Creatures & Such

It looks like I'm sort of continuing on with my monsters/robots/creatures doodles, so here's the next page. It doesn't feel like I'm finished with it yet, but I think the more I work on it, the worse I make it.

Maybe it needs to be finished now whether I like it or not.

Robots and Monsters

Another page from my visual journal.

I started with the idea of robots and robot parts, and it quickly evolved into funky creatures in general. I like the idea of robots and monsters as subjects because anything goes. That might be the same reason they're so hard for me. Too many possibilities for my little brain to sift through. That's the challenge I decided to give myself with these little doodle dudes.

I think I'll call them The Juxtapositioning of Disparate Elements. At least the title sounds classy.

The Monster Under My Bed

I figure the first step in making friends with the monster under my bed is to identify it. I'm still trying to figure out what it looks like, but here's a page I drew of ideas a couple of nights ago.

I finally met #ShaunTan (happy, happy dance)

In case you're new here, the one thing I can tell you about me is, I can't get enough of Shaun Tan.

I had never been to a national SCBWI conference before the one that just happened in New York, and all it took for me to get there was to see Shaun Tan's name on the keynote speaker list. I swear I was the first one in line.

My first meeting with Shaun went pretty much like this: On Friday, the first day of the conference, I was on the elevator by myself heading up to my hotel room on the 30th floor. When the elevator stopped, the doors opened and there waiting to get on, by himself, was Shaun Tan. I sucked in a breath, but somehow nothing came out. We stepped aside for each other to enter and exit. The doors closed between us

I spent Saturday morning waiting for a moment (and finding the nerve for) when he wasn't busy talking to somebody else. When I finally caught him waiting for the elevator yet again, I introduced myself and told him he was the reason I was at the conference. The elevator opened, we stepped in and joined a couple of other people already inside. I had barely started talking again when the nice lady beside me reached out her hand to Shaun and said, "Hi. I'm Jane Yolen. We've actually met before."

Not kidding.

Then the other lady in the elevator said, "Shaun Tan and Jane Yolen in the same elevator together. What are the chances!"

Yes. What are the chances.

We didn't have a chance to say any more before the elevator stopped at his floor (our floor), and he got out.

I did not.

Finally, on the last day of the conference just before our train left the station (literally; we rode the train to NY), I was working the autograph party as an SCBWI Illustrator Coordinator and waited for my opportunity. Shaun signed books for three hours straight (an hour longer than he was scheduled), and after the line disappeared, I finally (finally) got my photo op.

As you can see, he signed all his books for me, even though he had been sitting there for three hours. He was kind, patient and unassuming, and if his two had been the only talks I had heard all weekend, I would have left completely satisfied.

First Neil Gaiman last November, and now Shaun Tan. That's it. Is there really anybody else?

I guess I can die happy.

The @BrothersHilts: Illustrators I Greatly Admire: Exhibit F

The Brothers Hilts (with an "s" at the end, and not because there are two of them)
 
Last fall sometime (I'm figuring around Halloween because that's when Ben and Sean told me Barnes and Noble featured their book in displays for the holiday) I picked up a copy of The Insomniacs, written by Karina Wolf and illustrated by The Brothers Hilts. I picked it up, of course, because I always judge a book by its cover, and this one was not your typical one.

I also had the opportunity and pleasure of meeting the two of them at the SCBWI conference in New York a couple of weeks ago. They're fun, they're genuine and so very humble considering their talents.

If you're wondering how they work their images together, you're not alone. They like to experiment with lots of mediums, but in this case Ben (the elder of the Hilts) worked in charcoal. His part of the images are more dreamlike with less sharpness on the edges. Sean (the younger one, if you haven't figured that out) worked his part in pencil. His half of the images added the linear crispness. They combine each of their drawings together in separate layers in Photoshop, tweaking away parts of each that might be too distracting. When it comes to adding the color, they each pick and choose which illustrations speak to them, and those are the ones they work on. Once they get started, if the color isn't working for them, the other brother steps in to help. Their method seems to be working rather well.

My favorite page from the book is this two-page spread featuring the bats.

To give you another idea of what they can do, here's one of the illustrations from their site. It's a re-imagining of the cover of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, and I think it's fantastic. So conceptual and simply stated. Just beautiful.

