Top Ten (September 2010)

Perhaps you'll notice, I'm half a month late in getting my monthly list out. Did anyone care?

Working on final art for a pic book plus sketches for a poetry book, plus back-of-brain stuff on two forthcoming pic books. Waters are a little choppy at the moment.

Ten of my faves from last month:




1. GIANTS SUNFLOWER SEEDS. I've been a seed fanatic since I was, maybe, 12 or something. I've always been a David man, but I ran across these last month in a Wisconsin grocery store. The name does not lie. The seeds are, in fact, giant. Steroids? The "salt and pepper" ones are quite nice.




2. BIRTHDAY GIFT. Last month, I celebrated another birthday. I'm... thirty-something. I got a spectacular gift for this one. Julie and a few other kind relatives put together some moneys to afford me this laptop. It has been sweet. I take it to the library when I'm working there on stories, and I used it for a school visit already (and more to come, I hope!).




3. DOMINIC. Read this super cool William Steig chapter book last month. Another excellent little known Steig discovery (for me).




4. THE HEART AND THE BOTTLE. I saw this one by Oliver Jeffers sitting face out at the library last month. I liked art and story enough to use a b+n gift card to buy a copy.




5. TOY STORY 3, A LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK. We found this book at our local grocer's. Little Golden rolls like that. The art is superb. Do not discount the LGB.




6. JULIET, NAKED. Looking for something to read, I read another Hornby. Again, I was impressed. I like that guy's style. And I like that this is sorta/kinda playing off Dylan/Dylanology/Dylanmania. It's funny. Cool cover too.




7. BORED TO DEATH. We are now in Season 2. And I love this show. Danson (awesome), Galifianakis, Schwartzman, et al. The writing is sharp and funny as heck. I love how they joke-check things like the Amazon sales rank and the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. Where else will you find that?




8. POMEGRANATE PIZZAZZ. To serious tea drinkers, these Bigelow bags are probably trash. But I came across this one last month and I shall endorse it. It's got built-in juice, man!




9. OUR JONATHANS. We have a Jonathan apple tree in our backyard. It yields a massive crop every fall, and last month the apples were popping and dropping, kids. It was fun to go back there with a ladder and fill bag after bag. Although, I did get tapped square in the eye by a renegade Jonny. Risk you run.




10. THE SUBURBS. The newest offering from indie darlings, Arcade Fire. Though I still like the debut best, this is good and has had copious listens in the studio.

If Stranded at Sea...

...my worst nightmare.

UNICORNSTAR

Top Ten (August 2010)

Top ten of my favorite things from last month (as always, in no particular order):



1. THE WALKMEN. Anyone who reads this blog regularly might know my keeping current with music has completely lapsed over recent years. I still listen to plenty of music, but I just can't be bothered to keep my ear to the ground anymore. Anyhow...I had heard bits of songs from this band here and there and thought they were cool. A while back, it was. Something made me remember so I took a closer look. Old suspicions confirmed. They are good.




2. SCOTT MAGOON. Was there ever a better name built for a children's book illustrator? OK... Dr. Seuss. Richard Scarry. I get it, there are others. But Magoon is up there too, right? And his art absolutely does that good name justice. Last month I got a look at his newish title, GRANNY GOMEZ AND JIGSAW. And this, folks, is top notch Magoon.




3. SEMPE COVERS THE NEW YORKER. Jean-Jacques Sempé, you can do no wrong.




4. THE UNSINKABLE WALKER BEAN. Aaron Renier's new one--his debut with First Second. This is the most perfect, most exciting work of comics I have read all year. Amazing.




5. THE STRANGE CASE OF ORIGAMI YODA. I first heard of this book on Chad Beckerman's (my uber-talented Abrams art director) blog. Then I saw it face out at my library. After a minute of hesitation, it got checked out by some other patron. Then whoever checked it out let it go way overdue. Then I finally got to read it. And... good it was. Very well done, Tom Angleberger. Well worth the wait.




6. HARPS AND ANGELS. I can never tell if I'm outing myself as uncool for saying, um, "I like Randy Newman". (Sorry, Randy. Yeah, you're not reading this.) I mean he does all that sappy-pappy stuff for Hollywood. But, best I can tell, that's not him. That's just his way of bringing home bacon. After listening to his albums (the good stuff) I knew then that ol' Randy has a seriously dark, twisted, brilliant mind. HARPS is no exception to this, seeing as he strikes, head-on, America and it's less-than-perfect current (current-ish... this album's from 2008, if you feel me) state of affairs. Oh, what fun could he have with today's political climate?




