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.

Community

Troy and Abed in my skeeeeetchbook...

Oh, Canada

Just returned from a week-and-a-half-long trip up to Prince Edward Island to spend some time at the little house my parents built this spring/summer. Of course, while I was there they put me to work...

The kitchen cupboards were done pretty hastily and will require another trip to finish. And no, of course I didn't plan it that way. >_> What would make you think that?

We also made the obligatory trip to Green Gables, and to Lucy Maud Montgomery's birthplace. It was nice to see it not blanketed with three+ feet of snow, as has been the case every other time I've visited Canada. I'm already excited to visit next summer, and hopefully to get a set of the 'Anne' books for the cottage. It's a perfect place to curl up with a book and read!

Book-Making

Dummy book, finally!*







*It still needs massive work, obviously. Things I want to accomplish this week: 1) buy some magenta paper to serve as end paper to bind the whole thing together. 2) reprint and re-tape EVERYTHING. 3) Figure out if I want to go bright or retro with the colors and do two finals.

I put this project aside for several months, as I was starting to second-guess everything. Upon recent inspection, I'm only second guessing every other thing - progress! So now it's time to fix the things that bug me and make all necessary corrections. But it does look rather nice and semi-professional sitting here on my desk, which makes me happy.

Mr. Boddington's

I've been slacking off on applying to graphic design jobs lately, as I finished an awesome freelance job (more on that when it debuts in the fall) and felt like resting on my laurels a bit. But when I saw an advertisement for a graphic design position at Mr. Boddington's Studio, I started sketching right away. I've seen some of their stuff before, at Style Me Pretty, and while I'd love to work for any stationery design studio, I feel like my style is particularly suited to this job.

I'm so happy that they asked A) for applications to be mailed and B) for a bit of design work specific to their studio and style. Here's what I ended up with.

The advertisement asked for applicants to create a moving announcement for the studio, as they've recently relocated cross-town to Chelsea.

The liner, which may be my favorite part. It was much easier to make than I'd imagined - definitely something I want to start doing for myself. The pattern is one my best friend Meghan would doodle on notebooks when we were in high school - I totally stole it and have used it for different projects since. Meghan is *so* getting a credit in the first book in which I use it.

The front and back of the announcement. Originally, I was going to make the map the front, but as it became so graphic heavy, I decided to move most of the text to the other side.

I also included samples from other, relevant jobs, including this Save-the-Date I designed a few months back. It features the couple's cats - I did several different designs, but I love the one they picked for the final. Just super sweet and pretty.

And hurrah for triple checking my work, as somewhere in the process, I'd managed to write down the wrong zipcode and had to reprint/rewrite everything twenty minutes before leaving to mail it. I ended up losing the sailor's knot on the envelope. I loved it in theory, but in practice, it wasn't quite what I'd hoped.

Also, as I was working on this, my color palette was influenced by another project I've been working on - painting the apartment! My roommate had kitted out our bathroom when I went to visit my parents a few weeks back, and I love the shower curtain she picked out (it doubles wonderfully as a photo backdrop). We wanted a color that would compliment it, but wasn't exactly the same. I pulled several paint swatches that worked, and from there we decided on a favorite - shark!

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.

Dudes

Drew this last October, but it seems appropriate to post it now, after getting to see Real Madrid play in Philly this past weekend. Had a great time, needless to say.

As an artist, I've always had more fun drawing girls (hair! dresses!). So it took me by surprise when, shortly after moving back to Brooklyn, I showed my new roommates what I'd been working on for the past six months and one of them commented, "Wow, so you draw a lot of guys."

And it's definitely true, at the moment. Specifically, little cartoon soccer player guys. Hopefully, I'm going to branch out and draw some of the women's players soon as well. Also, you know, finish my own projects that are so close to completion. But for now, boys, boys, boys...