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.

Branding: Now I have to update everything I own

It was a good idea at the time. Really, it was.

It started with creating a font. That was simple enough. I've wanted to design one for so long...

Then the font ended up on my website. Wasn't that just the coolest thing?

Then I started thinking about how I've always wanted the font of my logo to be something I created by hand. Not a problem.

The problem didn't happen until the reality set in that I was going to have to update absolutely everything in my marketing arsenal.

My new business card

So I ordered new business cards yesterday; I updated my studio invoice with the last commission; I updated the pages that will go into my portfolio, and the file is waiting on a USB drive to take to the printer; the ID stickers I have on my portfolio are updated and waiting to be printed out...Unfortunately, I had a load of postcards printed months ago, and they're all with the old branding. I'm going to have to use them anyway; I don't have a lot of choice.

I love the new look, but the new look means a lot more work than just designing a new logo.

It was totally worth it.

Frankenbot

Got a commission for the cover of the fall The Link magazine, the magazine for Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science alumni. The story is about how Comp Sci students don't just code anymore; they have to build things by hand, too. For example, they build prototypes of the things they are working on like touch screens and robots.

My idea was of creating a robot, Frankenstein-style. I wanted it to have really dramatic lighting, and I wanted to see if I could pull off a colorized pencil drawing. I hope it worked.

My first agent submission

I finally went and did it. My first submission to an agent.

Ever.

You never forget your first.

This also meant I wrote my first query letter, which seems to always want to be spelled "queary" when I type it out. I think it has something to do with the word "queasy," but I'm not sure.

Oh, and my first synopsis.

(Why do you people keep making me write more words?)

Bones are crossed.

Skydiving School

Well, I shuffled off my latest postcard, and it's already generated a few hits on the site (at least, the timing is right for all the extra hits). Always exciting to see. I'm calling the illustration "Skydiving School" for (I hope) obvious reasons.

The image is over there, on the left, and here's the page I put together for the people who want to go green and see it electronically: http://www.nora-thompson.com/postcard.html.

A Font is Born

Last year I sketched out the idea for a typeface that I wanted to make into a font (the first photo here). I did it while I was on breaks at work, so it took a while to finish. I've kept "Make that typeface into a font already" on my To-Do list for a long, long time.

Well, yesterday was the day.

I finished up the punctuation (the second photo here) and uploaded everything to Your Fonts (love those guys), and had my very own font within a matter of minutes.

As a type geek, I can't begin to tell you the amount of dancing that's been done in the last 24 hours.

I've also uploaded that little guy to Font Squirrel, downloaded their Web Kit, tweaked the CSS on my site so the font fits, and now Quirkish is sitting happily as the headline font there for everybody to see.

Love, love, love type.

Domicile inspiration in Wellsboro

 

I ran across a photo I took a few months back (O.K. it was nine months ago), and I still love the look of it. This was a house in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. They have a bunch of old houses that they use as Bed & Breakfasts, but it's been so long I don't remember if this is a B&B or somebody's house. (Sorry if it's your house. I don't mean to be creeping.) So many nooks and crannies. So much personality. I'm keeping this filed to use as a starting reference point for an illustration some day.

Girls v. Boys

This bothers me.

I received an ad in the mail the other day, and was a little disappointed with the back page. That page was for kid's clothes, and at first glance I doubt most people would see anything wrong with it.

I did.

This is what I've had to contend with my entire life. I wanted to go outside and get dirty and play baseball but, since I was a girl, I was expected to be satisfied with skirts and Barbies and waiting to be rescued by somebody's idea of Prince Charming. It wasn't my parents so much as the Powers That Be. There were no Little Leagues for girls (or any boy's ones that would accept us). We had a seventh and eighth grade basketball team for boys, but none for girls, and I wasn't allowed to play on the boy's team. I know. The 12-year-old me got up the nerve and asked the coach personally. And you might as well forget about organized football. That's why they invented cheerleading.

Here's another gag-me moment I had a couple of months ago: Princess Camp. No joke.

Because, really, what little girl wouldn't want to be a princess? "This camp has everything little girls love..."

Not really, no.

I wanted to spend my money and time going to Pirates games, not farting around at the mall or playing dress-up. I felt (and feel) like that little girl in the toy store.



Thankfully I'm married to somebody who knows how to show a girl a good time, who buys me the kind of shoes (and boots) I really want (running and hiking) and gives me the remote during the game.

That's what I'm talking about.

My love letter to Spammers

I seem to be attracting spammers with the update of my website, so I've gone through it page by page and separated all my email references from the mailto links that made them so convenient.

Every. Single. Page.

Spammers suck. And, they think I'm stupid.

So, to try to avoid further junk clogging my inbox, I've changed every email address from @ to (at) and . to (dot) in the hopes that my future contacts will be living, breathing human beings rather than the internet freeloaders I seem to be attracting. It's unfortunate, because the people I want on my site won't have the convenience of messaging me with a simple click of an email link anymore.

My love letter to my most faithful spammers:

Dear Lovely Spammer You,

I'm not interested in your services. If I were, I would have looked you up already. Sorry.

I'm not interested in your selling my email address to your friends as viable and working, and I refuse to open your email alerting you that it is, enticing as the subject line may be. (As an aside, maybe you should find new friends. They're dragging you down.)

I'm also not interested in waking the virus that you've painstakingly taken the time to write and spread. I just don't have a block of time big enough where I can pencil that in. Sorry you did all that for nothing.

I work for a living. Maybe you should look into it.

Love,
Nora

Baughman Trail hike

Rule #1: Get away from work once in a while to keep the creative juices moving.

Rule #2: See Rule #1.

I guess Adobe didn't like my business

It's hard to verbalize the disappointment I'm feeling from yesterday's announcement from Adobe.

The company has decided that, starting with their latest release in June, their programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Acrobat to name a few) will be rent-only. Meaning, you pay the rental fee every month ($49.99 if you pay for an entire year up front), and as soon as you stop paying, the program goes bye-bye. No more holding on to your old physical version for a couple of years because you can't afford to buy the new one just yet.

So those of us who make too little money in our freelance designer and illustrator jobs already, who go broke splurging for the latest Creative Suite package when ours has aged so ripely for two years? We are the ones who will be left in the dust.

Ashes to ashes, I suppose.

I've spent money on Adobe products for years. I bought them separately before they were packaged in a "Creative Suite." I bought them when they were Aldus and Macromedia. I bought CS1, CS3, CS5 and, last December, CS6. On all my sites I've added a colophon singing the praises of the Adobe products I love and use so much.

CS6 will be my last software purchase from the Adobe line.

I'm not a developer. Coding is still a relatively foreign language to a designer. This morning I started my search for alternative WYSIWYG HTML editors to replace the Dreamweaver that made my website designing so much easier.

I think I'll leave the colophons on my sites, but add a strikethrough over the Adobe titles until I've found, purchased, learned and begin using alternatives.

Adios, Adobe amigos. You used to be very good to me.

Reacquainting myself with figure drawing

It's been about ten years since I did some serious figure drawing, and I've been inspired lately to reacquaint myself with the whole process.

This drawing was one I had started all those years ago and never finished. It's hard pastel on pastel paper. I like the light color on the darker paper, but I'm not sure so much about hard pastels in general. This particular drawing was smallish, 9"x12", and I felt I needed a sharper edged detail in some areas than I was able to get with worn-down pastels. Also, when I sprayed the fixative, I'm pretty sure I lost some of the detail.

If I work with these pastels again I'll be prepared for less detail since I'm kind of married to the paper size (I have a couple tablets full of it).

It's a learning process. If you aren't learning, you're not moving forward.

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: