I won't be wearing this exact pirate outfit... at least not in public! 

Talk like a Pirate Day

Tomorrow is a national holiday! It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, really no foolin.' Why the nation needs a holiday that weird, I don't know, but I'll be dressing and talking like a pirate, 'cause kids love pirates.

Yesterday was a great day. We took a beautiful scenic drive out to near Marble Falls and went to a wedding... in a cave! It was so beautiful, all the candles and lighting and the accoustic guitar music sounded soooo good in there. It really was like being in a cathedral, in fact they call big chambers in caves cathedral rooms sometimes. Their reception was a full catered dinner (texmex because whenJill was a kid she said she wanted to marry a Mexican and have mexican food everyday). We had a really nice time with our Trivia Night buddies, and glad for Jeff and Jill.

I have another fun dentist appointment Tuesday, but then this weekend is my first big Illustration Conference in Arlington/Dallas. Mike's coming with me so we can have a breather together. I'm all a-flutter about sitting down with a big publisher guy. I hope I impress him.

I've gotten lots of congrats on LBKF on the SCBWI discussion board. I'm now a FULL member, not an associate aka unpublished member. Yippe skippy!

Tonight I'll have the mind numbing fun of printing out the portfolio I'll be taking to the big "D" this weekend, and pray for no printer hyjinx's. You just never know!

This is a version of the cover that I like, but won't be on the actual book, because we're doing the textured border... I still like it though

I reworked the colors in this piece... the baby blue and orange were vexing me... Her wings are now pink, because she wasn't dainty enough before *insert sarcasm* 

This is for use on a message board, don't feel bad if it's too small to see... 

Just some thoughts

I'm all keyed up from working late, so I'll write some here... nothing of any newsworthy, so skip this one if you're pressed for time...

Working on Kichi and gathering images for my tree of life drawing, I'm aware that I really do love animals. I guess people who say "I really love cars" must feel like I do about animals, but I can't imagine it. I can get sidetracked for hours as I go through my nature books, reading about the sociological make up of lemur colonies or the adaptability of snow monkeys... I don't know what it is, but it's just fascinating for me...

And maybe I'm a little envious of animals, too. I'm a little fed up with certain governments and all the other woes of mankind, then I read about koala bears and I think, "You know, maybe they have it all figured out." True, they're losing their habitat and don't live as long as we do, but they don't pay taxes! There are no koala traffic jams, no koala hate crimes, no koala dentist appointments...

Maybe at some point in our history, animals were given the choice to pop out those opposable thumbs and enlarge their brains and they were like, "Nah... Who needs the headache, eh?"

These are some of the things that flutter through my head as I draw and paint animals...

here's a small part of the back cover painting for Kichi... I'm not going to scan it all in, because it takes 8 scans and I have to piece them all together. Blooming Tree'll have them scanned, so I'll get the files from them and save myself the hassle. Just imagine more ocean on the left, and a lot more jungle on the right, which will be part of the wrap around dust jacket that'll have the author/artist bio's... 

Here's an early preview of what the interior black and white illustrations for Kichi might look like. They'll be a full page each. This is the first one that appears in the story. Kichi's the little Chihuahua on the pillow with the Fortune Teller keeping the sun off him. Ahtok is the big warrior who's just come back from a raid with prisoners, and one of them is a boy who can talk and understand Kichi... 

Tree of Life

To break up the monotony of working on Kichi, I've started a project for "me." I think it will be a strong piece and has potential both as a good promotional tool and possibly a coloring book.

It's a pretty big piece consisting mostly of a gigantic tree that is full of animals of all sorts: birds, mammals, reptiles... It's another ensemble piece like the Victorian Ark and Who's Who, but I think this one has a more environmental/spiritual tone. The trunk of the tree has a subtle hourglass figure to suggest a female/mother nature presence. I love the idea of all these different animals in this giant tree representing the circle of life and harmony and balance. There's such a diversity even among animals that hang out in trees: leopards, anteaters, bears, monkeys, birds, racoons, ect... I think it will be a meaningful painting, even though all those branches may drive me nuts.

When it's sketched in I'll scan it and post it here.

New Prospects

I heard last night about a teaching position and I've put my name in. It's with an Art academy and would be an after school type program. It's part time, but it could lead to other things and be good experience.

I've also been invited to do some illustrations for Blooming Tree Press's Summer Shorts anthology for next year. They need black and white line art pieces (so they won't have grayscale like the ones I'm doing for Kichi now). I actually love line art, it's pretty much what I did in all those printmaking classes. I'd love a chance to maybe even do a woodcut print. There are some children's illustrators who do woodcuts, and I always sit and salivate all over them. I think kids love the look of woodcuts because in a way they look like a big intricate stamp.

I actually have a half finished woodcut of a red panda in a tree I'd started before it got so blazing hot outside. Maybe I can finish it as it gets cooler.

That's one thing about doing art full time, if I could I would have time to do more time consuming techniques like printmaking. So at some point I'll realize I'm losing money by keeping the day job, but that point of time had better really obvious, like God bonking me on the head obvious.

I'm still tripping the light fantastic on my pain killers, so I don't trust myself on the Kichi stuff today. I may do some non artsy stuff like just scanning in the drawings maybe. It's funny how much art stuff has noooooo need for artistic skill. Scanning, printing, trimming, emailing, cleaning, researching... even when I transfer a drawing to canvas it's pretty much a mindless activity because I've already drawn it.

Well, off I go to be as productive as my cloudy little mind will let me be...

I am the Elephant Woman

Ok, so the dentist today was awful. Not so much because it physically hurt, it was just such an ordeal and lasted forever. But it gets better...

Finally it's over and they stuff cotton gauze all up in my mouth, and I still can't feel the left side of my body or have the necessary motor skills to control my face. I see a father and his two young kids in the little area next to me getting their check up. I may or may not have made eye contact with the dad, I don't know, but I pay and go down the hall to the bathroom.

So I wait for the elevator and just before the door closes I hear people, so I hit the door-stay-open button. It's the dad who I can see now is Hawaiian looking and his little boy about 7 and a 6 year old looking girl. The boy was teasing his sister about not brushing or having a cavity or something, and I thought to myself, the poor little girl... she looked embarrassed and scared and upset... So I turned a quarter way and she sees me, the only other girl in the elevator, and her eyes were all "Help me here, lady!"

I shrugged my shoulders in that "what can ya do?" way and smiled...

And that's where it all went wrong...

Because I couldn't feel it or see it, I was surprised when the little girl quickly grabbed her dad's hand and started crying, her little Asian eyes now fully circular in horror.

Her dad who'd been talking with the boy looked at me and turned green before my eyes. "Uh... you're sort of..."

I look down. There is a solid and steady line of bloody drool from my bottom lip to the carpet on elevator floor. Red as a fire engine, pretty much like a bloody string from my grotesquely smiling mouth to the floor (I reenacted the smile before the mirror later... yowsers...).

"Off, gawd...Imf soo sowwee..." *DING* doors open, I run for it... all the way to my car.

In the car I was caught between the embarrassment of what happened and the very, very macabre humor of it, too. Part of me wanted to take that to the grave, but another part of me knew it was just another unique moment God gave me to cherish and laugh at when I'm able to.

I told Mike and I was crying and laughing at the same time. He hugged me and tried not to laugh and said, "Ah, honey... How very 'Fight Club' of you..." It was the perfect thing to say.

Here's the painted version of "The Other Tooth Fairy." 

Still dumbfounded

I just cannot believe the hurricane damage. It does put my root canals in perspective, if there's a siler lining at all. I've been listening and watching news, and it just breaks my heart. It sickens me, I mean the vomit is right at the back of my throat.

I don't know if anyone I know's heard the desperate interview the mayor of New Orleans gave a radio interviewer, but it was really dead on and moving. He said he needed help not news conferrences. He said while people are trying to spin the situation and appear that they're doing something, people are dying on the street. He also put looting in perspective, saying there are some "knucklehead" taking advantage of the situation, but most people are looting to get water, juice, food, diapers... I mean, is this America?! The mayor also talked about the drug use in his city and that now he has people jonesing and breaking into hospitals and pharmacies to get a fix. Those are probably the freaks shooting at doctors trying to evacuate.

