Alma

Here's a beautiful video by Rodrigo Blaas. Just beautiful.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

British un-things

Have you noticed the books out semi-lately with "un" things as main characters?

• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, published in 2007 (un-Space and the Un-Space Exploration Committee)
• Un Lun Dun by China Miéville, also published in 2007 (Un-London and pretty much everything else)
• And not quite, but along those same lines: Coraline by Neil Gaiman, published in 2002 (Coraline had an "other" mother)

The link between them might be in the water; all of the authors are currently living in or were originally from England. That and, whether you like the books or not, critics have widely agreed that at the very least these authors have created unique worlds and ideas and display incredible imagination in their writing.

Illustrators I Greatly Admire: Exhibit C

Gris Grimly.

Incredible talent, this guy.

Currently working on Frankenstein, and has set up a blog to share his progress. First noticed him through his Edgar Allan Poe book, Tales of Mystery and Madness, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Keri Smith

For any creative type who needs a little humor and a gentle nudge in a productive direction, take a look at Keri Smith's Web site. For the most fun and a lot of creative ideas, choose the "Play" link, and don't forget to check out her portfolio while you're there.

Great work, great ideas and a great inspiration to the creative community.

Illustrators I Greatly Admire

Exhibit B:
Pablo Bernasconi

I first became aware of Mr. Bernasconi's work in The Wizard the Ugly and the Book of Shame. That one was published by Bloomsbury. Fantastic collage-type abilities and great characters. I wonder if people kept telling him he would scare the children. And I wonder if, even though they told him that, he kept doing what he was doing anyway.

There's a lesson here.

Firefly Chocolates @ the Mall

My friends down at the Firefly have opened a new shop at Westmoreland Mall in Greensburg, and they've included more of my signage. All the posters hanging in the shop were also part of our branding campaign. Included here are both the outside signage as it was designed, and a shot of the shop from the mall interior.

Illustrators I Greatly Admire

Take a look at Kirill Chelushkin's work, represented by Shannon Associates.

First came upon his illustrations in The Elves and the Shoemaker as retold by John Cech and published by Sterling Publishing in New York.

Incredible work.

Snow @ twilight

Our first-ish snow of the season of any consequence.

Twitter

Finally moving on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/NoraThompson

Combination of all the work I do: fine art, kid's illustration, graphic design and The Rots©. Kind of a daily updating of my working life.

Jack & Jill

Here are a few of the spots I did for Jack and Jill's November/December issue. I have to be a little more careful about the colors next time; they printed pretty dark. And I have no excuse...I used to work for a newspaper, and I know how things print on absorbant paper like that! Never forget to learn.

Women in Art 2009

I had two pieces juried in to the 2009 Women in Art exhibit at Harlan Gallery, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, PA. Titles: Thirteen (shown here) and Eleven (shown below, bottom). Both are in the portfolio section of my fine art Web site: www.norathompson.us. The show runs November 1 through November 22.

Fairview Elementary

As many of you know, by day I'm a guide at Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic masterpiece, Fallingwater, near Mill Run, Pennsylvania. A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of playing tour guide to some great students from Fox Chapel's Fairview Elementary, and they were fantastic! They were telling me about organic architecture!

This is us at the end of the tour, and yes, one of them even bought a copy of Yikes! at the museum shop.

Just want them to know, they can come back anytime!

New design

Just wanted to let everybody know about a new design I've uploaded to CafePress. It uses the line drawing version of the White Rabbit I did for Alice in Wonderland, and combines it with a quote from the book:

"and what is the use of a book," thought Alice,
"without pictures or conversation?"

It's on:

• Organic Kid's T-Shirt
• Note Cards (pack of 20)
• Large Poster

Westmoreland Art Nationals

Two of my digital images were juried into the Westmoreland Art Nationals this spring. They are both photo montage giclee prints, and attached. The show ran May 30 through July 5, 2009.

By the way, Harpers Ferry is a fantastic spot to collect photos. Textures and tombstones seem to be popping up all over my images lately.

