Goats baking muffins ...

Goats baking muffins are just right for a children's book. I'm having fun going for a simple vintage sort of look - or at least trying for that effect. I too am a muffin baker. Oh yes, I bake up a weekly batch to take on my bike rides. I'm getting pretty good at it by now.

Happy Birthday Mozart!

I'm one of those people, like Einstein or Maurice Sendak who think of Mozart as being close to a deity.  It's because Mozart creates worlds undreamt of in this mortal's philosophy and his message seems to be love and forgiveness as the soul of genius.

So Happy Birthday Mozart!

One shudders to think what classical music would be if it was all Pachelbel or Boccherini!

I like doing up digital photoshop collages - some day I might get around to painting them on canvas when I have a spare month of leisure.  This one was especially fun.

Day 4 of the great window project

Day 4 of the great window project is well along. By now I'm getting used to loud crashing noises, pounding, pounding, pounding and playing musical chairs with things like food, coffee and furniture. Even the cat is kind of getting used the upheaval - only level 3 skittishness at this point. Shelter cats are tough.

But it is nice to finally see some spiffy new windows going up where there just used to be plain sheet glass. They don't work on Fridays... so it'll just be Monday and Tuesday and then it's over! (except they have to bring back the wrong windows they put in to swap out correct windows).

My Time Machine

I've been re-reading 'The Time Machine' and today feels very much like I've taken a trip back in time.  

Today I scanned the negatives of the photos I took of my NYC apartment at 161 W. 78th Street back when I went to Parsons in the last century.  It was so cool to recognize and revisit everything in that room.  It was just like being a time traveler - I wondered at the objects I'd forgotten and remembered.

Some of the circled treasures are:  my radio and toaster (that I'd hauled from Utah to Seattle and now to NYC).  My cup hanging from a wire (to keep the roaches off), the mini-stove (sitting on top of the mini fridge), my tea kettle and my illustration in progress. 

Everything but the bed was scrounged off the streets. You'd never guess how attached one can become to an old second hand toaster and radio.

But it was when I looked out the window at the view that I signed the lease without a doubt.  The Museum of Natural History is just down the block.  It was such an adventure to just look out the window in the mornings watching people going to work.

New windows and a passing panic...

I think I'm having panic attacks at the thought of having new windows put in the house next week. I'm going to have to move my studio downstairs and then back upstairs.  It'll be duck and cover all week... with umpteen projects on the burner and deadlines ticking away... HELP!  But it's just a passing panic.

One thing I'll miss about the old windows is the hand-made glass that bends the light. Back in 1929 I guess they still had glass like that. What I won't miss is the layers of old paint, the freezing cold, the stuck jambs painted shut, the bugs all summer and the noise.

Imagination brings joy

Imagination can bring great joy. It's such a delight to pull joy out of thin air with nothing but imagining to guide the way.  Imagination and a wacom and an eraser that is.

Of course fears are also imagination at work and not at all delightful - so one struggles to work against those.

The drawing tools I use...

Here are some of the drawing tools I use for my various art styles.  As a child I always wanted to be Mr. Ed. I think it was that studio that Mr. Ed's architect owner lived in that appealed to me. I guess I came pretty close only I don't have a talking horse.  The fact that my shelter cat won't spend any time in my studio doesn't help.

A sad day for cartoonists...

A sad day for cartoonists... 

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

But what if it's lots of fun?

My step by step of making a holiday card...

Here's a step by step of how I did my Dickens inspired holiday card.  I think it took about 5 hours or so... and was loads of fun.

I did the first drawing #1 about 6 months ago... and left it in my sketchbook.  But I chose to work it up more for the card. Steps 1, 2 and 3 are the drawing evolution.

The line is pencil on WC paper... the color and shadow is all photoshop.

You'll notice I only added the books after I'd already finished the drawing. But they fit just right and add to the story a lot.