Dec 31 Is The Publication Deadline for “The Jaybird That Jumped Down A Chimney”

/

It will be a miracle if I publish my book tomorrow. I have a lot to do in one day: I have to proof read the book, correct any obviously screwed up images, run the cover image PDF and body text PDF through Ingramspark’s validator (and that may take 24 to 48 hours to get a result), and who know what else I’ll have to deal with. If it doesn’t go down they way I’ve planned, I have a Plan B, which is to publish the book on New Year’s Day.

I did watch a helpful video about publishing using Ingramspark. It was a good video — it relieved my anxiety about going through the labyrinthine publication process. I send my thanks to Alexa Bigwarfe of WritePublishSell. Alexa, you rock!

I started the day by drawing a burro from imagination. I drew on the iPad using Procreate’s Pandini brush (it’s in the Inking collection). After I drew this character study, I regretted that I had done it digitally — I should have drawn it using pen and paper in a real sketchbook. I feel that digital drawing is insubstantial and ephemeral, while ink and paper anchor me to a place in time and space. Digital is gone when the iPad’s battery is drained, or the electricity goes off, or the web site is hacked, or the ISP goes out of business. I love technology and gadgets, and I use my iPad every day, but for art, Technology doesn’t complete me. In the future I’ll be doing my art work in traditional media as much as possible.

I don’t know this guy’s name yet, but I know that he’s small but strong, and he’s kind and gentle.

burro_from_imagination_blog.png burro, children's picture book, character study

A bird and a butterfly draw each other's portrait

/

50/365

A quickie today. While I was at work I got the idea of having Jimmy and Buddy doing fun stuff like drawing silly portraits of each other, as best friends do. I would use this image in the sequence where the two best friends ride bikes, play football, play cards. Real bromance stuff.

I limited colors today: cool blue, yellow ochre, and purple.

A Jaybird and a Butterfly Play Poker

/

38/365

Another grisaille. This time Jimmy and Buddy are playing poker, it seems. I’m not much of a card player, but I do know that four queens is a good hand. Too bad for Jimmy, but Buddy has four aces. I know because that’s the story I wrote in my head.

One thing wrong with this picture that I’m thinking of: I forgot to add Jimmy nose. Even at this year 3/4 view his honker would be prominent. This drawing, painting, and processing, and writing this post, took about 1 1/2 hours. I was hustling.

Who would believe a bird tossing a football to a butterfly?

/

32/365

Today was a busy family day. In keeping with the plan to make progress every I resorted to a quick sketch of Jimmy Jay and Buddy Butterfly playing some football. I’m amused at the thought of a butterfly catching a football launched by a jaybird with a rocket for an arm. The thing is, Buddy actually catches the ball and fires it back.

With time running short I inked the sketch in Photoshop then applied some color. I’ll revisit this tomorrow and add a background.


Thinking about a cover page for my children’s book

/

21/365

My goal is to move at least an inch closer to my goal everyday. The goal, I remind myself, is to publish The Jaybird Who Fell Down a Chimney by March 31. Children’s picture books usually have 28 to 32 pages, and at this point I have zero pages.

One of today’s pictures is a doodle of a momma jaybird. I’m not sure if she’s Jimmy Jay’s mother, or one of his hottie aunts who lives two houses down on Jaybird Street. The second picture shows Jimmy goofing off in the chimney and giving a self-assured thumbs to show how cool he is. Jimmy looks about 20 in this picture, so I’m going to have to think hard about shaving 15 years off his appearance.

What a hottie!

Jimmy looks like a cocky high school sophomore. There is one obvious improvement over yesterday’s 35-year-old Jimmy — no 5 o’clock shadow.

Character concept: little boy alarmed

/

12/365

My goal for this painting was to practice using the least number of brush strokes possible to apply the color to my sketch. My gouache and watercolor paintings suffer from my tendency to use too many faint-hearted little strokes but today I really piled on the gouache in a series of single, heavy strokes. I gave myself a pat on the back.

I did all of the line work in Photoshop and also touched up the stray paint and other marks. This character is the little boy who lives in the house with the chimney that animals like to fall down into every year. In this picture, the boy, who doesn’t have a name yet, is pointing to the chimney and yelling to his grandmother that there’s something inside the fireplace. I’d like to get more feeling into this gesture, and more alarm into his face. It looks like I’ll have to photograph myself yelling with a little fear in the eyes, or maybe Muybridge can help out.

Clear line anyone? Ecoline?

/

I’ve been reading about Hergé today and ligne claire. So I got out my Pentel Pocket Brush and my Ecoline watercolors and had at it. I learned one more time that things that look easy are hard. My 10,000 hours of practice have just begun. I figure that with 2 hours a day to practice at the end of the year I’ll have 730 hours. Nice. Only 9,170 hours to go before I can lay down a real clear line. Fortunately, I’m a patient and persistent man, and I’m happy just to be playing with paint, paper, and ink.

Today’s work. Oh, by the way, I’m going to be posting my daily projects for 365 days straight. Why? Because I signed a contract to move forward at least one inch a day. I’ll have to post that contract some day.