Cats and Jammers Studio

The DANGER of image searching....

I am currently starting to dummy up a picture book that features a taxi cab.

When I draw the art for my own books or books by another author, I draw directly from my head and my heart, rather than from life, so that my art is fresh and not stilted, and so that it is mine, and mine alone. I know that what comes from my heart is not anyone else's work and it will always be in my own style. It will also be much more impressionistic. In other words, I do NOT want my drawing of a taxi to look just like a taxi does. I want it to look like my head thinks a taxi looks. By working that way, I can be certain that my art will be strictly my own sensibility, and not someone else's, and it will also not be too tight. The last thing this children's book world needs is yet another exacting and realistic approach to picture book illustration.

Of course, if one is to illustrate from one's head, there has to be reference material upstairs to draw from. And so, I do a lot of studying before the fact. And that means looking at tons of books or pictures that have the kind of stuff I am about to draw. Thanks to Tex and Sugar, I can now draw the pants off a steer, horse, or pig--animals that were not regulars in my repertoire, but who came to be very familiar to me.

Even though I will do some research, most of the time I have a mental image of the thing I am in the process of drawing. But sometimes, the image in my memory is so old, it's a little too vague. I knew that I wanted my taxi to be a model somewhere around 1960 or so. And in 1960, Taxi cabs still had meters with flags that the driver would push down when your toll was starting to be measured in time and/or miles. The problem is: I could not conjure up the fine details of one of those meters enough to make it believable. And Google image search did not have one, either. Or, at least it did not have one that I could find.

So I turned to my old stand-by: EBAY! And, lo and behold, I had several old taxi meters to choose from. Yessirree! Now, I am the proud owner of a vintage taxi meter.

"SO what's wrong with that?" you ask. I'll tell you what's wrong with that. Going toEbay for me is like taking sip of water after a trek in the desert. Get my sand drift? I did NOT stop at the meter. I also got this:

And while I was looking at "vintage taxi" search results, it was almost impossible to not check out "MORE ITEMS FROM THIS SELLER." SO I did. I now also own this:

And then that led me to the item above.

Now I think I need a twelve step program for ebay addicts, which I used to be, big time. There's a reason I have over a hundred cookie jars, or an equal number of carnival chalkware pieces. Thanks to my little visit ebay visit this past weekend, I currently have about 12 items listed on my "My Ebay" page, and the tin toy collection that use to be on hold is now in a serious acquisition phase.

Creating this book might turn out to be very expensive....

Inspiration

I had the pleasure of attending the Keene State College Children's Literature Festival on Saturday. Janet Montecalvo and I left my house in Needham at 6:15 AM, in what felt like the middle of the night due to the darkness. In fact, it did not feel like day would break at all, until we hit Fitchburg. I kept thinking of D.B.Johnson's , "Henry Hikes to Fitchburg," and all I could think about was, "I hope he had more light than this." And less rain, as well.

While all of the speakers were enjoyable, I have to say that I absolutely loved listening to Patricia MacLachlan.

Besides the great warmth and humor that was evident as she spoke, I once again had the thrill of a small peek into the creative mind at work. It was very satisfying to hear just how closely her own life is mirrored in the events and characters of her books. As I work on my own MG novel, and I realize (and maybe worry?) just how much I am borrowing from my own life's experience, it is nice to hear that great writers have done the exact same.

A special and hilarious treat: some excerpts from "Once I Ate A Pie," the book she cowrote with her daughter.

Anyone who has had a dog will love it and maybe HOWL with laughter.

Sorry..... I could not help myself.

Up in the hills

I'm in summer mode these days, up in New Hampshire near Newfound Lake. Summer mode means doing some writing and some sketching and some work, but at a peaceful pace. We stay up late and get up late. We go to the lake and swim in the late afternoon until they close. We roast marshmallows and sit around and do lots of nothing a lot of the time.

I've been at work on a job for Klutz and I've done a little writing on my MG/YA novel. I've read "Bird by Bird"by Anne Lamott and "Second Glance" by Jodi Picoult, and I am working on the second half of "On Writing" by Stephen King. Phil grabbed my biography of Mark Twain. I also started the summer off with a speed read of the latest Judith McNaught. Can't help it. Every now and then I indulge my weakness for romance novels, especially Judith McNaught.

I love the lake. It's crystal clear and the feel of the clean water has a calming, healing effect.

Of course, I also manage spend time enjoying the antique, junk shops, and galleries that are scattered throughout the Lakes Region.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a small local church fair with arts and crafts and home made pies. I bought two watercolors-- each one a portrait of a moose. A day or so before I had also purchased an artist's painting of a moose, done on an old wooden shutter. Kind of primitive and funky. I loved it.

Anyway, the in the wee hours of the morning after the fair I woke to a noise in our driveway. To tell the truth, I thought I heard a rattlesnake. I have no idea if there are really rattlesnakes up here, but I do know that not too far away is a mountain called Rattlesnake Mountain and there are supposed to be rattlesnakes there. SO that is good enough for me to be scared of rattlesnakes. I got up out of bed to take a look.

