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.

I finally finished the final text. I'm buckling down for the next few days to try and knock out a few pages.



A friend of mine sold a movie script to Warner Brothers. It's insane what a person can do with their talent if one works hard enough. He told an interviewer that he obviously put in his two weeks at his current job.

My body hurts. I wake up in the middle of the night with my joints throbbing.

I don't want to be doing my day job for the rest of my life.

Tuesday night I did a piece of concept art in watercolor, a medium I have been considering using for the book. Either that or watered-down acrylics. I've been hesitant about either one because, while I know how to paint, I don't consider myself very good at it on a traditional level.

The idea that I'm not good at something I know HOW to do well is just the tip of the self-confidence iceberg. Here's a video by Ira Glass that a facebook friend posted a few weeks ago that basically reinforces a point that I have always understood about creation, but never realize applies to myself: That one has to be persistent when they create and understand that there's going to be a lot of awful stuff before one lays their golden egg.



I decided to use the concept art as a "Thank You" card for my baby shower. (Cards you can buy here.)



After looking at the painting a few days removed, I actually like the style.

My next step is to render some backgrounds, which has been a life-time challenge for me, on all artistic fronts. I've always trained myself to be a character designer or animator. My focus in life for a long time was to solely be in charge of the moving elements in animation, the characters in a book. I never had any concern for where they came from, how they came to be, or the visible background they would be laid upon during production.

Looks like I made a huge mistake.