William Joyce

I try not to pass up opportunities to look at the original art of master illustrators. I was more than well rewarded at the Los Angeles Central Library show of William Joyce's gorgeous work. Joyce's brilliant use of color is particularly remarkable as he works from a palette of only 4 colors (plus black and white). Equally impressive are his monochromatic pencil drawings - subdued yet powerful in their ability to immediately engage the viewer. He is fearless in his compositions, often cropping in unexpected ways or quite comfortably incorporating large expanses of negative space. I ran across this video of Joyce talking about his stories, a welcome addition to his delightful The World of William Joyce. There's much to be learned from the great Mr. Joyce.

What I Did On My Vacation

I ended this past very intense fall semester with a long anticipated trip to Italy. Two weeks only began to scratch the surface of Venice, Florence, Siena, and Rome. The food, the art, the architecture - oh my! It will take me some time to integrate it all.

It snowed in Florence (a very rare occurrence) resulting in an eerie and magical disappearance of all motorized vehicles on the strangely quiet but beautiful white streets. This is a shot of Filippo Brunelleschi's Duomo covered in snow.

The residents of Florence are very friendly, but for the most part a rather business-like group. The adults "tolerated" this intrusion of weather. The children, as you can well imagine, went crazy! Coming from southern California, my travel group did too! It was the best.

Venice was just like I had seen in pictures -but never truly believed. Surely there must be autos on the streets just beyond the street not shown, I thought. Nope. No car to be found anywhere. Narrow streets and passageways barely wide enough for two people. I still don't understand entirely how the city functions (how do you move a grand piano? what about ambulances?). Guess I'll have to go back for more research.

This is a sketch of Siena, well known for its charm. As we were in Italy during record setting cold temperatures, sitting outside for a leisurely sketch was a rare option. We found the only cafe with outdoor heaters and a view. The view was easy to come by - everything about Siena is picturesque. Sigh.

I'm wondering what Italy's like in the summer. May just have to do some more onsite research.

Halloween

I did this piece for today's LA Times. It was one of those very rare images that popped into my head fully formed and just laid itself on the paper (well, almost). It accompanies a very fun story by Patricia Rust.

I've gotten to do a couple of pieces for the Los Angeles Times' Kid's Reading Room. This is a sketch for an illustration that accompanied the delightful story by Donna Gephart, author of As If Being 12 1/2 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother is Running for President (visit her at donnagephart.com) in the Oct. 4 edition. Here's the final story and picture: "Do I Have To Go To School Today?"


There's one more in the pipeline. This is a preliminary idea for the illustration accompanying a story for the Oct. 25 edition. I think all artists have particular favorite themes. I love the man in the moon - or more correctly - the men in the moon. Every opportunity to do an image with a moon conjures up a whole new personality. And they seem so happily above the fray of our little anthill on earth.

Beginnings and Destinations

Back to school! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I have only one semester left after this one. Among the classes I'm taking this semester is my thesis, which will focus on wordless picture books (hmmm, lots of words about no words). I'm teaching 2-dimensional design this go around. There's nothing quite like a room full of first semester freshman to get one excited and inspired! And this weekend is the opening of our 2 week show From Here to There in the Exit Gallery at Cal State Fullerton. Busy, fun week.

Sketchbooks

There's nothing more tempting than a new moleskin sketchbook, especially one with thick, rich watercolor paper. (Here's my inaugural "dip.") I love looking at others' sketchbooks so I'm enamored with Danny Gregory's An Illustrated Life. Makes you want to do nothing but play in your sketchbook all day. So maybe I won't do that all day. The SCBWI summer conference is around the corner and there's still much to do to get ready - postcards, finishing touches on the portfolio, new look for the blog (ta-da!), updating website (not yet done), practicing the elevator pitch, and of course the Saturday night outfit! All very exciting - can't wait!

Buy a Book

I am continuing to explore black and white this summer and have spent the last couple of weeks working on editorial-type projects. I developed this pencil image for use on a flyer for a certain museum group conference with a focus on bridging cultures.

On an unrelated and far more important topic, has anyone else noticed a change in the inventory in the children's book section of the larger chain bookstores? I had a chance to be in both the Barnes and Noble down the street and the wonderful independent children's book store Whale of a Tale this week. B&N has definitely reduced their offerings and seems to be stocking up on oldies but goodies at the expense of a lot of amazing new books. I hadn't realized the extent of lack of great kids' lit at B&N until I saw at W-o-a-T what I had been missing. This raises all kinds of troubling questions - most of which I have no answers for. I've always been an equal opportunity book shopper: I patronize all kinds of booksellers, and I think B&N does a great job enticing customers (a good thing for the publishing industry). But I know I've got to make a greater effort at supporting the independent stores. Without them, all these fabulous books that B&N doesn't carry will . . . disappear.