Let the merriment begin...

Let the merriment begin... unleash the Elves as hordes of holiday shoppers descend upon the gifting merchandise.

I'll be joining the crowds myself later this month, at Third Place Books to sign books for 'The 12 Days of Christmas in Washington'.

Who knows... maybe I'll get the hang of it... publicity and all that. Mixing with the public as a 'celebrity' is something we bookmakers don't do as a matter of course. It ought to be a real novelty, if nothing else.

:0)

Happy Interactive Halloween!

Here's a little Halloween fun made in Kwiksher, which is a photoshop extension for building interactive iPad apps.

Tools used... pencil, wacom, photoshop, Kwiksher, Garage Band, USB microphone, SoundJay... and innate talent.

Halloween

It's getting to be that time of year again. It was hard to tell who was wearing a costume and who wasn't at the thrift store today.

I felt like the scariest guy there when I looked in the mirror! And I was just shopping for a new plaid shirt.

lol!

Cooool!

I've been waiting 3 years for a letter like this. Actually when I wrote 'Cromwell Dixon's Sky-Cycle' I just hoped that kids would say... 'Coooool!' when they saw a book about a flying bicycle.

From a reader:

My boys and I are huge fans of Cromwell Dixon’s Sky Cycle. Last year we purchased your book and it was love at first read. My boys were on the edge of their seats and continue to ask for it to be read. They have repeatedly poured over your illustrations studying the details of his invention.

I am always on the lookout for books that allow a child to dream big and Cromwell Dixon does just that. My boys, age 6 and 4, repeatedly ask: "Is this true, did a little boy like us really fly on his bike all by himself? That is so coooool"

The 12 Days of Christmas Book Blog

The blog for my new book is finally ready... after waiting for the appropriate holiday shopping weather to arrive. This book is 'The 12 Days of Christmas in Washington' and it's published by Sterling Books.

Washington state residents will recognize the many local landmarks right off.  I greatly enjoyed writing and illustrating this colorful book.  It's full of fun scenes in Pike Place Market, Mt. Rainier, Downtown Seattle, Puget Sound, Tacoma, Winthrop, Leavenworth and Spokane. (all my favorite places).

Although I myself have never been to the top of the Space Needle, I understand it's quite a popular destination. I have often looked up at it from Seattle Center to marvel at it. I did learn in making this book that the Space Needle is way more difficult to draw than the Eiffel Tower. (I haven't been there either.)

Other familiar sights are listed in the 'The places visited' tab of my new book blog. I have been to ALL the above mentioned locations.


This book will no doubt be appearing beneath many an Evergreen State evergreen tree this Holiday season!

Polar-tec temporarily on hold.

Things have been a bit slow on the old blog lately. But it's not for lack of activity.

* I've been learning how to make inter-active ebook-apps with Kwiksher. It's fun adding sound effects and watching the motion of my artwork across the screen.

* I've been thinking up some options for licensing my artwork.

*And I've been enjoying the never to be forgotten SUMMER!

It has been wonderful to actually have some HOT weather! After last summer, which was barely even half a summer... and it looked like this year would be a repeat of that dismal event. It seems like forever since we had a real summer... so this has been fabulous.

I've been able to do things like water the garden and go barefoot. And the polar-tec is temporarily on hold.

The Dragon Painter reprint...

I was delighted to get a package with reprints of my book 'The Dragon Painter' from Usborne. I thought it looked very well at a larger size. The original printing was about 2/3 the size of this book.

Quacks & Snacks

I was delighted to open up a new copy of High 5 and find my two page spread for 'Snacks & Quacks' in the August issue. The printing came out almost as I imagined it might.

In the real magazine there are lots of great little details. Every little duckling and bug's wing... all in colorful photoshop rendering.

It was all done in pencil line mostly... with some scanned splotches of real paint and scanned textures.

Another Kwik iPad tryout...

Yesterday I finally got the hang of Kwik so that for part of the afternoon I could actually control it! Believe me, nobody would be more surprised to see things actually work.

So now I'm halfway knowing what to do... but more importantly what NOT to do! Here's the new little three page app sample I did up. These are just cutout stand ins for the finish art. So the first stage is quite sketchy, exactly like making a book dummy.

It's lots of fun.

Like a kid in a candy store...

Dipping my toe into the world of e-book apps... what a bunch of fun! I felt a lot like a kid in the candy store after figuring out how Kwik and Corona work to transform a photoshop file into a living, breathing ebook app.

For me the motivating factor in wading through the technical mumbo-jumbo is the experience of seeing my artwork floating around on the screen like magic. And it turns out the technical side really isn't all that hard if you know already know how to work in photoshop.

More magic comes from the ease of transforming voices with Garageband. Adding in music and sound effects really has the bookmaker thinking outside the box.

Oh boy! Enter the world of animated ebook apps with sound and voiceovers. All done by moi!

The 12 Days of Christmas Book Blog

The 12 Days of Christmas Book Blog has been under construction. Blogger makes it easy to transform a regular blog into sort of a 'web-site blog' with the addition of tabs.

I find that some of the features still don't work on the 'new blogger'. For those one has to switch back to the 'old blogger'. But it's fun to improvise new designs and see how they turn out.

One simply cannot beat the pricing schedule of 'free'. I hope it will prove useful in lining up lots of school tours. It should be going 'live' before too long. Only 164 shopping days left until Christmas!

Another step by step...

Yet another step by step animation from the studio.

These are so much fun I think I'll have to purchase a movie making software app to show some 'live action' film of drawing and clicking.