Family Visit Pics

Notice the the barely held back punch! Hey, it wasn't my idea to climb a huge rock! The view was amazing, and Enzo did great. We want to go back!No, we didn't climb up to Mars, it just looks like it... and felt like it!

Some parts were really steep, like 45 degree angle steep!

Dad2 took this picture standing, not on his belly or some weird position, that's just the grade of the hill.

God and Godess Party Pic

I figured Mike hadn't been featured in the blog for a while... and may not be happy with the chosen photo, but he DID want to be Steve the God of Hairdos. I'm Medusa so we sorta went together!

Love ya, hun! heehee

Out Takes!

Uh, oh. I got some disgruntled froggies. Going to be some tough competition in the next book!

Last Frame!

Yeeeehaw! This is the last frame of the first book of Camp Lizard! I still have some edits and some appendix fun stuff, but boy, it feels great to be sorta, kinda done!

About the Shootings

"A respect should be found, for Life which goes around, and around, and around."
-from Little Bunny Kung Fu

Stories like this remind me of the concerns I've had that led to writing a simple story with an important theme: Respect for Life.

When people lose their worth in their own eyes and in eyes of others, this kind of horrible thing is what happens. These victims weren't people in the eyes of the killer, they were a body count and the higher the better. You couldn't have ANY respect for life, his or theirs, and be able to do this.

I hope we're able to teach children to respect life. I know there's a lot of adult entertainment out there that does not reinforce that, but if we can reach children when they're young, they have a better chance of assimilating what comes as they mature.

Ok, now I'm stepping off my soap dish... er, box.

Zoo Trip

(Click on to enlarge) Not a great day at the zoo, except the temperature which was great at 65 degrees. EVERYONE was there, on a Saturday I should've expected, but still... I got to tell a mother that Cheetos would make any animal in the zoo sick so she should probably not let her kids toss them down to the endangered wildlife. Just doing my part *sigh* But I always enjoy an art trek through the zoo. :)

Left Brain Credit

Ok, so my Left Brain felt left out for glossing over the plaid that I did digitally. It was all "Oh, sure, you share all the stuff with cute little critters and whimsical watercolors, but do I get any credit for my calculated execution of form and function resulting in a the complex tartan pattern?!"

So here you go, Leftie. Plaid. Oooo. Aaaaaaa.

Meet Fergus

Another year, another picture book! This is the character study for Fergus the Ferret. He is a little ferret from Scotland who gets a postcard from his cousins and takes a trip to North America to find them, but he always just misses them. The publisher is going to go ahead and have little plush dolls made like we did Little Bunny Kung Fu. (Yeah!)

The plaid in his hat, scarf and kilt I have tried and failed to paint. Even doing it slowly in layers of watercolor, it would turn to mush, and the precision that makes plaid... um, plaid is lost, so I contrived a way to do it digitally. And just to point out, I did make that plaid digitally myself. So I can enlarge, shrink and stretch it however I need to. It wasn't a great time saver over painting, but I'm happier with the results... though I may loathe plaid for the rest of my life after this book!

Camp Lizard Flyer!

Happy Easter!

Read it again, Bunny Lady!

I had a couple of book signings/storytimes this week. Each went great and it was fun to be an author. At Sunset valley's BN I signed a book to another Regan, so that was neat. She and her brother are interested in writing and art. The signing today was fun, we had cupcakes and an easter egg hunt, which we gave a plush bunny away as a prize (it was the last egg found, talk about suspense).

Then the cutest thing, the little boy stayed afterward and asked me to read it again! I had a Wedding Crashers moment (Make me a bike, clown!) but the kid was adorable, so I got to do an encore.

And now it's sleeting?!? Maybe we'll do another egg hunt inside tomorrow! Brrrr!

Time for Enzo's Shower

Time for Enzo's Shower:

1. First we take off my collar and put cottonballs in my ear.

2. I wait while Mama has her shower.

3. When it's my turn, Mama picks me up.

4. Mama washes me while I lick the water up.

5. Then I bark at the hair dryer.

Carousel Seahorse

This is a watercolor I did today that I'm thinking about turning into a series for a show I have in July. It would be animals in a carousel like this one. I just think they're fanciful and would look neat hanging on a wall all together.

