Shepherding In Spring

Here's a little something I did in celebration of spring. Thank heavens for blue skies and green grass!

Character Designs

The main character design for my current project, ChefArella, has been approved. Huzzah! She's cute, no?

These were my original sketches (below). Ultimately, we decided to go a little younger. She's cute, but not quite right for the project. Who knows, maybe she'll re-incarnate in my work somewhere else, one day.

Nordic Kids Postcards

They're here! I have new postcards. OK, I realize it's March and most of the snow is gone. But, as usual, I'm a little late posting. These actually went out last month. I've had this image on my site for a while, now. I posted the original (and a close-up) below for better viewing. I wanted to go a little moodier for the postcard, and darkened the background. I went with Vistaprint again, and re-used my design from the last postcard. Coincidentally, the dots and half-dot elements mirror the gingerbread details on the house, and the logo looks a little like a moon. Perfect!

I did a little winterizing of my logo. Here's a close-up.

Visions of Sugar Plums Dance in my head

As promised, here is a peek at some more of the work that has kept me en pointe  lately.

Please welcome our next guest. She isn't a sugar plum, but she could teach you to make one, and she dances (though, admittedly, not well);

she's ChefArella!

ChefArella Is a rhyming story about a princess who wants to be a chef, but whose mother insists princesses should be ballerinas.

If all goes well, the story will be self-published by the author sometime next year (cross your fingers). I have been contracted to do some editing and illustrating.

I recently finished a mock-up, or "dummy" for the project. A dummy allows you to see how the book will split into pages and where the text will fall. It's a rather involved process, but a lot of fun. 

 For now, I will post some of my favorite thumbnails from the dummy. 

No Longer November

Obviously, it's no longer November. The last time I posted, I was excited about NaNoWriMo. Did I "win"?
"We all won!" the cheerily inclusive voice in my head exclaims.
"Ummm . . . no," the hard-boiled voice corrects, "don't be obnoxious."

So, to be honest, no, I didn't write the 50,000 words that I wanted to write in November. I did write about 27,500 words (to make a total of 32,088) for which I am justly proud.

I meant to write the extra 22,471 but life happened instead. To be exact, some jobs happened . . . all at the same time. Wanna see?

Here are a couple of coloring book covers created in Illustrator (or parts of them). They're highly Christmas appropriate, no?

. . . and a few interiors (drawn in Photoshop):

There is another project that has kept me busy lately, and I'm excited to share it with you all. I'll leave you with the tantalizing promise to post about it soon. Really. 

NaNoWriMo!

So, I'm a little late getting this post up (as usual), but I'm excited to announce that I am participating in NaNoWriMo!

If you didn't already know, I'm here to tell you that November is national novel writing month. Who decided that? I have no clue. Why November? Probably because it creates a nice alliteration with "national," and "novel," (which is something a writer can appreciate).

You can still join the site (and the madness) at nanowrimo.org. We're an online collective of scattered people attempting simultaneously to write 50,000 words in one month.

If, during the next twenty-odd days, you notice anyone scribbling madly while waiting at a stoplight, attempting to type while walking, or looking generally exhausted while mumbling about plot development, they're probably participating.

I, personally, am continuing work on a piece already in progress. I'm shooting to add 50,000 more words this month. Yes, I might be crazy.

The site allows users to upload a "cover" image. I got really excited about that (big surprise) and spent a lot of time searching for fonts instead of writing. I think it was worth the effort, if for no other reason, than because it makes me feel all fizzy inside whenever I access my NaNoWriMo page. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be a writer, but that really might be the best way to describe the feeling.

In case you're wondering, I used Sleepy Hollow by Filmfonts, and One Two Trees by CloutierFontes on fontspace.

Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake. --Walter Scott

OK, so we're not in Scotland . . . and we don't live next to a lake. But, we do live next to a pond, and there is indeed a shadow on my door, and that door is, you guessed it; on a cottage.

So, obviously, we moved.

We packed one tiny dog, one very disgruntled cat, and all our worldly possessions into a moving van, said "tra-la and goodbye" to the pink house and brown cockroaches of Georgia, and ascended to the wilds of . . . New Jersey.

It was a long trip and it deserved a long sentence.

I've literally been too busy painting our new house (as in slapping gallons of green paint onto ancient, once white siding) to take the time to paint our new house (as in, well, you see).

But, I finally sat down and did it. Yay me.