Jack!

So I found about a gazillion little Jack Skellington heads in the bubbles on our shower curtain yesterday. I suppose that goes along the same lines as seeing things in peanut butter.

I've posted two of the Jacks here. Now, go watch the movie. It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Web address change

I'm not really sure who is still using the old URL for my site (apparently somebody is), but I just want to make it clear here that the address for my kid's illustrations site has been changed to:

http://www.nora-thompson.com/

The old address at www.nora-jayne.com still works only as a referral page to the current address.

Peanut butter face

I know this may sound odd, but I love eating peanut butter straight from the jar. Who has the time to actually spread it on bread? Anyway, I tend to see faces in things (shadows, trees, clouds, water), and I found one in my spoonful of pb. The photo I took of it that shows his face the best isn't really the one that is clearest, but that's the one I'm using on the post so consider this my apology ahead of time.

I think I like his nose best.

Jack and Jill

Here's my commission for the July-August issue of Jack and Jill magazine. The story was about surviving family road trips. This image was published with five other spots I did for them, and I've got five more spots coming up in the November-December issue.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Oh, and the Pirates traded Nyjer Morgan today.

And what can be done at this point?

If we stop going to games, the team will move from the area. If we keep going to games, that enables management to keep on trading.

Can't the league step in and help?

Even a little?

Somehow?

Does anybody in management understand the concept of building a team?

It's the fans who are paying the bills (buying game tickets, memorabilia, etc.), so shouldn't we have a say in how our money is being spent? Or on who makes the decisions on how to spend our money? Shouldn't we have the right to vote out management if we believe their managing strategies leave something to be desired?

For the last 17 years?

The Pirates are on a pace for a major league-record 17th consecutive losing season.

--Associated Press

Images 2009

My acrylic and mixed-media on canvas painting, "The Song Came and Went," was juried into the Images 2009 Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts show at State College.

This would be it.

Changing to all Rotty

After some soul-searching and cutting of losses, I've decided to ditch the marketing of my traditional illustration style in favor of 100% of my twisted illustration style. I still have the traditional portfolio up on my site in case there are any leftovers from past marketing campaigns who still want that style. But for the most part, I haven't had many takers, and the twisted style seems to have gotten legs.

This is the kind of stuff I want to do most. I know I've now eliminated myself from a lot/many/most markets that want more traditional material, but if I'm to stand out of the crowd at all, I have to be true to myself.

This is me.

Hello world.

Possible gorget

So last year about this time, we took a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine, to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary (we were married there at the top of Cadillac Mountain at sunrise). The first time we were there, I had found a piece of slate that I thought was interesting near the beach, and I brought it home with me.

Last year while we were there, we took another trip to the Abbe Museum, and it was there I saw a piece that looked very familiar to the piece I had brought home five years earlier. It was a Native American gorget.

I've already contacted the folks at the Abbe Museum to hear their thoughts. I've also uploaded a few photos I took of the piece I found, and I'm interested in hearing what other people may think of its origins.

Dead Line

Here's one of the latest things I've been working on. It's a five-page graphic novel that follows a stumped graphic novelist as he is faced with a deadline "in five pages." I used graphite (powdered and in pencil form) and Photoshop to get the effects I was looking for. The image posted here is page one.

For those interested in how I'm working it, I had separate postcards made of each page and I'm sending them out to art buyers once a month (for the next five months) with a super-secret invitation-only Web page address on the back of each one. On the site they can download the graphic novel page as a printable pdf.

Fontstruct

So I taught Typography last fall, and for a semester-long project, I had the four-credit students work out a font on the FontShop site, www.fontstruct.com. (If you haven't made it over there yet, it's a great site where you can create your own working typefaces.) One of the student's typefaces was even chosen as a "Featured Download."

Here are links to a few of the final products. I'm very proud...

Kimothy by Kim Franczak
Bloc by Lara Heinz
Hot Mess by Jon Stefaniak
Brickyard by Corey Perkins

Leave them a comment, and let them know what you think!