jotting down ideas

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haven't had time to complete anything but commissions lately, but have got a lot of new ideas. these are some sketches for a long tail kitty minicomic, with all his neighborhood friends.






typically, i draw wherever it feels comfortable on the page, then go back and number the drawings so as not to forget the sequence. sometimes i draw in the dark, to prevent becoming fussy with details. in this case, the light was on, but there are examples of sketches done in the dark on my flickr page.

drawn in a pretty dark room
most of the time around 3 or 4 in the morning

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huffing and puffing

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this is a proof
visit my flickr page for more of the long tail kitty book

holidays are upon us, i am scrambling to stay on schedule. the small paintings are coming along. the big ones not so much. comics abound, the ltk proofs have gone through their first round.

prepping small canvases for solo show in February
for pre-orders, email me

it was terrific and fun!

i am trying to incorporate some of the inspiration drawn from lynda barry's Writing the Unthinkable seminar. she has a lot of healthy ideas. it will be good for the Brave Mr. Elephanter story i've got going with Candlewick Press right now.

notes to myself for Brave Mr. Elephanter

the one thing i find especially challenging is rewriting my stories in ways that make more sense to less creative types. by this i mean the structure of stories have to be resolved in a more logical kind of way. the trick i think is to "make sense" without relying on standards or conventions which tend to dull a story and make it rather predictable. big blockbuster cartoon movies are a good example of using formula to maximize efficiency in storytelling, but while they make quick sales, i never feel the desire to see their movie more than once, if at all.

i have been pondering the structures of old children's stories, fairy tales and such, and am a little jealous at how loose and frivolous some of them actually are. Rootabaga Stories, by Carl Sandburg and Italian Folktales, by Italo Calvino are some of my favorites. i wish i could write like this, but we don't really live in a day and age publishers like "random". at least all the editors i've talked to (and i've talked to quite a few now) don't think it's such a sellable idea.

one thing i'm discovering about myself while working in a public setting is that i lean towards the world of nonsense. i think it is what allows me to come up with new ideas all the time. but because of this tendency, communication is more abstract and difficult; because i am asking the reader to jump in and learn a new language and to enjoy themselves it all at once. i am looking for an audience that wants to be engaged. i hope these changing times will open a new adventurous spirit in people so that i may share these moments of creativity with them.

on a side note, i went to the Totoro 2nd opening at the CAM and chatted with a few artists, including James Jean. while i like his art a lot, we spent most of the time discussing our passion for abstracts, which really was just a bunch of complaining about formulaic art. when i got home i couldn't stop thinking about what a negative jerk i was and it kept me up until the birds were chirping. i was sorry for being a bad conversationalist, but what i'm still bothered by even more is that i am not doing abstracts, and that is the biggest jerk move of them all.


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a bright and honest future

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