home again, home again
09.17.08 13:48
We're back from the soggiest Renegade of all time!
Despite the record rainfall in Chicago last weekend (7 inches in one day!) this Renegade was the most successful fair for me yet, not to mention absurdly fun. Thank you to all of the die-hard art and craft enthusiasts who pulled on your rain boots, dug out your umbrellas, and tromped around that soggy wonderland. It really was a sight to see...
I have a few prints and paintings that I'll be adding back to my store today, with more to come in the next few weeks.
Have a great Wednesday!
yay fer...
09.24.08 16:08
A sketch I've been working on, from the upcoming Clover Twig book by Kaye Umanksy.
I'm headed to the Kidlitosphere Conference this weekend, which conveniently enough, is happening here in Portland.
I'm excited to meet everyone attending, hear the lectures, and hopefully pass out enough Secret Circus postcards to put a dent in the gazillion I had printed before Renegade.
I'll do my best to take some notes at the conference and post them here on Monday. Although, to be fair, I stink at taking notes (always have) and you're more likely to get a collection of doodled dinosaurs and random thoughts. Woot!
I've been working again this week on the Clover Twig story, re-working some of the final art, and hashing out the cover design. It feels good to be cleaning up some of the loose ends that I left before Renegade. I was working so much on getting ready for the fair, and on the final art for the Clover Twig book before I left for Chicago, that I was a ghost in my house for weeks. I even worked all night long (uh..what? twenty four hours straight? Yes ma'am!) the night before we flew to Chicago. Blech. I'm not an all- nighter kind of girl, so that was a wee bit rough.
So, yay for balance. Yay for being back in the swing at a normal pace. Yay for life, which is awesome. Yay for our dahlias that are still blooming in the garden box, and new ukulele songs, and dinner already cooking when you come home from the studio, and blue sky fall weather, and playing with wee kids, and walks along the river with loving ones, and stretching in the morning. Yay for soy lattes, warm sweaters, long talks with friends, and yay for Octoberfest, go-cart races, resting on the couch, writing new stories and reading in bed. Yay, yay, yay!
kidlitosphere conference
09.29.08 18:26
Kidslitosphere conference! Whoo-hoo!
I spent this last Saturday at the Kidlitosphere Conference here in Portland, and true to my predictions, my notes are illegible and covered with sketches of dinosaurs and trees. This is no help to you.
Lucky for me, this was indeed a blogging conference, so courtesy of the attendees, there are plenty of photos, videos, podcasts and live blogging posts that documented every inch of this weekend.
Now all I have to do is a little automagic linkery, and viola, it's like you were actually there! Except that you didn't win anything fabulous in the after dinner raffle, or talk with these talented and interesting people, or drink enough coffee to make your teeth chatter, or get your paws on the new Babymouse book. Sigh. All wonderful things, really.
All in all, I feel inspired to put together more frequent blog postings, especially on the illustration process for the books that I've been working on. And I also can't wait to share what I've learned about group blogging with the group illustrator blog I'm a part of (yes this means YOU soup ladies ).
So I'm going to do my best to decipher my own notes over the past few days, and post the tidbits that really stood out to me. In the meantime, you can read, listen, and see what other attendees posted about the conference, RIGHT HERE
Stay tuned...