If you would like to get to know them a little better, they were featured on the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog last December.

Very much looking forward to their next project.

An illustration I drew with my FINGER!!!

I bought a new app because I love new apps and I'm a software geek. I can't help it. The app is called ASKetch, and it's made for an iPad.

And it rocks.

I found out about the app because of Laura Zarrin (who I follow on Twitter) who retweeted a tweet from Christina Forshay (who I now follow on Twitter because of this great blog post) who wrote about what she did with the app. I was hooked.

A couple nights ago I sat down with my iPad and, within maybe 15 or 20 minutes, drew this completely with my finger:

 (!)

I'm totally in love with this app! There's no learning curve to use it (it helps if you already know how to draw, I suppose, but I'm sure that's not an absolute prerequisite), and the lines and textures it makes automatically make the simple lines I made look incredible.

As it turns out, I wasn't drawing this little guy for nothing. I'm working on an illustrated manuscript that I needed the drawing for. After a little work in Photoshop, here's how the final (pending editorial approval) version turned out:

 
Thank you, Andrew Kern for this fantastic addition to my media arsenal!

New site up and running

I spent a whole, whole lot of time redesigning and updating my website:

http://www.nora-thompson.com

Among other things, I added media queries (that may or may not work; I'm hoping may) for surfers on mobile devices. I also added some things about my writing since my writer's critique group keeps trying to convince me I am one. I ditched everything Flash on the site, mainly because my iPad doesn't recognize it, and despite loving how it looked.

Something else I'm working on is getting my sites to look like they belong under the umbrella of the same parent company (Thompson Graphx). I updated The Rots' site previously to get things started, and I started building a new site for my new book (both far from being finished) using the same layout.

The geek side of my creativity loves the challenge, and the writer side of my creativity loves the distraction. That would be a win-win I would say.

New portfolio to Issuu

I've uploaded to Issuu the portfolio I'll be bringing to the New York SCBWI conference next week, and here it is:

They must like me

My employers had these flowers delivered last week because of my surgery. I like to think I'm too much of a tomboy to go for flowers, but somehow they get me every time. Aren't they pretty?

Oh, God. I'm such a girl.

Small violinist, big room, part 3

Finished my drawing of Nick & Clarice, and here it is:

I did this one in graphite, both pencil and powdered. Here are the original sketches for it, if you missed those.

Small violinist, big room, part 2

Almost two years ago I posted a sketch that I had intended to use for a postcard mailing. I wanted to do the illustration in color, but I didn't start on it right away which meant I spent some extra time thinking about it. Some things weren't quite right in it for me, but until a couple of weeks ago I didn't take the time to fix the problems.

First off, here's the original sketch:

And here's the new sketch:

 

Not a big difference, but the new version made me much happier.

I also decided not to add color at all. I'm doing the whole thing in graphite with (hopefully) some really cool dramatic lighting. At least that's the plan. I'll post the final in a few weeks.

By the way, the boy's name is Nick and his friend is Clarice.

My gynecologist brings out the best in me

You may have noticed—or not—that I haven't posted lately. So did I. I guess time slips away from you when you're thinking about other things. And what I've been thinking about has done its best to suck the creative juices right out of me.

Let's do this in the least painful way possible. I'm going to type in some words, and you have the option to read what I type or not. It's personal, it's private, and it's making me queasy as we speak (I'm not a medical person like my siblings). This could fall well into the category of "too much information," but I'm willing if you are. If you're uncomfortable with reading about female medical issues, you might be better off moving on to the next post.

Still here? O.K. Here goes.

On October 17 I had my yearly PAP smear. While I was there I told my new (actually my "old" and I went back to her; it's complicated) doctor (who I adore, by the way, that's why I went back) about my funky periods. The first days after I start have been epically wicked for years now. I called them my "exploding days." I won't get into details, but they were fun on days where I had to go to work ("fun" in the most sarcastic use of the word). And then, as if that weren't enough, they pretty much lasted the rest of the month. I could count the days on one hand where something wasn't blooming.

To get the party started, the PAP came back irregular. They sent it off for further testing, but that didn't result in anything more. So end of story there. Ish.

