This blog has moved!

I've decided to take the leap and host my own blog (!). A little scary, but what isn't scary in this world?
Here's the new address: http://www.insomniazombie.com
Pretty simple, huh? Even I can remember this one.

Jack Gantos rocked New York #jackgantos #norvelt #SCBWI

I got me this little gem on Sunday.

Please see this post to find out why this is very important.

P.S. I got to meet him on Friday and thanked him very much for writing the Norvelt books. We shot the breeze about home. He gave me a kiss on the cheek when I had to leave him. He's just as ADHD/crazy/loveable/cute in person.

Color Study for Little Rooster, Part 2

Color study for Little Rooster

Little Rooster Character Design

Little Rooster has been telling me about himself these last couple of days. He opened up pretty easily when I started asking him the right questions.

Gris Gris: The Spirit of Oshun

My daughter bought this for me in New Orleans. Here's what the "instructions" say:

Dr. John's Gris Gris for Creativity and Organization

This Gris Gris (mojo) bag invokes the spirit of Oshun. It is used to meditate on all things creative and to become better organized. Men carry the bag in the right pocket. Women in the left pocket or purse. It may be hung as a ju-ju in your home or workplace.

So it's hung on the light over my drawing table. Let's get this party started!

Sketches I'm not allowed to tell you about #illustration #middlegrade #kidlit

Just a sketch.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.

I write, therefore I am

Do you have any idea how hard it is to write? I'm sure some of you do. The ideas are playing out like a movie in my head. I can see them very well. They're there, it's just so hard to abstract them into words and sentences in the right order.

So I write Christmas cards. I answer email.

I blog.

Wait. Blogging is like writing, huh. Something like writing. Yeah. So is answering email. And writing Christmas cards.

It's like it's hunting me down.

We've got a fire in the fireplace tonight, and I'm not in the room where it's blazing. I'm here, sitting at my computer, typing in more words.

That's it. Wall has been hit.

Pajamas await.

Colorizing the Graphite

I've gotten a bit of feedback about my portfolio, and more than one person has suggested I run with my graphite drawings. One of those people (an art director) said if I could figure out a way of colorizing those drawings, it would be awesome. An agent pointed out one particular graphite drawing and said, "I'd like to see this in color."

Awesome.

Here you go.

The original drawing:

The colorized drawing (click to see biggie-sized):

Me likey.

That sleep thing again...

Please forgive me. I may ramble on here for a little while, not having had enough sleep again.

Sometimes I wonder why I have so much trouble sleeping. I read a lot of articles and hear a lot of news stories that this is a common problem. I wish being "part of the gang" made me feel better, but it doesn't.

And then two nights ago, I got scared.

A little bit of history (short, trust me). I haven't slept well since 1998. That's a long time. Mostly I can get to sleep, but then wake up somewhere in the middle of the night and can't get back at it. Then, the alarm goes off just as I feel like I could possibly drift back. The time I'm awake in the middle of the night varies; maybe anywhere from two to four hours. By the end of the day, I can barely keep my eyes open. When 10 p.m. rolls around, I'm headed for the next erratic sleep cycle. Usually, the only thing that makes me sleep is a few days of not getting any. Then, I sleep.

I had an OMT (osteopathic manipulation treatment) a little over a week ago, in the hopes of some relief. In the spirit of the hunt, I drew up a chart and started keeping track of my sleeping habits that night so the doctor could see how I was doing. I experienced my usual pattern the first couple of nights (6 ½ and 5 ½ hours of sleep, respectively), and then something weird happened. The next night I wasn't able to fall asleep until 1:30 a.m. and only slept 3 ¾

hours, and no more than a couple of hours at a time. I started having trouble getting to sleep most every night after that, and kept waking up in the middle anyway.

Four nights ago I got desperate and took a Melatonin, even though they don't really do anything for me. I took one again the next night, and then again the next night.

On the last day I took the melatonin, two nights ago, I got a total, a total, of two hours and fifteen minutes of sleep. During the five and a half-hour gap between 1 a.m. when I woke up and 6:15 when I fell back to sleep (but only for 45 minutes), I realized the problem was that I had stopped being sleepy. Usually I'm dead tired; when I'm awake in the middle of the night, when I'm struggling to make it through the dreaded 3:00 in the afternoon and when I'm forcing myself to stay awake until 10.

The sleepiness just stopped. Gone. No more sleepy.

I had read an article in National Geographic about people who can't sleep. Here's the thing: they die.

Last night I laid awake until 2:30, not the least bit sleepy even though I hadn't slept the night before. As I lay there, I thought about those people in the National Geographic article, and I suddenly realized that this was it.

This was how I die.

But not before I go back for my second OMT this Friday.

Monsters at the book store

Let's set the stage here. I've been receiving a lot of feedback about my illustration portfolio, mostly in that it will likely scare the children. (As an aside, I'm in the process of completely overhauling the lot of it to eliminate those things that I've been told make it scary.)