7. MY DAY WITH TOM. Now that I work from home, I've become quite the shut-in. Not quite Nicholson in The Shining. But it's time to not let that happen. So I've been on the lookout for fellow illustrators in my area. Chicago and it's suburbs. Last month, I elbowed my way into Tom Lichtenheld's home/studio and we had a great day of good, solid author/illo talk. He's a super nice, super talented fellow and he gave me crazy-good advice and guidance on my first big upcoming school visit. Thanks for putting up with me Tom!




8. DEATH COMES TO TOWN. The Kids in the Hall are back, and with a vengeance. With a twisted (as ever) new mini-series about Death dropping in on a small Canadian town called Shuckton. Fortunately we now have cable and we caught the U.S. run on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). Awesome.




9. FACEBOOK. Last month, I set up a "professional" profile on Facebook. (Which basically means, a place where I don't have to feel guilty plugging my new books, or new drawings, or good publishing news.) This sorta goes back to my #7 in this list. My present attempts to connect with other illustrators. Maybe if I lived in the NYC area, setting up an often pow-wow with a cool, friendly kid book illustrator would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Since I don't live in the NYC area, "friending" people who live in New York and all over has been my next best thing. And it's cool to see what other artists are doing day-to-day without always having to visit a hundred different blogs around the net. And much as I can tell, kid book makers are good people. And I'm happy I did this.




10. RENAISSANCE FAIRE. Just north of us is one of those merry and weird Renaissance Faires. You know the ones. Where people dress up like fairies and knights and wenches and what not. It can get a little awkward at times, but when you take an almost 2-year-old (in a tutu and a crown), it's a stroke o' genius. Last month, we went twice. Huzzah!

Pigs, Bikes

New Face(book)

For any blog readers who are also Facebook users who are not also Facebook friends with me, Matthew Cordell... I just opened a new illustrator profile on Facebook. I had a Facebook "group" listed under the same moniker, but found out it was pretty limited in usability. I couldn't post updates and news into feeds and what not. I know. B-o-o-o-ring.

Anyways, if you are reading this and are also on Facebook and are not already one of my Facebook friends.... Please, let us be friends? This link oughtta get you there.

Look for the pig on the bicycle.

There Will Be Blood... er, Sketches.

I just finished up the first round of sketches for a new book I'm working on. This book is a book of poems written by the uber-talented, critically acclaimed novelist Gail Carson Levine (!). The publisher, HarperCollins (my first with them).

Anyhow... the first thing I do before sketching is... panic. Then procrastinate. Then read and re-read the manuscript and panic and procrastinate. Drawing, I've said, is a scary, scary thing. OK. Cue that "world's smallest violin".

Then, I'm ready. I pull up a cup of coffee and print off the manuscript. In this case, the manuscript has been very graciously laid out by my wonderful art director here, Martha Rago. Type is set and placed and paginated. This is very helpful.




For less distraction, I usually do my sketches offsite. So I need to assemble my arsenal. First, I grab a ream of the finest drawing paper a guy can buy (koff-koff).




Yeah, it's just flimsy old printer/copy paper. But I've found this to be the best for sketching. For the following reasons: a) if I scrap a sheet (it happens), it's not gonna break some bank; b) it's semi-translucent and good for a quick trace should I need to trace something I've just sketched to rework, overlay, etc.; and c) it's the perfect size for my flatbed scanner (more on this later).




I will also be needing a pencil... your everyday Dixon Ticonderoga HB will do (those "no. 2" pencils they asked you to bring when you took the SAT's). And a new favorite, the click eraser.




Last, not least, I need a trusty portable pencil sharpener. I bought mine at one of those "everything's a dollar" stores when I was a senior in high school. Apparently Disney ordered way too much Rescue Rangers merchandise so a lot got dumped into the ol' dollar bins. This little guy's done me good (more than he might say for me--looks like he took a dip in some ink sometime, somewhere).




Weeks (if not months) later, I end up with a pile of paper (51 sheets to be exact), a nubbier pencil and quite a few clicks taken off the eraser.




Exhibit A: Let's take a look at a sample. What I needed was a drawing of a cow chewing away at a tall, tall plant that stretches high up into the sky. You may be able to see, at the bottom of the sheet, several failed attempts at a cow's face and head. By the time I got it right, I was up at the top left corner of the page. So I drew the rest of the plant off to the right. Instead of re-drawing the whole thing as one successful piece. This is the digital age, brothers and sisters, and that would be a waste of time. I will scan and splice the two successful pieces together later on the computer.




Exhibit B: Occasionally, while sketching, I may rethink my choices on a face. Or position. Proportion. If I've got a basically good drawing, instead of starting all over with the pencil, I'll draw a better face or make notes off to the side on how I should rework (cut/paste, resize, etc.) this on the computer, after it's all scanned in. Digital. Age.