In light of the period thing, the doctor decided to send me for an internal ultrasound. That's the way I like to refer to it. You may have heard of it by it's political name: "Transvaginal Ultrasound." You can read on your own about how they go about giving you one. So for my 48th birthday, I got myself an internal ultrasound.

My follow-up appointment the next week came the morning after I met Neil Gaiman. (Yeah, I know. I'm not sure which incident impressed me more.) The doctor told me they found some issues with my ultrasound, and advised I get a D&C and hysteroscopy. Again, I'll let you read about what those involve on your own. We scheduled that little scooping out procedure for the following Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving.

Of course, every procedure needs a follow-up exam, and that happened last Wednesday. Before we get to the follow-up though, I should probably introduce you to my family. My maternal grandmother had four sisters. My grandmother was the only one of the five who didn't have to have a hysterectomy. My maternal aunt passed away last year from uterine cancer. My mom had had wicked periods and had her own D&C around the time she turned 54. She passed away suddenly a little over a month later (unrelated circumstances), so we'll never know for sure if a) the D&C worked or b) she would have developed her own uterine cancer and needed a hysterectomy.

So. My follow-up.

During the D&C, the doctor removed a lot of junk. The biopsy they did on some of that junk resulted in NO cancer. What they did find were cells that could become cancer: atypical hyperplasia. Or, to be more specific: Complex Endometrial Hyperplasia with Atypia. Of course it had to be complex, and of course it was atypical, because it makes life more interesting that way.

Bottom line, I'll be getting myself a hysterectomy for Christmas. Scheduled Dec. 21 for Winter Solstice. It will also be the 10th anniversary of my wedding engagement. I have an idea for an illustration of an operating room with a Shop Vac hooked up to my belly button.

It wasn't until the follow-up appointment was over (we had spent at least 45 minutes working things out; I got a parking ticket) and the doctor shook my hand to leave that I understood the seriousness of the situation. She stood up and said, "This isn't cancer. We can handle this." She paused for a second. "We removed a lot of tissue. I was worried."

I can only relate her words, but I doubt I can relate the tone with which she said them. Just know there was a seriousness there that said more than any words that came out of her mouth. When I retrieved the parking ticket from my windshield I was shivering a little.

On a positive note, when my doctor and I were trying to figure out when the best time would be to schedule my hysterectomy, I mentioned that I would be heading to New York at the end of January for a conference. She wanted to know what I did, and I told her I was an illustrator and writer. Her eyes lit up, and she said, "I want to be you!" That took a little while to sink in with everything else I had to process.

Yeah. I'm pretty lucky.

So. After having created no art for months, I started a new drawing the next day. My gynecologist rocks.

Jack-O-Lantern Painting

So I've spent the last week and a half fighting a cold. Didn't feel like doing much of anything. I pretty much sat around and coughed up a lung.

But when I started feeling the least bit better, I really, really felt like digging into a painting. I had a couple of birch plywood boards that were already cleaned and gessoed, so I grabbed the smaller one of the two and pulled out some Halloweeny-colored paints.

I wasn't sure when I started what I wanted to do. I had painted a quick sketch of a field of pumpkins and quickly realized I wasn't going to get the painting finished by the end of the afternoon, so I scrapped the idea. But looking at the sketch gave me another idea.

On the upper right I had sketched a moon, and arching across near the bottom was the horizon line. I started throwing on some blueish colors thinking I could paint some kind of night scene, maybe throw in a few tombstones. But as I waited for the paint to dry, I started seeing something completely different. The moon became an eye, and the horizon line formed the top of a mouth.

So here he is: a 5"x7" jack-o-lantern painting finished in one afternoon between nose blowings. I think if I can get a few more of these puppies in the can, they'd make nice greeting cards. It's that "a few more in the can" thing that seems to be holding me back. I'll have to work on that.

Wellsboro Bike Rides=Wildlife Adventure

A couple of weeks ago we trekked up to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, to spend some time on their rails to trails, but we weren't ready for everything we saw while we were there.

On our first day on the bike trail while we were riding along we saw a large animal on the trail ahead of us. When I exclaimed, "It's a cat!" it looked up and saw us and headed off into the woods. It was a cat alright. A bobcat. Bobcats don't like to show themselves often, so that was a real treat. It didn't stick around long enough for either of us to get a photo, but here's a shot of what one might look like up close and personal.

