the good life

I've been watching 4 of these guys frolicking in the big maple outside my studio window for the last few days.

Being able to nap high in a tree while wearing a soft coat of fur sounds pretty darn nice.

the way to do is to be.

I wish I had time for painting outside. I love weather, and pure painting like this is bliss.

marooned

I had not heard anything about the uber-genius Freeman Dyson since reading 'The Starship and the Canoe' about a decade ago.

The New York Times Magazine had a feature story about the venerable heterodox's take on global warming and other things.

His belief that creativity is subversive hit me where I live. As I'm working on designing and illustrating my first manuscript for Harper, I've been running along that razor's edge between creating something novel and daring, subversive if you like, or going with what I know to be successful, since I ardently desire this book to be successful itself. (Successful enough to keep me in funds so that I can continue to write and illustrate books--it's rather fun.)

I've lived long enough to know that necessity is the mother of convention, and having a mortgage to pay and a kid to raise is a powerful pile of necessity.

So. Risk or safe?

Why, compromise of course! But if what you produce is not NEW and INTERESTING, it will be overlooked or quickly forgotten. So risk is safer, yes?

Safety can be risky, but risk is not always the sure route either. So I'm risking no matter which route I take. Therefore I might as well risk, since there is always risk. Risk is not truly risky, since nothing is safe.

I have to lay down now...

eureka!

After nearly two months of work, I finally have the design for my book 'Hugs from Pearl' roughed out.

Once the manuscript was completed, there were about a thousand ways for the art and design to go. Watercolors, pastels, fully rendered, cartoon, pencil line, ink line, saturated colors, pale color. Uff-da! A lot of decision making. My brain feels it's gone 15 rounds with Rocky Graziano.

Now I just have to send it to my lovely, keenly perceptive and awesomely brilliant editor at Harper. Wish me luck.

snarl

Boy am I in a mood today.

thirsty?

From 'The Wonder Book'.

striking the balance

I endeavor to keep a fresh, impromptu quality to my illustrations. After so many revisions by the editor or author or designer, it is difficult to work a drawing over and over yet keep it from looking overworked and lifeless.

A balancing act; perfection and spontaneity. They were arguing about it 600 years ago in China.

Fu Shan:

"Calligraphy should rather be awkward than clever.
Rather ugly than pleasing.
Rather crumbled than suave.
Rather plain than assembled."