to have an excuse to share her blog with others.)

Somnambulist #17

2010-10-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've been hard at work trying to finish up a project I've been sitting on for awhile. Almost finished! Here's a preview:

It's for Somnambulist #17, Martha Grover's fabulous zine. I think I'm really starting to learn some things, this time I made the drawings the same size as the intended printed size. Am hoping they are more printable than the last ones I made for her. I really love brown ink and made them all in it but will have to send them to her in black and white as above. Check out how nice it looks in brown:

doodling

2010-10-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a project in ink with no color and have had to make some bright little drawings along the way to get the color out of my system.

illustration friday: transportation

2010-10-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Bicycles are the best means of transportation (after one's feet of course!)

This friendly gal is one of a bunch of illustrations I made for Taking the Lane #2, order your's here!

Wordstock 2010

2010-10-10T16:17:00.000-07:00

This weekend was Wordstock! Some of the lovely writers I heard speak were:

David Weisner, author and illustrator of elaborate and gorgeous picture books, such as:

David Shannon, author and illustrator of hilarious and brilliant picture books such as:

Mac Barnett, author of a seriously funny picture book called:

(And more books which I intend to read as soon as possible. Guess Again! is illustrated by Adam Rex who was not at Wordstock, but who's work I LOVE.)

Renee Watson, author and educator. Her picture book is:

and Bonnie Becker, author of the lovely mouse and bear series, which started with:

All that and more (such as David Rackoff!) for only $10! Makes those SCBWI conferences look like highway robbery! I always feel so energized after these kind of author lectures. I am reminded of my deep love for books and that even though it's damn hard to get published, people do it all the time!

Ok, back to the studio. I've been so busy with all these events lately, I've had very little time to draw. Eek, must remedy that right now!

Taking the Lane

2010-10-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

Taking the Lane #2 (a zine with illustrations by me!) is ready to be printed! Order one here.

Critique group.

2010-09-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

I am quite lucky to be part of a great little critique group. I thought I'd give a shout out to the ladies who so graciously let me bombard them with questions about the kid's book world once a month.

They are:
Susan Boase, author and illustrator of Lucky Boy:

and Abigail Marble, illustrator of Love Your Heart, by Tim Mcgraw and Tom Douglas:

What talented gals! Lucky me! Thanks Abby and Susan!

Carson Ellis

2010-09-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

I went to a little talk by Portland illustrator Carson Ellis last night at Nationale. She was promoting her new picture book, Dillweed's Revenge written by Florence Parry Heide. The original art from the book is up at the gallery all month. It's so precise and neatly done! I just don't know how some people can be so tidy! Carson was quite lovely and talked about her journey to children's books. Dillweed's Revenge is about some very nasty people (see image from the book below), which is just the kind of book I love. All around a lovely evening, ain't Portland grand?!

painted.

2010-09-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

I couldn't stand the dark walls in my studio so I spent last week painting them a lovely creamy color. I had fun using the walls as giant canvases for a bit.

And here's the finished product! So much brighter! (The free furniture I've collected in the last couple weeks helps too! Many thanks to Chris for building the book shelf thing and lugging in the table!)

MOVED!!

2010-09-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

We moved last weekend. How exhausting and exciting too! I overdid it with the lifting of heavy boxes and obsessive scrubbing down of ALL surfaces and injured my right arm. Been having scary feelings of numbness in my hand and elbow. Thank God I work at a health care center! I've had a couple of treatments with some amazing physical therapists and am feeling much recovered already. Looking forward to learning more about body mechanics with the Feldenkrais method, I have another appointment Monday.

My new studio is shaping up nicely. I plan to paint the walls a nice light color to brighten up the room but will put it off for a couple of weeks to let my arm recover. (Just typing this short post is making my elbow feel tingly - perhaps it's a blessing after all that we won't have internet access for another week!)

doodling

2010-08-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

I make doodles all the time. John tells me I should post them. So here's some of my favorites from today. What do you think?

farewell lovely studio!

2010-08-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

I am moving one week from today! John made this panorama for me of my studio. He has just discovered an amazing photoshop tool to make panoramas. I think this is made with over 20 photos! I will really miss this studio and home (especially John and the kitties.) But am really excited to move in to my new place!

illustration friday: star gazing

2010-08-14T14:49:00.001-07:00

please click on image for a bigger and more clear view!

conference photo

2010-08-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

I just found this great photo that was taken at PSU's Pacific Northwest Children's book conference last month! I'm the one in stripes sitting next to the lovely Marla Frazee and next to her is Elsa Warnick. In the back row are the rest of the illustrators that attended. It really was a great time, now I see why people go to these things over and over again.

And thanks again to RACC for the grant that funded my participation!

Taking the Lane

2010-08-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a little preview of one of a set of illustrations I'm working on for the next issue of Taking the Lane, "a zine series that explores women's experiences in bicycling." You can find the first issue here.

I'm so excited to be a part of this great series, the first issue is brilliant! And I'm having a blast drawing ladies on bikes (Ok, so more fun drawing the ladies and less fun drawing the bikes, but I'll learn how to draw them properly one of these days!)

In other news, my drawing was picked as Illustration Friday's pick of the week and will be posted on their front page all week. Traffic to my blog has increased 25 times the normal rate! Very exciting!

Also, I'm looking for an apartment. If you know of any amazing light filled, affordable 2 bedroom apartments in Portland do get in touch! I am exhausted already and frustrated at how much time this process has taken away from working on drawing! Here's hoping I can find something lovely soon and get back to my projects!