Cupcakes and Goblins and Gears, oh my!

Self-promotional piece for my portfolio.
Getting ready for the SCBWI conference in NYC this weekend!
Wee!

In the Court of Wolves.

Friend and author Peter Woodworth has been working on a new book - while not at liberty to necessarily discuss just yet, I have been coming up with some concept art in the hopes that he'll get it published and I'll illustrate it.
The real-life benefit of concepting while he's writing is that we're sharing and defining the story and characters together as we go. The imagery in the story thus far has been so fabulously quirky in that way only a story about Victorian magic can be, and that's resulting in some really lively characters and images that I'm happy to be surrounded with at the moment.

The Queen is one of them, and her wolves... well, I feel safer just having them around. :)

Cupcakes!

I recently realized that my blog header declares that I make "illustrations, toys, cupcakes and a ruckus"... yet, I show you none of my cupcakey goodness. That's a cryin' shame!

I've uploaded some random cupcakes and baking adventures, and some other garbage I wanted to get up there but kept forgetting.

I think this week, I'll treat myself to come experimental cupcake-baking, since I haven't had any events to cupcake-for lately. I'll document it when I do!

Lanterns.

I don't know exactly where this piece came from. I'm updating my children's book portfolio for the upcoming SCBWI conference, and today I sat down to do a 2-page spread that doesn't really need words. All of a sudden I was thinking about the paper lanterns set afloat (the Japanese Festival of Obon, I believe it is) to guide ancestors back to the spirit world after visiting during the Festival. I thought about how great a kids book this could be, and just started painting. I did this one in a sitting, a little more fast-and-loose than usual, but I really felt joy creating lantern after lantern.
Gonna start on an outline and script for this when I get back from NYC. I think February will be a month of scripting for dummy books. Looking forward to that.


Details:

New! Year! Resolutions!

Since 2012 is already slated to be catastrophic (you know, end of the world and all), 2010 and 2011 should be AWESOME, right? Right. So Happy New Year. The Mr. and I brought in '10 with three days of house guests (we call Dan and Jay "our baby birds"), games and good food and drink. I'm paying for it now with a terrible cold, but c'est la vie.

"New Year's Resolutions" have this doomed connotation, but I think it's all a matter of what you resolve. It's all about discipline and making sure you're making gradual and livable changes -i.e. don't "diet"... change your nutritional habits. Anyway, a couple "nutritional improvements" for my studio:

1. Sketch at least 1-2 hours a day. Aside from the current project I'm working on, getting my sketches together for the next projects and just sketching in general (even if it's studies of cupcakes and yaks) will keep the brain and hands feeling top of their game.

2. Remember that art is my job, and I can leave the office. I understand the old pseudo-adage of "the dreamier the dream job, the harder you have to work to get it." I am no stranger to the 80 hour work week. However, making sure I leave the office and, uh, live, is a struggle for me. (I'm so "all or nothing".) Sleep is my friend. I sometimes think it's my imaginary friend... so I guess it's good I'm going into children's publishing.


And so forth. Those resolutions will keep me busy, but they're reasonable and I feel good about them.

Aria, complete!

I finished the Elementi series of with "Aria", finally... I'm thinking of making them into a greeting card set for sale later in the year. Water, Earth, Fire and Air signs are an element of birthdays, and I think it'd be an interesting and possibly desirable way to say "Happy Birthday" to your favorite art-lover. Yes?