Also on the trail that day were several snakes. The first one we saw we stopped to help him off the trail. Where we normally ride we don't see too many snakes on the trail itself, and we'd rather they not get themselves run over. But then we saw another one. And another. And another. It was like they were everywhere. Mostly they were non-poisonous water snakes, but we did see a couple of garter snakes, too. This was one of the water stakes, and he let me take his picture. Well, sort of. I don't think he was very happy about it.

 

The second day we were there was a bit rainy, so we walked the town and read the day away. During our walk, I snapped this photo of a deer making itself at home in somebody's yard. It didn't seem very surprised at all to see us and wasn't frightened by us being there in the least.

The third day turned out to be spectactular, so we hit the bike trail again. As we rode past some houses, along the top of the fence separating the trail from the yard ran a black squirrel. He ran right along with our riding speed and was about three feet away from me. At first I didn't recognize what it was because I didn't realize that black squirrels even existed. But they do, and we got to see one close up. Unfortunately, by the time I realized what it was, it was too late to pull out the camera.

Did you see the first photo at the top of this post? Shortly after I took it (and put my camera away, of course. This is starting to sound like I'm making this up, isn't it.), we caught sight of a large black animal on the trail ahead of us. At first I thought it was a really big dog, but then it stood on its hind legs and proceeded to climb over the fence on the right of the photo. Yep. A bear.

We saw so many more snakes on the trail that we just decided to do our best not to hit them with our bikes. Snakes themselves are pretty exciting to see on a normal bike trip, but after you've seen a bobcat and a bear, any snakes you might see seem kind of tame.

New site design

I just uploaded a completely new website for The Rots (http://www.the-rots.com), and I'm planning on using the same styles and layout for my kid's illustration site when I get there. I'll be changing the colors to go with the branding I've already designed, but the fonts and layout of the new site will be very similar to The Rots'. I'll have some other changes too, just because I won't be creating pages for the same things, but there will be enough similarities that I'll be able to use the general idea.

I spent a long time getting these pages together and working. My original site was built completely in Flash (http://www.the-rots.com/old), but that was years before Steve Jobs decided the iPads he wanted to sell in the future wouldn't include the ability to view Flash. And I, like so many others, really need to listen to Steve. The portfolio parts on my kid's site are still in Flash, so I need to get those little guys up to speed.

I also had to build separate style sheets for tablets and other mobile devices, because those also weren't much of a factor when I built the original site. But it's finished, and I'll tweak if necessary, and the next step will be optimizing images for www.nora-thompson.com.

Unfortunately, that's probably going to take a while. I'll post here when it's up and running.

Double-spaces after periods

Stop it! Just stop it!

http://www.good.is/post/good-design-daily-do-you-double-space-after-periods/

fig. 1

For those of us (meaning: you) who don't know yet, back in the day when we (meaning: us old people) were learning to type, we were learning on that antiquated mechanism called a "typewriter" (see fig. 1).

Typewriters used monotype lettering, meaning, no matter what the letter, every single letter took up the same amount of space. So an ittie bittie lowercase "i" needed to be just as wide as a monstrous capital letter "M" (see fig. 2).

fig. 2

So that the periods at the end of the sentence stood out a little easier before the beginning of the next sentence, we learned to put an extra space after the period. I guess the idea was that it was too hard to distinguish where one sentence ended and the next one began, so we gave that little period a place to breathe.

What happened then was computers. Computers started getting smart. Not only were they able to use type that wasn't hampered by physical limitations, but they also knew how to give each letter the spacing it needed for optimal reading. They didn't need us to tell them about the extra spaces we had been using after a period. It already knew how much was necessary and said in a condescending kind of way, "Yes. I know."

Problem was, the people who learned how to type on typewriters (meaning: us old people) kept teaching new typists (meaning: those of you who grew up learning to type on a computer keyboard) that double-spaces after periods were the way it was done, mainly because we didn't know any better.



fig. 3 Typographers should avert their eyes from ¶ 1

But now we do, so stop it. It isn't necessary, and it causes empty spaces to stick out through your text when you do it that way (see fig. 3). A block of text should have an overall gray tone, but those extra spaces break that overall gray up in a way that gives typographers the hives.

If you want to fight this change to the death, here's a few good lines taken from the link above:

Using a single space means that you understand that technology has changed since the decades ago when you first used to type. A single space means you realize not everything your teachers taught you in high school still holds true. A single space means you have respect for the journalists and designers who are working hard to take those extra spaces out of the drafts you're sending us.

And who wouldn't want to show their high school teachers that they know better?

Scary mushrooms that pop up overnight

When I came back from an early morning run, I found these three little guys growing rampant in our front yard.

They weren't growing there the day before. It might be hard to see in the photo, but the largest one measured 7" tall (the next largest one was 6"). I think they were deposited here by aliens. They'll take over soon enough.

@neilhimself and geekiness and what one is willing to do about it

I guess it's official: I've become a writing geek. I don't know any other kind of person who would keep themselves awake until all hours just to nab tickets to see a writer talk.

I found out a couple of weeks ago that Neil Gaiman was going to speak at the Carnegie Music Hall at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh nine days after my birthday. My reaction involved many, many exclamation points which, I've learned, real writers are expected to avoid.

To add to the overuse of punctuation, Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures were also going to have a post-lecture party where you could actually meet Neil and he would sign a book for you. (Oh! Get out!) The problem was, you had to buy a VIP ticket to get in, and the Music Hall isn't all that big (1,950 seats total), and there would be a limited number of VIP tickets for sale, and they were expected to go fast, and they were $55 each.

When I explained all of this to my lovely husband, he said, "I think you need to get the VIP tickets." And, being the lovely husband that he is, agreed to go with me and give me the tickets for my birthday! (How do you finish that sentence without using an exclamation point?)

The tickets were to go on sale at 12:01 AM, August 27. That was wonderful, except that I'm brain dead by 10 PM, and can't remember the last time I willfully stayed awake until midnight. But it was imperative that I did.

I had the site up by 11:30 just to get a feel for what I would have to do, which in the end didn't really help much. When my computer clock hit 12:01, I hit "Reload" on my page and went to work. I picked "Best seats available" and "2" tickets and "VIP" and clicked to go to the next page, and a little ticker up in the right-hand corner started counting down the amount of time I had to finish the sale before the tickets would go back in the pool.

No pressure or anything.

O.K. 14 minutes.

But the next page asked for my login information. That's when the panic started to set in. I had lost my hard drive a few months ago where I used to keep a .doc file with all my user names and passwords listed. I've been slowly building the file back up from scratch, but I hadn't bought tickets from Pgh Arts & Lectures since the hard drive funeral, and I had no idea what my login information used to be. I had the bright idea that I could just register a new account, and when I typed my email in and made up a new password, the site informed me that I already had an account.

13 minutes. 12 minutes.

I decided to have them reset my password, but that meant they had to email me a link to do that.

11 minutes. 10 minutes. 9 minutes.

(Yes, I was feeling the sweat, too.)

With my password reset, I double-checked my order (quickly) and gave them my credit card number.

8 minutes. Ugh!

But one final click and happy ending! The beautiful bundle arrived in the mail a few days ago:

And you see that staple up the left-hand side? That means something very special was attached to the back of the ticket.

Something very, very special.

Stop motion at its finest

I went to see ParaNorman last Friday (on the day it opened, of course), and it was fantastic. It was well written, well animated and well paced. It brought up the subjects of bullying and mob mentality, and addressed them without hitting you over the head with a sermon.

Norman also solved the main problem of the movie by confronting it rather than putting a Band-Aid on it and kicking it on down the road. But more than that, he confronted it by talking to it rather than using violence. Conflict resolution: what a unique idea. I'll have some more, please.

Just a little illustration to tease you

I'm working on a novel geared toward middle-gradish kids (like The Graveyard Book or The Book Thief are considered), and I'll also be illustrating it. I've never written anything of these proportions, and sometimes so many words can be overwhelming to a picture person. A couple of times I felt the need to get away from Word and get back into Photoshop just to keep my sanity and my focus and my love of the story.

I wanted to post one of the illustrations I did for the book, just to tease you a little. If I have my way, the illustration above will cover a two-page spread at the start of the book. The text "Part One: Fliers" will be laid over the image on the right hand page about halfway down, under the bird.