Afforded a few unseasonably warm days over this past weekend, I pulled out my bike and went for what was probably the last warm ride of the season. Even as the air seemed comfortable when I set out on my jaunt, halfway down the road my hands became stiff and cold. I decided I would pedal as fast as I could, into next SPRING.

You can find many styles of bicycle art, but the piece I’m posting is a quick color pencil sketch.

Check out some other bicycle art in Frank Viva’s picture book, Along a Long Road. It has a simple, cool, retro look to it.
But you don’t have to watch the short blurb of it on You tube, you can check it out from the library, or as I did, from the bookmobile. Enjoy the read, and keep pedaling along that long road that seems to simply go in circles.

Now that September has come to a close it means fewer days for back yard kiddie pool splashing, sun soaking bike rides and amusement park frolics.

It also means that the SCBWI Fall Conference in Wisconsin has come and gone.

Preparing for and taking part in the conference is not unlike the experience of an epic roller coaster ride.
You build yourself up with courage and confidence. You know that it’s going to be a bit scary, but also that you’ll feel invigorated and eager to try something new or daring once you’ve gotten through it.
And, if you haven’t thrown-up on the person sitting next to you, you may have just made a new acquaintance and comrade.

Besides my informative and encouraging critique with Saho Fujii, Art Director for children’s books at Little Brown, another favorite part of the conference was the presentation by illustrator Eliza Wheeler. She made me feel less alone in the dread of the roller coaster effect. Check out some of her beautiful art work here: Eliza Wheeler

Pastels have been a lot of fun for me lately. I wondered what impact they’d had in the history of art. I never had a huge interest in history as a high school student. Maybe it was because it was so much about dates, and I’m not a numbers person. But when stories enliven the tales of the past it’s so much more interesting to study. The history of art as a whole seems almost overwhelming, so occasionally now I just look into small portions at a time.

As of late I’ve been working in pastels quite a bit. The piece I’m posting is just a small sketch just to keep some pieces around for such posts. Larger pieces take quite a bit more time.

I’ve always been a big fan of pieces by Mary Cassat and Edgar Degas, but in searching for a link to add to my post I found several other pastel artists who didn’t just use pastels as a means of just laying out works or only for quick sketches. This link on The History of Pastels brought up a few other facts that I found interesting.
One point was about the resiliency of pastel works. I found it intriguing that they noted that pastels are even more resilient than many of the other forms of media. I’d always worried about the handling of pastel works, but hadn’t given much thought to their longevity. Glad to know that the beauty of such works will be around for a long time.

Where are the Wores? That’s a question that is addressed in Griff Stecyk’s off the cuff article about Theodore Wores. One of Theodore Wores’ paintings, The Lei-Maker, is considered the Mona Lisa of Hawaii.

My rendition of this work is done in colored pens, pencil and marker.

I was inspired to do this piece because I was once a Lei-Maker myself. I did not do it professionally, only seasonally, and only in my front yard.
There was a large Catalpa tree in the yard of the farm house I grew up in. My sisters and I spent afternoons stringing leis of the fragrant blossoms that fell this time of year.
I was lucky enough as an adult to have purchased a home with a large Catalpa tree growing in its front dooryard. I showed my daughters how to do the same. Every year around father’s day the blossoms fall en masse. Then I have to wait another whole year to see that giant in its flowering beauty.
It’s just one of the things I love about the changing of seasons in Wisconsin.

A lucky find at a book sale, I acquired the book Arctic Spirit by Ingo Hessel. It is a book of Inuit art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum.
I was overwhelmed by the beauty and simplicity of the many sculpted pieces presented. Powerful pieces with a feeling of solidity and yet some full of motion. This contrast is kind of hard to describe.

So much could be told within some of the simplest carvings. I guess emotion, or maybe a feeling of presence with the piece would be the best way I could describe how I related to viewing the beautifully photographed pieces. I can only imagine what it must be like to hold one in your hand.

Even when I’m gardening and I come across stones there’s that feeling of being connected as it’s rolled about in my hand.