The other day I went shopping at Barnes & Noble. I had a 20% off coupon. It was mandatory.

I saw a bit of a trend in the picture book department, and I decided to take a few photos. See if you see a pattern.

And I bought this one (isn't the lighting on the cover fantastic?):

For the record, Halloween is very much over, and the Christmas books were everywhere. Most of the books (all but two, if I remember correctly) were face forward rather than lined on the shelves.

I have to say, I had a discussion with a children's book editor over the weekend (who I won't identify here) who, when I told her most of the feedback I've been getting about my portfolio is that it's too scary, said, "Creepy is in."

I totally love that editor.

Things are not as they seem

I've decided to put an all-out effort over the next few months into illustrating promo pieces for my portfolio based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When I thought of it, it seemed like a good idea. It meant the onus was on Lewis Carroll to tell me what my next promo illustration would be, not me.

The bigger reason I decided to do it, though, was because of all the feedback I've been getting about my illustrations.

I'd rather not elaborate.

Last night I read the first chapter ("Down the Rabbit-Hole") and came up with quite a few ideas. The problem was, I had to do some character development first, so those ideas had to wait.

The other problem was, my character development has turned out pretty sanitized. Vanilla. 50% gray.

Alice lacks that Rotty flavor that my illustrations from yesterday had. She lacks any flavor at all, to be honest. I'm afraid I'm trying to draw what I think somebody else wants, not what I want. Of course, that's entirely the case, but if I want to get work (and I do) I need to give them what they want.

But I'm sure sanitization isn't it.

Back to the drawing board.

Ralph Steadman at the bar

It's hard to look away from a Ralph Steadman piece of work. Not only his illustrations, but also his lettering.

I love how Flying Dog Brewery just lets him have at it. I'd love to have a book of his entire collection of beer labels.

I found these Steadmans at The Headkeeper in Greensburg.

Curly cues

Look what this rubber band did for me. It's like wrought rubber maybe. Isn't it lovely? This little guy might find himself hiding in an illustration someday.

Zombie finger

This was just lying on the ground for anybody to find. It's totally a zombie finger, right? I mean, what else could it possibly be?

Proof. They do exist.

"TURN HANDEL AS FAR AS POSSIBLE"

Typos in public. Sometimes they're good for a laugh. Sometimes, when they're kinda more permanent, you wonder how many eyes O.K.'d them before they went to print. Turn Handel?

Poor George.

I'm seeing things

I'm seeing faces in things again. This time it was a vampire in the shower curtain. Just in time for Halloween.

Random public copy editing

No, it wasn't me.
Yes, I would have if I'd had a pen.

Of all the silly things...

I guess the best way to explain some of the silly photos I take is that I see things in things. Usually it's faces, like the ones I posted here. This time it was a bird. He was in the maple seeds and stuff that fell onto the porch from the bushes beside. The photo above was how everything was just scattered there. The photo below is what I found in the middle of it all.

I seriously didn't arrange this myself. I probably wouldn't have even thought to do that. He was just sitting there, waiting for somebody to find him. Isn't he perfect?

I'll call him "Bird Seed."

My figure drawings finally found a home

Remember back in March when I wrote about reacquainting myself with figure drawing? Well, it's gotten even better since.

The short version of the story is, a handful of my old figure drawings from ten years ago are now hanging in my gynecologist's office. Have a look:

 

 

The photos above were taken in the waiting room and just back the hallway a little. Another drawing hangs in the next hallway back and a fourth one in a little room off from the waiting area. Two exam rooms each have a drawing as well.

The paint colors my doctor chose for the walls are, first of all amazing, and second, perfect for the off white paper and Sanguine conté colors I used for the drawings. All the walls are painted with muted earth-toney colors, with different colors in different rooms, and the drawings look like they were made for the spots where they were hung.

The plan for now is that we swap the drawings out each year to keep them fresh. Swapping out will also (in theory) give me incentive to get more drawn. For some reason I'm just assuming I'll be able to jump right back in and still be able to draw the figure. I'm not sure why I assume that.

Here are the ones we've hung:

This one is just inside the front door. She's going to be a hard one to replace later.

She's the one hanging back that first hallway.

This one is in a little room off from the waiting area.

One of the first figures I drew. She's back the next hallway.

I called this one "Pretzel" a while back. She's in the first exam room.

This one is hanging in the second exam room.

We only hung the ladies, and only the ones that might cause the least amount of controversy (as in, for example, nothing full frontal). I have more figure drawings on my fine art website: http://www.norathompson.us. Some of the ladies we didn't include are there along with some men and the only baby I've done so far.

I'm chomping at the bit to draw more, but I have too many things on my plate right now to dig that old paper out and get started. I'm also a little nervous about getting back in the groove. These drawings were all done in a few months' time, and I was definitely in the zone. But that was ten years ago. I hope I still have them in me.