Jennifer Pulver Goldfinger's new blog!

Check out the shiny new and wonderful blog just created by my uber-talented friend Jennifer Pulver Goldfinger! http://jennifergoldfinger.blogspot.com/

Some of her extremely cool, fantastically illustrated books are "The King's Chorus,"  "A Fish Named Spot,"and "My Dog Lyle." (And Jen is also the AUTHOR of the fish book and the dog book.) What a talented person indeed.

Please do visit her blog (you'll love seeing examples of her fine art, as well as her children's illustrations, both finished and in process.) And then GO AND BUY HER BOOKS!

Z is for Zelinsky!

Ah, two posts in as many days. Dizzying, the speed with which I am adding to the Marginalia blog. The power of the Groundhog Day Resolution.

So I decided to follow a blog post about one extremely brilliant author/illustrator (that's right, you remembered! David Wiesner) with another about another. That's right: Paul Zelinsky. PAUL ZELINSKY. (His body of work is mostly as an illustrator, but his writing credits include retellings of "Rapunzel"-- for which he won the Caldecott Medal, and "Rumpelstiltskin" -- Caldecott Honor -- and re-presentations of "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Knick-Knack Paddywhack.") Oh, and pretty much every single one of his books has been recognized with multiple awards.

In early February I went to a three-day conference at which Mr. Zelinsky was a major presenter, so I had the (I know, I know, but I gotta use this word) awesome experience of hearing him talk about his work as he showed examples. OVER THE COURSE OF THREE DAYS. It was, yes, awesome. Plus he is a very nice, very funny person. Plus he sang karaoke with us. How cool is that.

I am, even as I type, wearing the swag t-shirt (black) the conference created with an image of Rapunzel on it. This, with black jeans, makes for a really swell outfit, and is kind of also what prompted my thinking about writing about Mr. Zelinsky.

His bio for the conference said that he is "recognizable for being unrecognizable." This is because he uses a different style (and medium/media) for each book. THIS IS UNBELIEVABLY...awesome. And it truly is, because he brings his virtuosic talent in drawing and painting to each different style. Take a look at Rapunzel or Rumpelstiltskin -- gorgeous oil paintings in the style of the Old Italian masters in the former case and (I would say) with the inspiration of Brueghel and Bosch in the latter (though I don't know this for sure, because he didn't talk about Rumpelstiltskin) -- and then at some of his other books (pick any one of these): Awful Ogre's Awful Day, The Shivers, The Wheels on the Bus -- all of which are lighter in color saturation and lean more toward a lighthearted, cartoon-like drawing style. Each style he uses is very much its own, but always masterfully handled. And appropriate to the text. Wow.

I could tell you a WHOLE LOT about what he said during the conference (including how he uses a graphics tablet to draw when he goes to life drawing classes, or the story about how he spontaneously offered a short tutorial for about five of us, all crouched on our knees looking at his computer screen, in which he showed us how to create a repeat pattern for fabric in Photoshop -- he made fabric from his art for "Z is for Moose" and now has his very own shirt with his art on it. Yes, this is awesome. Also, he taught himself how to do that.) Or I could you tell you just a few things, and let you find out more via links and READING HIS BOOKS.

So here's what I want to tell you: at the age of three (that's THREE), he painted a picture of a geisha (his family had just returned from a brief time living in China), and this picture was some picture: beautifully drawn and full of rich color and detail. I saw it. Remember, this was a three year old. And then -- swooshing past a lot of years during which he drew incessantly on the back side of sheets of mimeograph paper (remember that stuff? smelled great, not so great to draw on...) that his dad brought home from work -- he went to college, to Yale, to major in art. Did a lot of abstract paintings as his professors encouraged him to do (we didn't see many examples of those), but ultimately was drawn again and again to the idea that a painting can tell a story. And so the story ends (or well, begins) happily ever after, in the world of children's books.

The only other thing I will tell you (because it really, really hit home for me) is that this man does a HUGE amount of study and amassing of reference images in preparation for a book. He is a true scholar, and teaches himself, by immersing himself in it, the context and character of the story he wants to tell. I was amazed by the sheer volume of time and dedication he invests in preparatory research. And then onward to rough drawing and painting. Again, huge numbers of character and compositional studies. Over and over again. (We illustrators should learn, really learn, from this.)

The bookends of the brief view I can offer on Paul Zelinsky are that, on one hand, clearly he was born with a great deal of native talent, a brilliant, inquisitive, thoughtful mind and the desire to draw incessantly, BUT on the other hand, he also works very, very, VERY hard to create the masterpieces which are his books. And no single creation is like any of the others.

Do yourself a favor, and immerse yourself in his work. (And then immerse yourself in your own.)

Links to cool POZ stuff follow...

• His website: http://paulozelinsky.com.
• A cool blog post about his visit to an SCBWI event in the Twin Cities (in which you can see him wearing his oh-so-nifty "Z is for Moose" shirt: http://tinyurl.com/d94murz. 
• AND you gotta watch this so very funny book trailer he and the author created for "Z is for Moose." (Creating his own book trailers is ANOTHER thing Mr. Zelinsky has taught himself to do, with terrific results.)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP52OtZxPdg

David Wiesner blogs!

Okay, a Groundhog Day Resolution (which means I have to do it over and over and OVER again):

Post More on The Marginalia Blog

So, since I've been immersed for three-plus months in work on a two-book series about the adventures of a little boy and his stuffed monkey, and I don't think I can share details, 'cause it's not yet published -- I will blog (which is a verb that makes my skin crawl, but whatever) about somebody else WAY more interesting than I.

