Illustration Friday: Cake

Beach cake takes a lot of concentration.

The All-American Day

My gosh! What a gorgeous day we had today. Beautiful blue sky, hot, sunny day. We went to the Memorial Day parade. Great people watching for characters. I got some color at the Seadogs baseball game. The Seadogs got two home runs (the model lighthouse rises from just over the wall with a great "ahoogah" foghorn noise) and they won. We sang YMCA and Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Finally, we had lobster rolls at our favorite lobster pound. Truly a fabulous beginning to the summer and a great setting for a book.

New Moon

Every once in a while it seems that the whole world is in a downslump. Okay not the whole world, but the people I come in contact with on a daily basis. My world, maybe? A lot of folks I've run into recently have that same glazed, over-exhausted, stressed look on their faces. Phases. What phase is the moon in right now? No moon at all tonight. So perhaps as the moon grows over the next days and weeks the world will seem a little brighter, lighter, happier. Or at least my world will.

Just a bad month

Things have been rought here in the Boll household. My hubby has been working crazy hours which means I've been with the kids constantly. In the entire month of May, I got mother's day off, and a few hours for bookclub last Sunday. I feel like a zombie, I'm tired and snippy. So in addition to yelling at my poor children yesterday, I yelled at myself too. "Why do you think you can illustrate, you don't know thing-one about what you are doing, you should just give up and go back to a regular job where you can make some money. Forget all this stuff about dreams and passions."

When I cooled down, I went to Applebees to pick up an application to be a "server." I figure I'm a damn good server here at home, not to mention an awesome multi-tasker. How many people do you know who can write a picture book, do the laundry, research a query,help find homework, create an illustration promo postcard, make a lunch, check email, band-aid a boo-boo, and write a blog entry at one time. Applebees here I come. At least I'll make some money. Also, I figure I'm allowed to have bad months without yelling at myself.

Illustration Friday:Sorry

Sorry at the square dance. I'm sorry it is just a sketch. Much work to do.

New Images

I'm pleased to say that my web site portfolio page has three new images. Please click and look. Anna's Portfolio

Tales From the Slush Pile

If you are an author or illustrator of children's books you have to view Tales From the Slush Pile it is just so laugh-out-loud-funny you have to check it out. I love this comic!

Hide and seek

My son is home sick (but not too sick) and we found that rainy sick days are just perfect for inside hide and seek. I love how excited he gets when he finds me and how truly happy I am when I'm looking for him. "Hmmm. Is he behind the counter, in the tipi, under the coffee table, Ah, Is he under the bed? Found you!" We both have big happy smiles. Happy Friday, hope for sun.

BLAH!

We had a little sunshine yesterday but it was a tease. I woke up today to showers again. Alright you say, enough about the weather. I feel exactly the same. The thing is, that it impacts my day to day, my work, my relationships, my outlook on the world.(Which, at this moment, is pretty dismal.) I have seven different things (queries, poems, stories, books) out at publishers and magazines and I'm constantly working on more. Not always new, just more. Infact, I have been working on the same darn picture book for three years.It is about anger, so maybe I'm in the perfect place to work on it. Check out my friend Brian Anderson's comedy chapter book series: Zack Proton. Brian is a very funny man as well as a teacher, children's book writer, and screewriter. Did I mention Zack Proton is a series? Go Brian!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Still raining

It is Monday and still raining. I think we are on day six, maybe it is seven. I think the rain started last Tuesday. I'm certainly glad that I don't live in Seattle. I can't imagine what that is like. I am longing for the sun.

I got to sketch today at my son's preschool. It was wonderful. Such an odd and interesting creature the preschooler. I got there right at recess in the big gym. It was like being caught in a pinball machine. They bounced this way and that, ricocheting against each other and from game to game. Very hard to do anything more than gesture drawings. I would post some, but in order to get permission to sketch, I promised that none of the sketches would go on the internet.


Rain by Robert Louis Stevenson
The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree;
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my mother, Ruth and to all moms and grandmothers out there.

Illustration Friday: Angels and Devils

The do it yourself haircut by a four year old.

NESCBWI conference part 3

That's it. The last period. You have just finished the first draft of your masterpiece and you are sure that this is the one. This is the piece you will send out and not get back in that SASE. This is the one that after a few months, you will hear the phone ring, you will pick it up and an editor's voice will be at the other end of the phone line. You print it and leave it on the printer. Go away, you say. Get some space, you say. Read it later. So you go and you get some space and when you come back, you read it aloud and...It stinks. Time to revise.

