Peter Pan

A bit of fairy dust, a good thought, and POOF! You could fly too!

Last week I read Peter Pan as part of Jacqui Robbin's Remedial English Lit Summer Project. Here's my cocky, young Peter.

Happy Fourth of July!

So, this is a bit belated, but I hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend (if you live in the US). My husband and I spent the weekend helping some friends move down to Texas where we used to live. It was fun to visit old friends, but it was quite a drive - 15 hours of driving each way! Whew! It's a good thing we love being in a car together and listening to books on CD. We listened to Tears of the Giraffe, which was wonderful, and we listened to Whiskers of Evil, which had an interesting plot, but the writing went off into needless tangents and should have been cut in many boring places. It also used Bible verses completely out of context, which annoys me. So I don't recommend the second book, but the first book is a great read.

Moby Dick

I just finished reading Moby Dick as part of Jacqui Robbin's Remedial English Lit Summer Project, and man, if that book was published today, I'm sure most every editor would have cut it down to at least a quarter of it's size! Chapters upon chapters upon chapters of whale anatomy and characteristics - oy!

One of my favorite characters was the little ship-keeper boy, Pip, so I did the character sketch of him above. Here's a section of a scene from Moby Dick about Pip:

"Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?”
“Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whaleboat. Pip’s missing. Let’s see now if ye haven’t fished him up here, fisherman. It drags hard; I guess he’s holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off we haul in no cowards here. Ho! there’s his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! a hatchet! cut it off—we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir, sir! here’s Pip, trying to get on board again.”
“Peace, thou crazy loon,” cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm. “Away from the quarter-deck!”
“The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser,” muttered Ahab, advancing. “Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?
“Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!”
“And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve through! Who art thou, boy?”
“Bell-boy, sir; ship’s-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high—looks cowardly— quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip the coward?”

Stuff about me

The Picture Bookies interviewed me here: http://www.picture-bookies.com/KristiInterview.html

Borderlines

I have an illustration in Borderlines, the quarterly newsletter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Midsouth Region. You can view the pdf newsletter here. This issue has some great illustrations along with advice about writing for magazines, writing middle grade novels, snagging an agent, and more. If you're interested in writing or illustrating for kids, you can find more SCBWI regional newsletters from all over the world here. Enjoy!

Illustration Friday - "Forgotten"

I had forgotten to add a title to this sample cover illustration I had created a few weeks ago. I had originally created it for the Illustration Friday topic, "wide," and asked for your ideas for a title name. I went with Woody's suggestion of The Last Divide. Thanks Woody! I also played a bit more with the illustration.

Baby Mowgli

Ok, right now I'm supposed to be sketching a Highlights illustration (my first Highlights assignment - yay!) and I'm supposed to be working on paintings for two different leveled readers, but since I just finished The Jungle Book as part of Jacqui Robbin's Remedial English Lit Summer Project, I took a quick break to sketch a fearless, baby Mowgli who won the heart of a wolf family. So here's an adorable, jungle baby. Now back to my fun paying illustrations...

Illustration Friday - "Baby"

Picture Bookies!

The Picture Bookies is a group of 8 professional illustrators and writers dedicated to their craft and to inspiring kids to love and read books. They invited me to join, and I'm so excited! I received such a warm welcome already.

Here's the Picture Bookies website: http://www.picture-bookies.com/
And the Picture Bookies blog: http://www.picture-bookies.blogspot.com/

The Picture Bookies have another blog where they showcase the work of almost 50 illustrators who have been invited to join the showcase blog: http://www.picture-bookiesshowcase.blogspot.com/

Illustration Friday - "Worry"

These top four sketches are from my sketchbook this week. I'd like to add a "Sketches" section to my website portfolio. Which ones do you think I should use? I have lots more sketches to choose from too; these were just the ones that I felt went with the Illustration Friday topic, "Worry."

I sketched these two, cute brothers in the subway station in New York. The smaller one kept trying to pull his older brother away from the yellow line that he's not supposed to touch while waiting for the subway. He was sooo worried that his brother would fall in. I think I captured the older brother's attitude pretty well here.