Today I was doing a little cleaning in my studio area (the place is a disaster zone) and found a folder. On it was my name and the words "science" and "math" on it. To best of my recollections, I used it when I was in 7th or 8th grade. But in it, I found pages of drawings and paintings I had done from the age of, I would guess, 8 to age 17. This one here is the earliest one – I know I worked on it with my dad for the Cub Scout troop I was in (that's his handwriting at the bottom) – it was for a fund raiser poster. Of course I had a how-to cartooning book that I was enamored with, and that's where the characters came from. What's funny is that I hadn't seen this drawing in decades and when I look at it today, I still remember the struggles I had with shape and getting the proportions the way I saw them in the book. I wonder where that book is anyway?

Oh yeah, the signature you notice at the bottom was the name I went by in my childhood. I'd thank you not to call me by that name now

The next set of illustrations I will be working on deals with a story I cowrote with some folks I used to work with. In my days in advertising, we had half-days devoted to strengthening our company's culture and understanding of its values. One of these days, our exercise was to work on a children's story – illustrate and write it. My group came up with this idea: a girl is playing in her backyard and discovers a dinosaur bone. Once she picks it up, she is met by an actual dinosaur. It was supposed to have the flair of "Harold and the Purple Crayon" where the object can transport the girl's imagination. It's been a few years since this exercise, but I still have the story, and have revisited it to re-illustrate it. In the original sketches, I used some stock photography for the girl's likeness, but wasn't really satisfied. (These sketches are in the "Sketches" section of the site). So I took some pics of my daughter and used her instead.

As I was looking through my sketchbooks (when I should be sketching!!) I found some lost ideas, remnants of ideas that became something else entirely, and just some weird, sometimes dark, stuff. One ink sketch I found was an exercise I used to do for the illustration class I teach. The project was for a hypothetical children's book writers and illustrators conference whose theme was "magic." And I sketched a little ditty from my mind. You see, I haven't been doing enough of that these last few days – just letting my imagination run wild and letting my hand guide the pencil with it. Sometimes, I think I just need to make some time to relax and just draw. And when I did this drawing, I was doing just that – even if it was based on a class assignment.

Sometimes your kids do things that make you so proud. Maybe they score the winning goal, or get straight A's. My kids just draw and continue to impress me. First, on the left, is a drawing by my 8 year old son, Jacob. While I was working on the color scheme for "Space Boy," he brought me a drawing he did at school – from memory – of his color suggestion! He'd only seen my sketch once maybe twice! At any rate, I used his colors for the boy's shirt and the alien (it was almost purple!) On the right is from my 3 year old daughter, Molly. It is entitled "Molly" (Yes, that it her handwriting). Now she has the advantage of having an older brother who draws a lot – and she is learning quite a bit from him!

One day as the Little Red Hen was scratching in a field, she found a grain of wheat.
"This wheat should be planted," she said. "Who will plant this grain of wheat?"
"Not I," said the Dog.

The painting – she is done. One thing I need to remember: don't buy cheap film frisket. That stuff just lets paint bleed under. I've used other frisket before without this problem. Now which part of the story should I illustrate next?

This has been a very good experience in adjusting eye levels. As much as I thought I was making the hound's eye meet the hen's, it just wasn't happening. So I went further and adjusted not only the eye, but the brow as well, and gave the pupil a little more white under it to further emphasize it's direction. I think I'm where I need to be to start painting!

I've taken this illustration to the SCBWI artists' forum and was given some advice. I think I like where this is going. At first, having the hen look like a hen with it's wild, non-focused eye didn't bug me. But engaging the red hen in the scene by having her look at the seed and the hound works so much better for me. Also, having the hound look up at the hen makes the scene work better in that it draws more attention to the seed and further engages the characters, and has them more anthropomorphized. If I like it enough in a few days, I think I'll start painting.

Right now I'm considering whether to finish painting "Mother's Pride" (see Sketches) or to put it on the backburner and finish this one: based on the story of the red hen. I'm thinking about changing the eye level on the hound to give the impression that he is looking up at the hen. But I almost like that he has that distant stare – like he doesn't care. Also, I may replace the single seed in her "hand" with a bag of seeds that say "seeds" on it. Right now, I wonder if people wouldn't know what that was. Hmmm...

Here it is, in it's full-color glory.

Here's my first effort in over a year. It is based on a single sentence I wrote in my sketchbook, "As soon as he heard the noise, he donned his Space Boy Astro Helmet and grabbed his Space Boy Mega Ray Gun to investigate." Here's one of the final sketches before I started painting.

Well, I made through the first year of teaching. To say the least it has been quite an experience. I've learned so much, and feel that I have so much more to learn. Now it's time to illustrate. (cracking knuckles) I may be a little rusty. Soon I will have a few sketches up of my latest endeavor. Until then…