That mayor was so candid and REAL it really touched me. He said people needed to get off their asses. He even went on to say he just didn't care if he pissed off the wrong people or ruined his political career, he said he was beyond caring for himself. By the end both he and the interviewer just broke down when they faced the fact that New Orleans as we knew it was gone.

Jolene remembers my last New Orleans trip (flying benets), and I'm sad that Mike had never gotten to go. But the reality is that this could happen anywhere. If it wasn't Mother Nature, it could be a terrorist. And people are not wanting to blame people, and while I agree we gotta save people, but there had better be blame and they'd better fire some people for this fiasco. If this country's too proud to face up to the decisions that made this natural disaster and unnatural catastrophe, then we'll be doomed to repeat the mistakes.

I'm just praying that we learn our lesson now.

Here is my "Headless Horseman" painting. I did it in a gesture-like technique, using up the extra paint I had left over from Kichi. 

Katrina

I just can't imagine what people affected are going through now. Mom got me to tune into the news last night and today, and she's right, it's devastating. And when the storm hit, the news just shows some blown off roofs, and I didn't think that much of it, but man....

It of course reminds me of having to evacuate hurricane Floyd when Mike and I were in Savannah. And even while we were driving on the wrong side of the freeway and the horrible traffic that crawled all the way to TN where he had a hotel room, it didn't really seem that big a deal. I mean, we didn't plan for more than a day, I think I took one pair of clean underwear. We gave nearly no thought of our possessions left in the apartment, overall, we thought it was a big hassle. (though, to be fair, the hurricane didn't hit Savannah or even Geogia, it hit New Jersey).

But what if it'd done to Savannah what Katrina did to LA and MS?

No job. No food. No gas, so no car. No phone. No money. I mean it doesn't matter if you were well off or a bum, you're universally SOL. If it were me, I guess I'd stare at the sky, see which way Arkansas was and start walking! I mean what do you do? I heard horror stories of the shelters that were hastily thrown up for students that fled Savannah, and it was basically a pound for humans. People came to the shelter and "adopted" refugees, and those I'd talked to said it was anywhere from freaky to downright unsafe and disgusting (think of crazy person with 30 cats kinda place).

And think what you will of our ruling government party, the system totally dropped the ball on being prepared for this. Those levies would've held if their funding hadn't been cut a couple of years ago. Their national guardmen are in Iraq. I mean "Homeland Security" should mean we're secure from Mother Nature, too.

And with those polar ice caps melting and upsetting weather systems, there are going to be more catastrophic storms to come, so I hope we learn all we didn't do right this time around.

Boy, I'm glad we're landlocked here in Austin!

The author likes it!

I cannot put in words how much I ADORE this cover!!!

The more I look, the more I see.

WOW. I am in awe of your talent!

Lila

Hurray! Madeline at Blooming Tree likes it, too. It may look very different when the book comes out (not sure what they'll decide to do with type and that right box), but it'll be basically this. There are lots of hidden meanings that the story itself will reveal, characters and alliances, ect...

Just wanted to post it here, cause I'm just so happy Lila like it!

Image copyright Blooming Tree Press 2005 

Maybe I'll incorporate this idea into my book signing invitations... it's LBKF chopping a stack of books like the karate people chop wooden board in two... heehehee... 

Drawing someone else's story

I'm finding as I work on Kichi, that I really like drawing something someone else thought up. It's a different feeling than drawing from my own ideas. When I'm drawing something I thought up, it's rewarding in and of itself... though it is like eating your own brand in a way. Chances are that I, the illustrator, will impress the author or conceptualist, again me if it's my idea. I guess it's the most fail safe system for getting what was in someone's head down onto paper if the illustrator and author are the same person...

But it gets lonely all alone in my head. And maybe that's why I like illustrating Lila's story. These are someone else's characters and ideas that I'm visualizing and illustrating. Ok, so there's a chance an author or publisher may nix something and that'll be fun to deal with, but if I get it right. Wow! It's kinda like I delivered a character into the world!

Oh well... back to the drawing board now. The jaguars came out great!

Just a small part of a big sketch of the battle at the beach. Jaguars are fighting monkeys and snakes, so the small chihuahua takes on the tarantula... I just love his expression... "I'm small... I'm lost... I'm dirty... AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!" (not an actual quote from the book but that's the emotion behind it...)