Linda Sue Park gave a wonderful (in her words) "tough love" speech for aspiring authors. As I mentioned in the previous post, her ideas were not especially new. They just made me aware in a different way at a different level. The idea that stood out the most was her renaming of revision as Play. "Try it," she urged. Try a new point of view, new wording, take out a character, make the character more important in the scene. Play. She compared cutting a manuscript to the old game show, Name that Tune. She suggested saying to yourself, "I can tell that story in 800 words." Then again, "I can tell that story in 600 words." At some point you will find the place that is just right.

A huge thanks to Linda Sue for her words of wisdom as "tough" as they are to take sometimes, they ring true. Now, it is time to Play.

Prelude to Mother's Day

My small boy has been giving me little drawings and bits of paper with letters on it for the past week. He gearing up for Mother's Day, as in everyday is Mother's Day. He loves special occasions and holidays and this is no different.

This doesn't stop him from being his usual almost-five-year-old self: Angry and selfish one moment and cuddling, giving, and sensitive the next. We spent most of yesterday creating a mermaid puppet on my sewing machine. I sewed on the face by hand, purple button eyes, embroidered nose and mouth. I stuffed quilters fill in the top to make the face a little puffy. We added yarn hair,and purple fabric that he picked out. I measured, I cut, I sewed, I stuffed, and when I put it on his hand he looked at it and said. "We should have bought the one in the store, Mommmy."

AARGH!

Here is his Mommy fairy picture with the kiddo on the Mom's back.

NESCBWI conference thoughts part 2

Illustration. Visual storytelling. Each image needs a focus, intriguing characters, relationships between characters (action and reaction), setting, costumes, the drawing is the thing (to paraphrase Shakespeare). At least twice last weekend, illustrators compared illustration to acting. Linda S. Wingerter presented her art that glows with color and emotion after layers and layers of acrylic paint and glazes. Timothy Basil Ering presented his huge body of work that showed his evolution from high school doodler to fine artist and illustrator. Linda showed how her work came from a very spiritual place, while Timothy was passion, and enthusiasm to the core. Each artist has completely different art but each used the idea of theatre to convey the process of their work.

Throughout the weekend, in addition to the presentations, I also participated in a portfolio showcase and a critique. Originally, I was just going to do the showcase (a jury of industry professionals judge your work) but I was left so empty after the experience as their was no feedback. Either you won or you didn't. I didn't win. Does that mean keep going? Fuggetaboudid? What? I felt I had to have a critique after that. The critique was honest, blunt, and hopeful. In one drawing, I may have a character but not interaction. In another, I may have interaction, but not the setting. My visual storytelling is not on par with my writing and I know that. Going into Timothy's presentation I was feeling defeated and sad. I spent so much time working on new pieces for the portfolio, and then felt inferior.

After Timothy's speech, I found a new point of view. The one that has kept me going so far. Presevere, he said. Tenacity, he said. Skill and experience, he showed. And so, for the next six months I am making the resolution to only use graphite. To work on value, the lights and darks that help a reader find the focus and emotion in a scene. To be the director of each image as if it is a play. The drawing is the thing!

NESCBWI Conference thoughts part 1

It has been a week since I returned from the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' spring conference. It has taken me the week to process and mull all the wonderful things that I've learned and felt. First of all the conference was amazingingly planned and executed. Congratulations to the team of volunteers that make this conference work each year. Second, if you live in the New England area and you write and/or illustrate for children, you should attend the conference at least once.

This is my fifth year and each year I am amazed at how much I come away with. At this point, I feel as though I know quite a bit about the industry and the craft of writing (Then why aren't you published, Anna? Hush, that's another post.) So, it is not that I learn so much more each time. Instead, I am shown things I know in a different way. It's as if I held up a mirror and instead of seeing my own reflection, I catch a glimpse of something in the background. Something that is always in the background, but in the mirror it is framed in a way that catches my attention. Sometimes, that way is enough to spark a whole new line of thinking about my work in progress. Each day this week, I hope to relate something from the conference that has informed my work and passion.

Jennifer Richard Jacobson had an interesting presentation with Kara LeReau (For many years with Candlewick, now with Scholastic)about the evolution of Andy Shane and the Very Bossy Dolores Starbuckle. This book had its beginnings as a picture book and, through Kara's guidance, Jennifer turned it into an early chapter book series in order to more explore the characters. I have a picture book that I have been wrestling through about seven different drafts, never feeling that I could shove the character or his story into the limit of 32 pages. And, that the subject needed to explored further. This week, I have been trying the story as an early chapter book and I am thrilled with the results. Jacob Daniel (my main character) is finally getting the room to speak and to listen to others, to grow and to change. Isn't that what we all want of our main characters? Tomorrow, illustration. Portfolio showcases, critiques and the amazing and incredible Timothy Basil Ering. (my new idle and mentor)