Last Sunday, I had a lovely diner breakfast with Amber, and got to discuss all sorts of illustrator-y and picture book-ish things. It's always great to see Amber, and I got a sneak peek of some of her awesome new work as well. She also reassured me that my recently-finished dummy book is more or less ready to go out into the world. Next step, queries?!

However, at one point during our conversation, I believe I said, "Ugh, my blog." So, in the interest of keeping this sucker alive, here are some snippets of things I've been working on, plus something I hope will become a recurring feature.

My Australian roommate is getting married to her Kiwi boyfriend next January. I am so happy for Kate and Simon, and so excited that I'm invited to the wedding in New Zealand! It's one of those places I've always had on my "would REALLY like to go to" list, and now I have a perfect excuse. Here's a tiny snippet of the map I made for the invites.

Conversely, how I spent my Valentine's Day...

...illustrating bacteria and protozoa. Meet Giardia, E. Coli, and Cryptosporidium. Aren't they just dreamy?

Next up, an idea I'm still playing with. These characters hark back to a much earlier blog entry - I will honestly mail cookies to anyone who cares to find them.

And finally... What's Been Eating My Brain

Often, I don't update because my illustration projects are totally scattered (see above) and without a lot of substance or polish (again, above). But sometimes, I don't update because I'm busy indulging in something unrelated to illustration, something that I am geeking out about so hard that I want to share it with everybody. In January, it was Community. This month, it's Breaking Bad.

If you haven't seen either show, do it. Watch them. Now. Totally worth your time and energy. And seeing this news today just wrinkles my brain in the best way possible.

McQueen

*Finally* made it to the McQueen exhibit! My friend Liz was in town from DC, and the whole day worked out perfectly, in the end. After a trip that usually takes 2 trains and 45 minutes (but took 4 trains and an hour and a half yesterday - yay, weekends), the line to get into the building was moving pretty quickly when I got there. Liz was already in line for the exhibit, so after about 45 minutes of running around the museum (literally, a few times - which I'm embarrassed to admit was much more fun than it should have been), looking for stairways or elevators that had not been blocked off, we met up. From there, it was about a half hour wait, and we were in! We looked, we oohed and ahhed, we sketched...

As Liz said, after waiting in line for so long, and shuffling through the crowded first room, the second room was like walking into the grown-up version of Disney's haunted mansion. But after the rather disappointing display in the first room (some mirrors would have helped), the staging of the exhibit was pretty great. LOVED the masks by Guido Palau, though I didn't include many of them here.

We went at a very leisurely pace, and I ended up seeing things I probably would have missed otherwise. Like the angel/Nike (the goddess, not the swoosh) heel on a shoe I otherwise didn't care for.

LOVED the pieces from "It's Only a Game" (inspired by the wizard chess at the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!), the British and Scottish-inspired "The Girl Who Lived in the Tree" and "Widows of Culloden" (respectively), and everything involving religion, history, art history, or a mix of all three. Which was pretty much everything...

By the time we got out (around 11:00), the rest of the museum was closed. After peering round a corner into an empty hall, we both arrived at the same conclusion - time to 'Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' it! Of course, being responsible adult-type, not-wanting-to-be-arrested people, we walked over to Third Ave. to compare notes over drinks and sushi instead. After all, there's always next time.