To do, to do, to do....

Time is just flying and I've gotta list all the things I gotta do:

1. Finish Kichi in Jungle Jeopardy cover art and black and white inside illustrations
2. Update website with nifty cool artwork
3. Create specialized Little Bunny Kung Fu website
4. Create a kid oriented website
5. Make a new Holiday catalog

And much more I'm sure to do.... Yeehaw!

Just couldn't get the image of a Scottish Fold kitty with bagpipes... Don't know when I'll get to paint it though, very very busy... 

This is the house of a neighbor of my in-laws. Dave and Faith were the ones who picked us up from the airport for Mike's mom's surprise birthday party... 

Oh yes... Had to share, these are the sketches Miriam sent me from the toy manufacturer, and looks like he won't be a nudist bunny after all! The red lines are wires so he'll be able to pose in all those kung fu action poses! I'm so freakin' giddy I could fall out of my chair! 

Making a jungle

I hope God had as much fun as I am creating the jungle for Kichi in Jungle Jeopardy! (If that sounds sacraligious, it wasn't really meant to be...) It's like a shopping spree, I'm tearing through books, grabbing plants, rivers, flowers, vines, insects, jaguars, monkeys of many kinds, toucans, spiders, snakes (sorry mom, they're in the book), vultures, seaguls, lobsters... if I need a price check when I'm ringing up, my cart of goodies will eat itself!

And, like the owl project, I'm learning all kinds of stuff about the South/Central American rain forest, and I will be able to say everything is from that jungle and not African or Indonesian rain forests (that would've been easier, but I think kids are sharp enough to catch things adults wouldn't). So all my monkeys are "New World" monkeys not the African "Old World" monkeys, and the same for the other animals.

My model for Kichi is the very cute chihuahua Sugar, which is funny because Fortune Teller in the book itself calls Kichi "Sugar" because he doesn't speak Chihuahuan enough to know his name is Kichi. Small world huh?

And I'm enthralled with Mayan art and paintings. Their artwork was really advanced when you compare what other civilizations were doing at the same time miles and miles away. Their way of stylization is really unique and somewhat contemporary looking today. I'm trying to add little accents in tile-like borders and their costuming.

I'm really excited to be working on it, and I may have to reuse what I've learned about the jungle for another project!

Here is Sugar my "Kichi" model! 

The work continues...

I've had some after art show sales this past week that were encouraging: Gone but not forgotten sorta thing. The one lady who bought the Chinese Tea piece called me back to make sure she understood my hastily scribbled framing suggestions. Another lady bought my owl drawing that was in the window, and another had a customized Hedwig owl print made for a friend.

My meeting with Lester went well, too. His house was like a slice out of England, not that it was full of English stuff, it was just full of stuff and that made it more European feeling. Now I see why my friend from Paris said our place reminded her of Europe! We got lots of stuff out and on display. Lester had the red metal phone booth in front of his house, and his pool out back had an old fashioned green metal street lamp with the big white glass globes on the lights. And he showed us his work study where he's dabbled in everything: he was a medal winning glass engraver, he refurbishes carousel horses, he's a writer, a defensive driving instructor, English tour guide, and on and on (not to mention old Santa had quite the swimsuit calendar collection... mmhmmmm....). His family is very nice and all complemented me on my art. Spending an hour at his place was a real treat.

I've looked at the calendar and realized I'm running out of "year." I've got to get cracking on Kichi in Jungle Jeopardy so I make the October deadline, and I need to update my freakin' website before I go to these conferences this fall. And then I expect I'll be getting holiday requests soon, too.

If my business increases next year as much as it's increased from last year, I may need to go to UT and coerce a art major to be my intern!

This will be fun to work on, or at least it will till I go to the dentist on Tuesday... Both Mike and my Mom told me to "write a story" about my less then stellar dental history... 

Here's a first draft of the cover image of this little holiday story by Lester Morris. It depicts Santa giving the little boy Tim an invisible cricket to keep and take care of... In the final version the cricket will be more ghostlike and a little harder to spot (it is supposed to be invisible...) 