The last themed show I did was one on owls and that did well, so I hope these do, too.

Medusa and Snake

Not a great shot of my toga, but you can see my snake hair and Capote in my hands.

I'm off for a costume party. The theme is Gods and Goddesses, so I'm Medusa (the snake stays home, sigh). Mike is going as "Steve the God of Hairdo's" which is a refference to one of our favorite commedians Eddie Izzard.

We'll take more picks and if my toga stays together I'll post some!

Behold the finished sweater!

I can Knit!

I don't think this counts as cruelty to animals, but he's looking at me like, "Moooo-oooom!" This wasn't based on a pattern, it was sort of a learning piece. I made a "shrug" or one big sleeve that wraps around him, using an alternating "stockinette" stitch. I then knitted a wrap around scarf that makes a collar around the neck then circles in front then tucks under itself. I let it be a little roomy knowing next time it was actually cold he'd be bigger.

I enjoy knitting, it sort of took the edge off of all the stuff I had going on this month. I took it to work and knitted on my breaks. I want to get good enough to do a sweater for Enzo and a matching hat and scarf for me. Lookout neighborhood!

My Morning Drive

I would LOVE to have a boring drive to work, but Life has other plans. I'd recently been accosted by an insane driver who wanted to meet me in the HEB parking lot and "kick my f---ing a$$." Did I mention I've never met this woman or have a clue why I needed kicking of any kind?

Well, this morning was no exception in the Keep Austin Weird, and We Mean REALLY Weird trend.

I'm making my way out of our neighborhood this morning at 6:30 in the am, and I see two pale shapes up ahead by the road. I get a little closer and I see they're people... I get a little closer and see they're naked! Stark, birthday suit naked! And a third man was there fully clothed. I drove past and they didn't smile, wave, try to cover up, just stood there on the side of the road. Really weird, huh?!

Maybe it's the non-conformist artsy-fartsy side of me that has spent the day trying to come up with legitimate reasons for this encounter. I've come up with:

1. They were in some sort of "Lost a Bet" or "Frat Initiation" ritual that involves phrases like "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" This is a weak explanation given the somberness and lack of mischiviousness I got, though it was really early.
2. The Mothership orbiting around the earth dropped off these two visitors. I figure the clothed one is responsible for "Taking them to our Leader."
3. The two naked men were werewolves that just changed back. Yes, the big downer for lycanthropes we all know is that when you transmutate into your animal form, your clothes are ruined. I figure the two were out marking territory when the third happened up on them and they shifted back.
4. The three were a coven of Pagan/Wiccan witches celebrating the coming of spring with a ceremony requiring that 2 be "sky clad."
5. Escaped Loonies. This is probably the top runner for likelihood.
   

I feel Eddie's Pain...

Must... keep... drawing... Can't... stop... must... go... on... *gasp*

Promo Card

I got to design a promotional postcard for Camp Lizard. We'll be handing them out along with an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) at the Texas Library Assoc. convention next month. I thought it'd be fun to have it look like they were taking a picture to send back home from camp. The back of the card promotes the book. I'm getting excited about finishing it!

There she is!

Just a doodle I did for fun that I painted. It's a play on perspective and very compact. I've been looking at and reading old fairytales, so there may be more coming.

The crow flies at dawn

That's an in-joke with my family: My dad called me while I was at college and told me "The academy awards are on tonight" and Jolene, my sorority sister thought it might've been code for something! Like: The crow flies at dawn... that is all...

I love getting calls from my dad every year, letting me know the academy awards are on tonight. And this year, I must say, I don't have that "What-the-bleep" feeling I've had in years past where I felt a really deserving film was totally blown off.

But this year I really liked the Departed. I alone of my friends went and saw the Queen and thought it was deserving. And of course I loved Little Miss Sunshine, too. And I walked out of the theater of the Last King of Scotland thinking no one would pop off the screen like Forrest Whitaker.

I did like Pans Labyrinth, but I told people that while it was good, it wasn't ground breaking. Terry Gilliam had been doing the same in the 80's with films like Brazil and the Adventures of Baron Munchousen (sp?!). Though I really like the director, and it was a really well made movie... I've just been watching films like that longer than the average American movie-goer.