The piece I’m posting, a quick pastel sketch, was inspired by a stone sculpture I’d seen in the book by Pauta Saila, of one of his “Dancing Bears”.

Working on character development is like making new friends. You spend time getting to know more about them and what makes them tick. What are their interests? What makes them laugh, cry? Of course there’s very often the influence of physical appearance that determines whether one is drawn to a character or not.

Author Tom Pawlik makes mention of the appearance factor in his conversation on The 9 Ingredients of Character Development. In his clever acrostic: CHARACTER he notes that Appearance: is one of the lesser ingredients in character building, which is probably more relevant in writing for MG, YA and older. He points to the fact, in similar language, that there are more frogs and toads out there than princes and princesses. Which is not a bad thing, as it is those who have faced adversity that make the more interesting characters, and often the more endearing.

In children’s stories I think it is a little more important to consider the character’s appearance. Is the character familiar enough to let the reader see themselves in it. Depending on what kind of character is being portrayed, does it look like someone a person would like to cozy up to, be buddies with, or keep a safe distance from.
The watercolor and colored pencil character study that I’m posting is of two buddies who don’t have a lot in common, but are always there for one another.
That can be one of the best qualities a character can have.

An exceptional challenge put out by Vivian Kirkfield inspires writers to really work on trimming down their words when expressing their ideas.
The challenge was to write a story for children 12 and under using only 50 words.
It was indeed a challenge to give a beginning, middle and end that would evoke emotion and vision.

I often walk or sit in my gardens when I look for inspiration.
That’s why when I had the opportunity to photograph my children and nieces and nephews for graduation pictures I looked to my garden spaces, as in this ink drawing rendered from a photo I’d taken for my niece.

And the following is my submission to Vivian’s #50 Precious Words writing contest.
I can see why it’s tough to break into the world of Children’s Books with so many wonderful writers out there.
Visit Vivian’s site to view the many wonderful contributions.

I was experimenting with my markers again this morning while a water color wash was drying. This was one of the sketches I came up with. It was inspired by all the recent talk of women fighting for equality and fair treatment. While I did not attend the Women’s March on Madison, I was with the marchers in spirit.

There is so much yet to be done to make life better for all those who are marginalized.

This little marker experiment is just my simple nod to all those who fight to create a safe and fruitful environment for all.

Still more experimenting to be done with markers. But I think this sketch is kind of fun.

This is the piece that I submitted for the Tomie dePaola award this year. His prompt was to: using ourselves as the character, create a scene from our youth that said something about the person that we are. He asked that the emotion of the character be immediately apparent.

Tomie stated that, in viewing the pieces that he selected as winners, he experienced an element of caring about the characters. He wanted to know more about them.

Some of them had not overly defined spaces. Some had a bit of a sketched quality. This got me wondering about the qualities or definition of a finished piece of artwork. When is an artwork finished?

Of course this got me wondering further about my own piece that I had submitted. Had I laid it all out there? Had I said too much in my piece? Was there no reason to keep digging to find out more about this character?

Should the ‘finished’ factor be a consideration for an illustration piece, or is it meant to make a statement?

Perhaps as Forest Gump suggests, “Maybe it’s a little bit of both.”
Maybe both should be happening at the same time in a piece of art.

I thought I’d mess with a set of simple kid’s markers this morning just to see what would come of layering the colors over one another. Would they be too bold to make any kind of pleasing combinations? Would they look too diluted, being as they were just a cheap brand of markers?

Sometimes it feels good to just start putting something down on paper.
But often I feel apprehensive about wasting paper, supplies (though not in this case), or even precious time without a clear goal or project in mind.

Perhaps it’s just the need to be creating even if nothing great comes of it. Vincent van Gogh at one time pumped out so many canvases in a month that he just strew them about the floor moving on to the next things that begged to be recreated through his mind’s eye and hand. Check out the many simple but beautiful Vincent van Gogh drawings.

This quick sketch of a climber clinging so tightly to the wall of rock that he could almost be a part of it is done with markers on pink paper. I’m always reaching for that next place in my artistic journey.