Below is my spliced, resized, reworked sketch in place of a finished layout. I blurred GCL's poem cause it ain't mine to share.




And below is that other sketch reworked.




Stepping back a minute... This desk is where I bring that pile of 51 pages of sketches. Power up the computer and scanner and settle in for a marathon scanning session. Followed by a marathon Photoshop (for dummies) session.




My not-very-fancy-but-does-just-fine desktop scanner. Thank you for being you, lil' guy.




And when I'm done, after, I'm sure several rounds of sketch revisions, when everyone is happy and ready to proceed to final art, I will move everything over here. The drawing table.



And yeah, I know what you're thinking. I should probably go clean up this place now.

DylanPoodle

A few new things from the sketchbook.

Top Ten (July 2010)

My favorite things from last month...



1. THE DREAMER. I picked up this new one at the library. It was face out on display at our library. The cover alone was striking enough to pique interest. Always awesome Peter Sis illustrates this superb Pam Muñoz Ryan telling (with some creative liberties, I take it?) of celebrated poet Pablo Neruda's defining childhood years. Wonderfully written and illustrated.




2. TOMIE DePAOLA. Somehow I managed to never see a Tomie DePaola book for this many years. Then, a couple of months ago, I found a copy of THE POPCORN BOOK in with some of Julie's old childhood book collection. Loved it. Little by little I've worked my way through his books. My faves are, of course, STREGA NONA as well as the autobiographical pic books he's done. I also especially love the art in THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. His work has a sweet style. Very stylish and very approachable.




3. ABE LINCOLN CROSSES A CREEK. I really like John Hendrix's work. And I really like how this book's written, by Deborah Hopkinson. I like how it reads. It's a neat boyhood tale of Abraham Lincoln. And it's almost like some old dude is sitting on the porch of a log cabin out in the woods spinning off this story. That's the voice of it. Real cool.




4. HUNGER GAMES. If you haven't read the HUNGER GAMES books, now is the perfect time to do it. The third and last (correct me if I'm wrong) book comes out in a few short weeks. Last month, I was poking around for something new to read. Turns out I'd somehow missed the brilliance of Suzanne Collins. Julie recommended these to me (as she does most all that I read) and they are G-O-O-O-O-D.





5. THIS CITY by STEVE EARLE. This song closed up the first season of TREME. He wrote it just for the show. After it ended I looked all around the internet to try and hear it again. Last month, it popped up on YouTube.




6. POP CHIPS. Don't know if these are healthier than the standard greasy crisps (I think they are, somewhat), but they are crunchy tasty salt bombs.




7. SLAM. I have only read one other Nick Hornby, HIGH FIDELITY. I liked it. I also liked the movie adaptation of ABOUT A BOY (not having read that one). At some point last month, I came across SLAM. It had me laughing out loud in parts. About midway through it takes a turn for the somewhat unexpected. And by the end, it leaves you feeling like, "well... not great, but that's what would likely happen in real life". And for all these reasons, I totally dug it.




8. JETS TO BRAZIL. This now defunct post-punk (correct me if I'm wrong), post-Jawbreaker rock band was all up in my ears back around '99 and '00. One day while sketching around at the library, I dialed into this music again on my ancient 2nd generation iPod. Takes me back in a good way.




9. HOT NEW NIB. As previously mentioned, I'm all about these new Dormer-donated nibs. Can't wait to see what else I can get outta these boys.




10. ICE CREAM MAKER. I wonder if every married couple registers for a gift, receives it after the wedding and never uses it. This was destined to be Julie's and mine of that nature. One day, Julie had an itch to crack the seal on the box and to read the manual and to see how some homemade ice cream might taste. Dang. It's good.

Nib Love

A few months back, talented kid book author/illustrator and e-pal o' mine Frank Dormer, read a line on my blog where I was whining on about the love/hate relationship I have for my nibs of choice. He very graciously offered to send me a fistful of the nibs he's had good luck with. I got Frank's nibs in the mail and was ever so thankful, but had to set them aside to keep up work with the sketches, sketches, sketches (the pencil, not the pen).

Fast forward to now and I finally had a minute to settle down with these new nibs. Man they are like butter! Glide across the paper. Ink flows like dang water. Line thickness is all over the place (that's a good thing) and ever so easy to control. I asked Frank where he got these and he said he bought a box at an art supply shop 20 years ago. Gulp. Better handle these babies with care.


Below is a sample of how they drive. Plus another drawing I did with a brush from my dirty ink water (used to wash up the pen afterward). Just for kicks.






Thanks again, Frank! Us pen/inkers gotta stick together for sure.