Well, I'm off to bed, but wanted to record my Academy thoughts.

I loved the Tom Hanks response to that crap announcer backstage! Mike wouldn't let me DVR rewind it, but I nearly fell out of my chair!

Night!

Houston Photo Mix

Well, the tally is in and we're declaring it a 60/40 good trip vs fiasco, but we squeaked away with a fun trip.

For your consideration:

Good:

10% Getting out of Austin!! A really much needed breakup in the monotony.
20% Seeing our friend Chaz again from Boston.
30% Finding out about Petshotel, a doggie day care that's really affordable and has lots of neato perks for the dog, like individual playtime and nice roomy rooms instead of cages.
40% We found an awesome breakfast place called Empire Cafe that let us bring Enzo. We went there twice.
50% The Derek Hotel was amazing, a 4 star hotel that let us have Enzo.
60% Enzo being with us was great, too.

Bad:

10% Chaz's apartment building had a fire the night before we saw him, and his apartment was on the bottom level where all the water probably went. Though, Chaz's composure was great, much better than mine would be
20% The weather Sat morning was craptastic. We did a lot of driving in the rain with the dog wondering what the heck we could do before we discovered Petshotel.
30% Mike lost his expensive sunglasses at the zoo in what we've reconstructed took 45 seconds for some lowlife to see and grab them before Mike realized they were not in his pocket.
40% In an attempt to end the night cozily, Mike bought some bottles of beer and we watched Stranger than Fiction in bed at the hotel. He sat down on the bed as I was taking a sip and bumped me, chipping my front tooth. (It's not really noticeable, you have to really stare awhile to see it, and now it's worn smooth again).

I hope the percentages are better on our next Houston trip! It's so not that far, Mike and I want to go back and even out the odds!

The Perfect Angel

New Characters in Camp Lizard

New Characters in Camp Lizard

Heeeere's Eddie!

I'm excited because Eddie will be a fun addition to the lineup at Camp Lizard. Leon's the "hero" the average kid. Oz is a bit of a easy going daredevil type, prone to losing his head in the thrill of adventure. Eddie will be a bit more neurotic. He'll be the reactor of the group. Hulio will be the silent strong type, with deep reserves of wisdom.

It's nice to have the four finally together!

When to not use windshield wiper fluid

...WHEN IT'S 25 DEGREES AND YOU'RE CAR'S NOT WARMED UP!!!

Yes, after gassing up this morning before work, I got back on the road and thought, "Hmmm... the light's hitting my dirty windshield making it not ideal to look through (I sound very logical inside my own head), I will use my wiper fluid to clear off the dust and thereby make my viewing of the road and other drivers even better."

Well, what happened is that my wiper fluid froze INSTANTLY to my windshield turning my morning comute into a 65 mph deathtrap. I couldn't see anything, it was like I had cataracts. And I was on a highway that was under construction, so there were no stripes on the road, not that I could see them. I think I relied more on my inner ear and side mirrors than my windshield while I frantically started trying to defrost the windshield. I got a "hole" about the size of a quarter (that's being generous), and I was used that to get over to the right lane and try to slow down and pull over,

BUT GUESS WHAT?!

No shoulder!! Thank you Texas Highway Commission! Since they were repaving, there was no shoulder to pull off onto, so I drove an alarmingly long way with a small clear spot to see through. I had to relearn how to breathe and wonder at my stupidity.

I hope my guardian angel got time and a half!

Happy Valentines Day!

Frill Out!

Don't you hate it when you can't get your frill down? I'm having some fun with Oz, the frilled dragon. When he get's excited or nervous his frill becomes a little hard to control. He'll pick up the nickname "Umbrella Head" from the frogs later on for obvious reasons :)

Superpup

A great pic of Enzo (I've stopped taking good ones in the last 2 years... mental note: have I become nosferatu? hmmm). We had a fun superbowl party, even Enzo had canine guests.

Swamped

(click on to enlarge) I don't know if I'll ever get that boggy smell out of my studio!

Nor Redux

This is a start on a new cover for Nor. The previous more complicated cover design will now be the banner design. We've come full circle, to tell the truth. I had these two on an earlier ARC cover and now they're together again. Ahhhh...

