TIME *IF

The Adventures of Mick McTime

This is a silly story I tried to write a few years ago. I just need to go back, in time, and condense the text more; however, the illos were fun.

Mick is boy who uses his fantastic, time-saving time machine in battle between goodies and evil. In other words, it's taking too long for mom's cookies to get done baking. He's convinced that his machine works because, instantly, there is mom with a plate of hot cookies and milk. Next during Mick's imaginary play, he decides to speed up dad's work day and is further convinced when dad suddenly walks through the front door. He's a genius! Although, unfortunate for us all, something happens to poor Mick's, most, incredible invention of all time.

And therefore I have run out of time and must bid you farewell until next time.

CLIMBING *IF

Who doesn’t like to share their climbing tree. Although, whose tree is it?

I drew this image years ago for a picture book class assignment. It’s nice to go back and look at earlier work. I believe I used turpentine to affect the texture of the paper and acrylic as the underpainting before adding color pencil. Later on I switched to gouache and no longer need the turp.

STUDIO

Welcome to my new studio! We’ve been in our new house for a year now and I’m loving the space and natural light. On the far wall I made foam and cloth panels to post my sketches and final art. There is enough room to hang 16+ pages of a picture book.

Most of my sketches are scanned and altered on my computer using Photoshop or Painter.

PALE *IF

There are all kinds of color challenges when dealing with sequential artwork in picture books. Hopefully the pale cool tones of the bedtime scene hold enough contrast to the warmer tones of the daytime scene. In THE WARMEST PLACE OF ALL, (coming out fall 2009) The text plays with the idea of being cold, warm, then cold again before finding the warmest place of all. When developing the characters and page layout I also made plans for warm/cool color tone changes. You can find the first page of the book on my website. I tried to show a warm sunset without losing the cold feeling of the snow. Although most of my art is very vibrant I’m planning a paler palette for the book I’m currently working on. There is something about pale colors that make images more intimate and create atmosphere. I hope to explore this idea more in my artwork.

Contained *IF

The poor emperor is trying to contain his true feelings.

This spread is from THE EMPEROR’S NEW GIFT. Throughout the story, little cutouts reveal portions of the action contained behind a thin color film. The reader can see through the veil, but not everything is important to the main character, the little girl. The book’s design/concept is just as important to the story as the text. Whether or not the story is successful, I’m very pleased with my experiment between image and text. In the end the emperor breaks through the boundaries of his viewpoint and joins the girl, his daughter, on her colorful side.

VOICES *IF

Hear the voice nearby?
Her verse reveals her heart.

She sings to the world.
She sings to herself.
She sings to …you.

Hear the voice nearby.

This stanza is from a picture book I wrote and hope to finish the dummy soon. In, WHEN DAYS GET WASHED AWAY, a little Japanese girl is led by a familiar voice down a tranquil path beyond her village, through the woods to where she … well, to reveal anymore would spoil the ending. There are a few other stories as well set in prose for different cultures, however, the voice of the other stories belong to children. In this story I use the voice of wisdom which is traditionally found in Japanese death poetry. Although this is not haiku there are other forms that support my style of writing.

It’s just a sketch, but sometimes the sketches are my favorite.

RAMBUNCTIOUS *IF

Rambunctious pretty much describes the family pet from this picture book that I illustrator due to come out Fall 2009, THE WARMEST PLACE OF ALL. You can see more illos on my site. Although I now live in Florida, I can remember plenty of time our dog enthusiastically assisted the kids with their snowman making project while they played in the snow in Ohio. Brrr