Did you know that David Wiesner now has his own personal website? (This is new -- it used to be that he had a few pages on the Houghton-Mifflin/Clarion site.) So I am here to tell you to visit that site -- www.davidwiesner.com -- for gorgeous pictures, info about his books, a list of (and links to) his many talks and presentations, NOT TO MENTION his very own blog. Click on the "Portfolio" link to read his posts.

They are very cool. They present beautiful images, from sketch to finished piece. They give you a lot of insight into his process and inspiration(s). And, since it is David, they are also funny.

He puts up a new post on Mondays. Not every Monday. You have to keep going back to see if there's a new one. Make it part of your Monday routine, and be pleasantly surprised (and overwhelmed with the awesomeness) when a new one has appeared.

And now I go to back to painting my favorite little boy and his favorite little stuffed monkey.

Yeehaw! PiBoIdMo 2012!

I just signed up for November's 30-picture-book-ideas-in-30-days challenge! Visit Tara Lazar's blog (click on the picture) to learn more about it, and to sign yourself up! Let's go creatively crazy!

Amabo Obama

Lawn Signs - Large by Vistaprint

Dear Fleisher

So every other year (or maybe every year -- not sure) the Fleisher Art Memorial has a fundraising event they call "Dear Fleisher." Artists contribute works that measure just 4 by 6 inches -- postcard size. Get it? "Dear Fleisher, here's my art. Wish you were here." That kind of thing.

The art -- hundreds of pieces -- is hung with no attribution. Visitors to the exhibit can buy any piece for $50, and you don't know whose art you're getting (unless you're really a collector/follower of someone's work, and you can recognize the piece or the artist's style). It's first-come, first-served, so if you see a piece you want, you gotta make tracks over to one of the white-gloved assistants and blurt out "I want number 72!" And the assistant marches over to #72 and puts a little red dot on it. Sold. It's yours. Problem is, somebody ELSE might have found his or her OWN white-gloved assistant and ALSO made the request for #72, so in that case it's a question of how far away each assistant is from the work in question and how fast they can wiggle through the crowd.

Because, hooboy, it IS crowded. I've gone to the event probably six times, and each time I've gone at least two hours early to wait in a long (though generally cheerful and friendly) line, so as to be one of the first to be let in to the show. People who arrive at exactly the time the show opens either have to wait for the crowd to dwindle even before they can get it OR once they get in, most of the good stuff is already spoken for.

Once you're finished buying up as many postcard-sized masterpieces as you can afford, you check out. An assistant goes to collect your piece(s) and puts a color scan up on the wall in its/their places, so the show continues to look "whole." And you get to see who made the art! (Signature is on the back.) Then you get the piece tucked into a tidy little envelope which includes, usually, some bio material and sundry promo stuff about the artist. Very cool. I have, I think, five pieces of other people's work -- two oils, one watercolor, one batik and one graphite. A little collection of masterpieces for only $250 -- two of which are original David Wiesners, oh my. So, woohoo for me, Sophisticated Art Collector, tra la.

So this is the second time I created a piece to donate. I thought I'd share. I like castles and I love painting stonework and things that look like stone carvings, so...it was to be a sort of reversed castle concept. (Oh, it's watercolor, archival ink, and colored pencil on 140-lb cold press watercolor paper.)

First the color study.

Here's the color lightly roughed in.

Here is is with some of the finishing details in the stone starting to happen.

And here's the finished piece, cut away from the masonite on which it was stretched.

 This is the first piece I did, back in (I think) 2006? 2008? Can't remember. 

I think it's a much better and more interesting piece than the one I just did, but oh well, sometimes you have an idea that doesn't really work. If it makes 50 bucks for Fleisher, then it will end up having been a good thing. Plus I (obviously) have a scan of it, so I can use it for something else (or just pretend it never happened...)

Post-Finish Regression

So I just finished the final pieces of art for a massive illustration project. All told, there were 109 pieces of art -- some full page size, some tiny (but usually with LOTS of figures), some full color, some black line.

Wanna take a look? I took a screen shot of the folder that stores all but 13 of the images I did. These are just teeny thumbnails, so you don't get a sense of what was a larger piece and what was smaller, but believe me, each piece had its challenges. Okay, well, the black line images of the sunhat and the hiking boots were pretty simple...

One of my favorites was this piece, which is one of those "Find 10 things that are different on these two versions of the same picture. I was pleased that I could use Photoshop to recreate a second version of the original painting, and then just add or subtract the 10 things that are different. See if you can find 'em.

Now, as you might imagine, I'm going through the artist's usual crazy combination of exhaustion and exhilaration -- thrilled to have some free time but having no clue what to do with it.This is the time when one usually looks at the overflowing laundry hamper and...takes it on! Nothing like doing a mindless, yet time-consuming (and oh so necessary) task to make the transition from a Full Time Life at the Drawing Table to...What Next.

But instead of doing laundry, I prepped a lot of packages to mail -- all kinds of stuff, from my daughter's boyfriend's shoes that he left here over the weekend, to some photos of a dear friend for his grieving brother, to some small birthday items for some terrific young pals o' mine. And of course the birthday items, being gifts and all that, needed gift wrap. Of which, of course, I had none. So laundry avoidance occurred in the Making of My Own Wrapping Paper.

I used some of my lil' characters to create repeating patterns for a page size of 11 by 17 inches. I have some nice, relatively opaque but still foldable stock in that size, and it works quite nicely for wrapping small things. (With bigger things, the 11 by 17 sheets have to be doubled up and lots of patching and extra taping has to happen.) So I printed out several sheets of each pattern, and happily finished wrapping all the silly stuff for my young friends. My way to have a play day.

Anyway, I am pleased with the four patterns of Rebecca Thornburgh Gift Wrap (tm), and I thought I would share them here. You should try making some yourself -- who cares about clean laundry anyway.