I'm finally, knock on wood, happy with how I'm drawing Kahf, the main character. I don't know if drawing him 3000 times was the magic number, but he's leveling out for me now. Maybe it's the unknown that I'm plundering into with this huge graphic novel, but whenever I have a day that goes right with it, the theme to Rocky plays in my head and I find a set of big, outdoor, concrete steps and I jog all the way up and hold the printout of Nor up and yell, "Adrian!"... all in my head, of course.

Sandcastle

This was another quickie illustration for the catalog. I want to commission another illustrator for the book itself if time permits, but, regardless, I enjoyed knocking this one out.

And just FYI, my Mom's taking a watercolor class this year! Go Mom! :)

possible artwork

The pencils and paint are flying as I'm trying to get some covers for books done in time for the catalog. This is one such done-in-a-flash cover that I really like. It may or may not be used ultimately, since it's coming out later in the year. But as a stand alone piece, I like what happened. I guess necessity is the mother of book covers!

Catalog 07

This is the cover design that I have done that we may use for this year's catalog. The way I came up with it is worth noting for my own reflection and a good lesson for the future.

Sometimes I get an idea in my head, but no matter how many tries it's just not coming out the way I wanted. I still like the idea, so I don't want to bail on it. Then sometimes while I'm telling myself all the reasons I like the idea, another way to do the same idea pops out and whamo, there we go.

This design started with me wanting to do a collage of all the book covers coming out this year to communicate to people that we're an up and coming publisher with a ton of books coming out. Well the images in the covers were all wonderful, but put together became a train wreck of epic proportions! So while I was going "Here's a YA, here's a picture book, here's a graphic novel" with the covers, I decided to just say that with words.

Another consideration is that I want to bang the logo into everything in the catalog this year to build it's recognizeability in the eyes of the people getting the catalog.

Our Biggie Iggie

Indy Enzo

Enzo's Guide to Life: How to get a Cookie

1. Sit politely and say "Please."
2. Go to the bathroom
3. REALLY go to the bathroom
4. Use the papers
5. Be so sweet they have to give you a cookie!

Enzo's Guide to Life: Going to Sleep

It's in Italian, just explaining where he sleeps and with who. I've gotten good response from the IG online forum about these. One person said it looked like French street art, which I thought was neat.

Website Reworking!

Well, this is another evolution in the reworking of my website. It's been simplified as far as menu options. The cards above will have thumbnail images in the final version. I wanted to keep the white rabbit as a logo and as a welcome home page image, but I was finally getting tired of my acrylic/text one, though I'll keep it in the portfolio. I like the sketch to finish progression and I hope it conveys a systematic approach to illustration. :)

fun with enzo

Puppy

This is one of the perks of being at home all day! Sooooo cute. He's asking for ice, oddly enough.

Icecapades

Those are live oak trees, not shrubs! They're bending pretty low with their load of ice. We're hoping none take out a power line, since many of our pets have heat lamps. I'm starting to get cabin fever, but where can you go when everything's iced over? And the kicker is the main road to work for me is the city's number one worst road to drive today (I'm not going in). Too bad this eats some vacation time :(

Forced Shut in

Well, someone up there thinks I need to stay home and work a few extra days. Today the store was closed, and the forecast tomorrow looks like I'll probably call off since it won't rise above freezing till 3pm or later and the city's a big ball of ice. The thought of my being in a car and sliding unable to control where it's going gives me vertigo, like looking into an abyss. So unless the sun rises without a cloud in the sky and the temp. is in the 50s, I don't think I'll be on the road. I trust Mike to be able to handle the roads since he's a yankee, but even he can work at home so he won't try going unless it's driveable.

I can see working from home will take some discipline. It's hard to not get distracted, and at the same time it's kind of hard to stop, too. I'd probably have to set a schedule with breaks and stuff so it was even and predictable.

My internal clock's all messed up because I slept in, then worked till dinner, had a nap (at like 7pm!), then watched a movie and now I'm wide awake at 12:30 am. That wouldn't cut it if I were working from home, I'd become a crazy person... or crazier than normal. My mom would call at 4pm and I'd be all "Do you have any idea what time it is?!" (just kidding, Mom).