Not 20 feet from the house stood a large moose with a full rack. He was majestic and even though he was large, he walked down the driveway without making a sound. I thought he was going to head over to my bedroom window and say "Hi. I heard you like Moose art", but he turned and went up the mountain and back into the woods .

I love that I finally saw my real first moose in my own driveway. And that it came hours after I bought the two moose watercolors, and a couple of days after the moose painting.

Maybe I'll keep my eyes out for a bear painting.

BUT-- even though I painted an old rattlesnake into the art on the first few pages on Tex and Sugar, I will NOT be looking for any snake art, thank you very much.

In the works, down the road...

Still painting, painting, painting....

But as I near the end of the books I am at work on, I am starting to think about my next projects.

Of course, my immediate next project will be to just hang loose a little bit. Maybe I will go into EXTREME JUNK MODE. Or maybe not. Most likely I ‘ll get restless and start working on new projects like mss that need tweaking and new dummies that need sketching..

The problem for me is trying to decide which idea to pursue first. Should it be the MG novel that lurks in my dream and keeps poking me in the behind? Or should it be one of several PB mss that need major rewrites and editing, and dummying up? Hard to say....I'll have to wait until the summer and see what calls my name first. I just hope that what calls my name the most is not ice cream.

Here is one story idea and piece of art that I am working on. This one and one about my dog Bitty seem to nudge me the most....

Junk and Lunch

Well, it's spring vacation for my little guy and the weather was gorgeous yesterday, so how do you explain to a kid that you have to stay in and paint all day?

Answer: you don't. You paint half a day (knowing full well that it means painting half the night away later), take a break, and bring him along with Grandma and Papa to JUNK and LUNCH. JUNK and LUNCH is a visit tomy favorite consignment store, then a bite to eat at the local home grown restaurant.

Everybody is happy this way. Mom and I get to do a little junkin' and my Dad and son have a hearty lunch as a reward for being patient and letting the gals look for stuff they certainly do not need but crave with every bone in their bodies.

I am a firm believer in teaching your kids to love junkin', so I am not above a little bribery, like letting them pick a "collectible" out for themselves. That's how I get them to walk about Brimfield without too much complaining. Well, it takes a little more at Brimfield. I also have to buy them fried dough.

So, yesterday my son found some Coke collectibles he wanted and I found Roseville. Not bad for a short run.

To tell the truth, I also had to sweeten the pot and stop at Kaybee Toys to let him pick out some WWE wrestling guys.

Hey. Shut up. Whatever it takes...Besides, ya gotta love that Eddie Guerrero guy in the middle.

Whispering Pines

Not related to junk, but related to collecting....

I just came back from the SCBWI Whispering Pines writing retreat this past weekend! What a great time it was! The mentor/editors Susan Burke from Simon and Schuster, Kathy Dawson from Harcourt, and Nancy Mercado from Dial were wonderful, warm, sharing and approachable.

I "collected" many ideas for being a better writer! NONE of them junk, though.

Now I am refreshed, rejuvenated, and rarin' to go!

Great reading....

I love reading tabloids at the drug store. Sometimes I even buy them. The more outrageous, the better. I collect the absolutely most absurd covers I can I can find. And the stories inside are even better.

My grandfather once said to me years ago, "You know, they get stories that no one else does."

Ain't that the truth.

I have learned many valuable things from this literature. It is MUST reading for anyone who wants to know the "inside scoop." Scoop of what, I cannot tell you.

My family loves the tabloids. Especially my dog Bitty. She is a French Bull Dog. So there you go.

BTW, do you eat breakfast with all of your loved ones? You should. And share the good reading, too.

David Almond, Marc Brown, and Chip Gibson...

Well, the trip to the NY Midyear SCBWI event was a whirlwind affair. Shennen Bersani and I took the Limoliner down, and before long we were at the Hilton and ready to enjoy a weekend full of events with all the other illustrators in our illustration group, as well as my dear on line friends from my writing group. Shennen can tell you much more about the conference itself. Check out the link to her blog in my list. She even has some nice pictures.

The best moment was seeing Shennen become one of the ten art showcase finalists and seeing her art auction off at the highest price. It is a gorgeous piece.

The other best highlights were David Almond and Marc Brown. They are wonderful speakers and what they had to say was thoroughly enjoyable. From David Almond I learned that writing can be a process much like art: collect the bits and pieces and combine them into a wonderful whole. I do that with my illustrations and book art. Approaching writing in that manner sounds wonderful to me. It also demystifies the process. Marc Brown is sweet and warm and it was a treat to hear from him and get a peek into his world and his inspirations. When he channeled Madonna I wanted to scream out a big THANK YOU!

Also enjoyable was the President’s Panel: one pres. from the Penguin Group, one from Scholastic and one from Random House Children's. The Pres. from RH was Chip Gibson. He was funny and refreshing. With the hopes that his excellent outlook on our industry would filter down to the people at all RH's children's divisions, I am wishing that I might someday work with one of those imprints.

All in all, when I go to one of these conferences I treat them like going junkin’: all I want to do is take home one or two good discoveries--a tip on being a better writer, or illustrator, or an editor that seems worth every effort to work with, or even a whole house--like RH, in this case. It’s the little bits that make for a great collection!