Halloween Lines

 Cutting out a gold crown on my most favorite day of the year. 

Downpour Lines

 Remember to leave the keys in the very bottom of your bag so that when you dash to the car you have to stand there in the rain digging around and swearing while the shiny gold poster board you bought to make a ghost crown gets all soggy. 

Zoo Lines

 Not exactly? Not remotely!

My daughter, Angelica, has a birthday on Friday. 

She will turn 19. 

My brain can't seem to wrap itself around this idea. But one of the things she asked for was that I drive down to the Smithsonian Zoo with her to spend an afternoon sketching the animals. This, at least, was an idea my brain could figure out. In fact it was the perfect piece of continuity to celebrate my curious, fiercely scientific first daughter. She has been, and continues to be, perhaps the most consistently single-minded person I have ever known. Her love for the natural world is both pragmatic and deeply passionate. She's brilliant. She's frustrating. She is, simply, a wonder. 

Our day began with a morning run to the post office before we headed out toward DC. There was a peeping from behind the counter and my post office friend explained to me that there was a box of chicks that had arrived the day before and had not been picked up. Angelica was quick to offer to claim the (possibly) homeless chicks. We didn't, but it reminded me of when she was just two years old and we brought home a batch of little peeps for the first time. She kept squatting down to kiss them. That is one of those rare moments that etches itself onto the firmware of the brain. I look at that moment and think "that is where it started."

And I can't wait to see where it goes from here. 

Tuesday Lines

 Very much like this but not exactly. 

Weekend Lines

 Not Exactlies:

3:30 Lines

 It's a little bit like this but, you know, not exactly. 

Afternoon Lines

 Kind of like this but not exactly. 

Morning Lines

Sort of. But not exactly. 

The Lone Adventurer, and a Commissions and Prints Update

FIRST THE ETSY ORDERS UPDATE: If you ordered ONLY ORIGINAL PAGES from me, you have likely received them by now. Most of those orders have gone out. If you ordered ART PRINTS ...well, I thank you for your patience. Some of the prints did not meet my quality control standard and so those orders are taking a bit longer than expected. I am hoping to have all the prints mailed off this week though.

OKAY ON TO THE FUN STUFF!

I reeeeeeaaally hadn't intended to participate in Inktober this year, but sometimes, unexpectedly, a story just claws its way out of you. I started the Ballad of the Lone Adventurer with a single, loose sketch and no plan. It grew from there with a life of its own.

And the response was just amazing. I'm very, very grateful for the level of engagement, the discussion and comments that surrounded this unexpected little art-child. I haven't had this much fun live-posting a project in a long, long time.

Many of you have been calling for a print version of this story and I am definitely looking into that. It may take me awhile, but eventually I'll make it available in some kind of physical form. For now though, I'm posting the whole thing here in one easy-to-scroll-through post.

Thanks again, my friends, and Happy Hallowe'en!

The Not-So-Great Pumpkin

Last year, for Inktober, I drew up a little world of Wizards. This year, with so much else going on I made a shorter (and quicker) series of 11 drawings all about a small, sad Halloween spirit called the Not-So-Great Pumpkin.

Here you go:

A Few More Wizards

Well, here we are. Inktober is winding to a close and I think I'm squeaking in with about 15 drawings. I may be able to do a couple more but I have a huge backlog of pictures of kids in Zita costumes to post, now that Halloween is immanent.

For now here are a few drawings:

The Dripping Barrel is the most terrifying thing in this world of wizards. It floats silently about 3 feet off the ground, dripping a poison black ichor as it drifts across the countryside. Most of the time it seems aimless, but occasionally whole villages have perished,practically dissolved, in the Barrel's path. Is is a spell gone terribly wrong? Or is it the still sentient liquid remains of a powerful magic user? Few are brave enough to attempt to find out...

And of course on the other end of the fear spectrum we have Arborus the Branchy, a gentle wizard with a tree grwoing out of his head. Young lovers keep carving their initials into his branches when he sleeps too close to a farm.

And finally, this guy. He's not a wizard at all. Just a tacky performer who often does a little song and dance for the nobility about the dangers of magic. It's a living.

Inktober: A Wellspring of Wizards

Well, it's become apparent that I am not going to end the month with 31 wizards, but this has been a very invigorating process nonetheless. I feel like, with this inktober wizard project, I've been stretching my creative muscles a bit. It's a good thing because all my book projects right now are in the writing and development phase -it's all text files and notebooks full of scribbles. So it's good to be pushing in different directions.

Here's the latest batch of characters from my world of Outlaw Wizards:

Crowquill isn't really a wizard at all. He's a government agent in a ludicrous disguise, sent by the nobility to spread dissent among the wizards. For if there's one thing the nobles fear it's that the exiled magic users will begin working together.

Mighty Rael isn't a wizard either. She was a contented ex-soldier-turned-farmwife until the day her husband was killed by crab-like mage. Now she wanders the Outlands hunting down magic users, and wearing the claws of the wizard that took her true love... (so dramatic!)

Emelia the All-Seeing is a professional treasure hunter and dungeon delver.

And finally there is Emerit the Handsome who is a very powerful wizard, but regrets ever starting down the path of magic because every time he casts a spell he becomes just a little bit smaller.

And that's all for this batch.

In other news, here is a link to a fun photo interview that I did with a book club at the Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle.

And here is an illustrated column in the New Yorker, titled The Endangered Bookstores of New York which has stories from the bookstores across the city and makes a brief mention of me at the very end.

Okay! That's all for now.

UPDATE: Oh! I meant to leave you with a link to this crazy video about the Great Martian War. Discovered via Michael Gagne. It's crazy in the best possible way.