Here's Mr. Lester Morris dressed in his red velvet suit... Just don't ask him to read The Night before Christmas! His argument is: "Who talks that this? Honestly. I usually have to stop and tell the poor children what a kerchief, sash and a thistle are!" He'd much rather read the "Christams Crocodile" which is a great book...

Workin with "Santa"

Another ongoing project I'm working on is to come up with some artwork/mock up book for Mr. Lester Morris. He's been published as an author and he met me through Jo Virgil our Community Relations Manager (and over "Regan-fan"). He was born and raised in England as an Orphan and has had a book worthy life. Part of his memoir he's turned into a more lighthearted children's story, and that'd be the part I'd get my hands on.

The Santa part comes in as he's Santa when the season calls for it. He goes to kid's hospitals and special bookstore visits and even appears on television. He's a jovial elfish guy with a wicked sense of British humor, and I'm very happy to be working with him.

He's having Mike and I out to his house to hang by the pool while we talk over his book and "have a spot of tea." I'm expecting little elf cabanna boys ;) hahaha...

He was talking to Jo, who he calls a good friend, about her unfortunate divorce, and went on to say the following:

"Oh, I'm ever so sorry to hear that, Jo. But you know, my first wife died. Oh yes... poison mushrooms, very sad. And my second wife died as well. Died of a broken skull... she wouldn't eat the mushrooms."

I nearly fell out of my chair from giggles. Oh yes, he'll be a hoot to work with...

Barnes & Noble is ready!

Here we go:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=little+bunny+kung+fu&userid=ce2hWSRB6A&cds2Pid=946

And it's in the in-store computer system at Barnes & Noble! People everywhere can go and "Pre-order" it now if they wanted to, and when it's published in the next month or two they will get a call to come in a pick it up! Or they could order online, too.

I'm planning a book signing of some sort around my birthday, so lots of people I know will get theirs then most likely, but for those out of town BN.com might be the best way to order copies. Sadly they won't be signed, but I may come up with a website to sell signed ones from, too.

I've been so excited over these little steps, I don't know what my reaction to the actual book will be!

Huffin the Puffin

I wrote a new story about a Puffin named Huffin who has a little problem with Pride. It's based on the true account of a birdwatcher who witnessed an Atlantic Puffin with 61 little fish in it's beak. Wowsers! So he's a little proud of his record and the girl he's trying to win over isn't impressed. He learns his lesson after a Jaeger Bird robs him of his record winning catch.

It's written in rhyme, and I can see it in full color, if possibly in black and white with one color, or in black and white. This was done now to get in my portfolio ready for the fall conferences.

A new story and new artwork to go with it... 

My brother Ryan's first DVD cover, designed my his big sis! 

And here's the color variation of the Manga character I told someone about... 

I really like the expression of the Keeper, the koala, and the winning birthday boy... 

A new children's piece! This is the cover art for "The Day I Won the Zoo" 

Toy Bunny!

Well, a prototype of a toy Little Bunny Kung Fu is being made, and based on it, we'll have the real one follow after it!

The toy won't have the shirt, but the ears will be black (which was a must from my point of view), and the ears will have wire in them so they can be posed. I don't mind the shirtless little bunny, he'll have a ribbon or tag or something. And from the bookseller point of view, it's one less toy missing a shirt!

This is just a big surprising cherry on the cake for me. I'll get a quarter of the sales as royalties, too, so I'll probably have a spare bunny on me at all times. I can't wait to see it!

This was the Toy LBKF mock up I sent... 

Oh yeah... I'm on a magazine cover!

It's been so long and so much has happened, I nearly forgot that Opinions Magazine people had approached me about using Victorian Ark as a magazine cover for their Nov/Dec issue. It's not paying much, but they don't have a huge circulation, but it will be seen and will be on their website. It's more of a promotional opportunity for me, and for me I'm just glad it's getting used, it's really too nice to just grace my wall.

They did crop it a little, but overall I really like how they designed around the image. I can't wait to see the finished issue.

Here's the link to the publisher... You can see the last cover they had (which looks spiffy).

http://www.lbfbooks.com/index.php?main_page=wpj&zenid=b5218dadcff86b4746d91fcd1f2fb8d8

Here's the magazine cover!