This is also unfair to the pup, who'll think he has two stay at home parents now.

Ooddles of Doodles

Ooddles of Doodles

Snowshoe Snow Hare

State of my Union address

Well it's 2007 and time to give a status report and the goals for this year... (reading from a starbucks napkin, so you know I thought this out)

• Release of Light of Nor which I'm co-creator of (did the art for), a graphic novel for teens and adults.
• Release of Letters from Camp Lizard which I'm writing and illustrating, also a graphic novel but for young readers.
• Release of Yak in my Bed, which I was the Art Director and Designer for (not author or illustrator)
• Release of Penguins of Doom that I designed a cover for
  
• Release of Bad Girls Club, which I did the jacket cover design
• Release of Krumbuckets which I did the jacket design and a little illustrative type treatment for
  
• Production of Patrick the Sonombulist, a picture book I helped Blooming Tree find by author and artist Sarah Ackerley (sorry if I butched your name here). I'll be designer on this book, too.
• Production on Fergus the Ferret for release next year, I'll be illustrating and Madeline Smoot author.
• Production for Dragon Wishes, which I'll illustrate and do interior black and whites for.
• Production for Life in the Pit, which I'll do an illustrative cover for
• Attending the Texas Library Association conference in San Antonio

My goals for the year on a personal note:

1. Manage my time better, or at least realize that there's 24 hours in a day, but I should only be awake for 18 of them.
2. Lose my Clark Kent job (now that I can finally do it without getting rattled, sigh).
3. Fix the rest of my teeth, at least till the insurance and money dries up... again...
4. Learn to say no: no to unhealthy food, no to "can you head up this committee?", no to "we're going to stuff you in the corner at this year's conferrence", and no to it can't be done!
5. Draw something just for me every day: See Oodles of Doodles below
6. Call my family more, my brother in particular
7. Take more photos of Mike and I and our everyday friends: if I had to prove last year existed for me, I'd have to provide cell phone bills and grocery receipts. We got kick a$$ cameras, we're going to use them!
8. Walk the doggie every day, both for me and Enzo's happiness
9. Cook more, not just thaw or nuke
10. Let Mike know everyday how cool I think he is

Having read my list, I'm now going to go crawl into a ball in my bed and sleep till '08 :)

Map

Ok, when I was in 9th grade geography, Ms. Cagely had us create our own islands, complete with topography layout... who knew I'd end up using that in my professional career?!?

Camp Lizard Crede

This single page image sort of sums up my message in the Letters from Camp Lizard graphic novel. It's about lizards from all over the world coming together for summer camp. But why come to camp? What's the point? My answer is that lizards live on all the world's continents (except antartica, and I'm sure some are working on that), and no matter how different looking or strange they may appear to each other: they are all lizards. I want kids to see that people live all over the world and our customs and beliefs may be different, but we're all human, too, and by learning about each other we learn more about ourselves.

This also sets the stage for some of the activities at Camp Lizard: There'll be desert survival task, a flying lesson (there's gotta be Mr. Orville and Wilbur, the Camp Flying Instructors now that I've drawn the flying lizard here), an underground and underwater exercise, and some kind of climbing and camoflauge lesson.

The lizard doing the talking is Mr. Tuatara, the camp director. The camp takes place on the one island off the coast of New Zealand that this species of lizard is found. His story is that since his species of lizards haven't changed since the prehistoric eras, he started the camp to show all the other lizards how they've adapted to the world.

Oddles of Doodles

Well, when you think about it, that ocean water is kinda chilly :)

Oddles of Doodles

In my spare moments, I do have them, I'm going to try to direct my otherwise sprawling creativity and do daily quick doodles that I will compile into a calendar for next year called Oodles of Doodles. I'll probably find other things for these drawings, too, but for now it's a loose idea of doodles tied with months of the year (Jan = cold). I'll post some as I go. I like this one. :)

Christmas Front Page (Click on to enlarge)

Swan Lake

These are the wild swans the my family took Mike and I out to see in Heber Springs, AR. They winter at this lake, and we showed up at sunset. Mike took the photos while I gawked at how graceful and beautiful they were. (And thank God we didn't bring bread! You can only feed them corn, and too much bread could choke them)