Done

Last weekend I worked on another page of my book for Adan.

And suddenly it was done. Like, the entire book.

I was very surprised, since this is something that I've been working on for close to two years. The completion sneaked up. The entire experience has me inspired to complete other "large" projects.

Now all I need to do is scan the illustrations and format the book.

Wow.

And here is an "on hold" sketch I had laying around here of Adan.

Over the summer I took a trip to northern California for a friend's wedding. Adan, my husband, and I stayed with my parents for the short visit. One afternoon my mother mentioned to me a stack of papers that had been under the bed in my old room, that a family friend had brought them over to give to me, and asked if I had wanted them. This was about the sixth time she had asked me, and every time I told her to just give it away to the elementary school down the street. It had been customary since my birth, practically, to give me paper and often times the paper was of poor quality. So, I wasn't jumping at the chance to even look at it.

"The print shop [where our family friend works] is no longer using that type of paper," my mother began. At the word "print shop" I got up from my seat and followed my mother to the box. "So [our friend] brought it over to us because she thought you would like it."

We dusted off the top of the huge flat box and lifted the lid.

It was like opening a treasure chest: high quality, toothy, beautiful, thick paper.

Sorry, elementary school. This paper is mine.



Unfortunately, I decided to take on the illustrations in watercolor and didn't consider the warping water would cause to the paper. It's minimal, though, and shouldn't affect the final look too much, especially after I scan the pages.

Slowly I'm getting this done. But it will get done.

Tonight I whipped up a rough draft for the story part of the book.

It was interesting for me to have spent the latter half of my 27 years on this earth trying to over-think and be analytical about everything, and then to have to suddenly simplify my thoughts for a pre-school age audience. I was trying to make the book subtly educational, but continued to reach the point where the simplicity couldn't be maintained.

For example, Adan the Tiger meets a turtle. On several of the first drafts, I was cemented in the idea that Adan would somehow discover how long turtles were expected to live. But in every draft of the story, the way in which Adan had to find out such facts exceeded the acceptable amount of time for even an adult to pay attention.

I went from an elaborate storyline where Adan's discoveries rivaled those of marine biology graduate students, to combining basic colors and numbers into his adventure. Even then the simple beginning and end of the story of a lost tiger cub seems frayed, open-ended, and unbelievable. How is it that I'm going to write a book about a talking tiger, but I can't get over the fact that he learns about colors and numbers while lost in the jungle?

I suppose today's brain-wrenching activity was just the first of many as I embark on my journey into motherhood.

Letter of Intent

Around month 6 of my pregnancy with my first child, Adan Julian, I decided that I wanted to write a children's book for him. What better way to jump-start my art life again than to create a gift especially for Adan and Adan only. Books are something that most children have, but very few have ones specifically written about themselves; few have the excitement of opening a book past the title page and reading "For my son, Adan."

As a young child, long before my interests spilled from simple images into the words of authors like Roald Dahl, my favorite books were anything Suess, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Corduroy. Colorful and creative, vast picture books printed on glossy big pages, with simple stories and memorable characters sandwiched between library-laminated hardcovers. As I grew older I often fashioned most of my school projects into books I had written and illustrated. Some involved animal detectives, some parodied my favorite cartoon as a youth, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I finished each one. ...and have not been able to complete such a project since I was around 9 years old.

I'll be 27 in January and if my son decides to be born a few weeks early, he will be born on my birthday. I'm certain that a book cannot be completed in that amount of time and be as breath-taking as I like, but the idea of completing a project in time for him to sit-up and stare and drool at my drawings. 18 years is entirely too long to be finishing things that I start.

The synopsis is simple: Adan is a tiger (my husband's favorite animal) who asks a lot of questions and goes exploring to find lots of answers. Along the way he meets a handful of animal friends that he learns from. At the end he reports back to his parents all of the fun things he's learned.