Big Day

It has been a busy month with the preparation of my manuscript and dummy for the first trip to a publisher. There are no guarantees that anything will be published but as an extension of the conference I recently attended, Chronicle Editor Melissa Manlove promised to look over each of our manuscripts and make comments.

It is a little like getting an audience with the pope and having him say, "Hey, how about we go out for drinks?" (This is a humorous way of saying that it is hard! I don't even know if the pope is allowed to drink anything but sacramental wine. But I digress...)

Editors are some of the busiest people in the business. They are also inundated with submissions on a daily basis so any chance to avoid the slush pile is not to be missed. I plan on making a copy of the book available in PDF format to my blog's Three Readers as soon as I figure out a way to make the file manageable.

I'm looking for an appropriate way to celebrate this milestone beyond marking it done in my time management app.

Today also marks the last launch of the Space Shuttle Program. Atlantis launched at just before 11:30 this morning and unfortunately, I had to work. I did get to watch the launch while streaming on my iPod. Something I never would have dreamed of when I was a kid.

I remember getting up early that morning and, with my parent's permission, I turned on the TV before the sun came up in California. I don't remember if I got my sisters up or not. They generally weren't as excited about such things as I was. But I especially remember thinking about the exciting future when shuttles would launch every two weeks and space flight would be routine.

Obviously it didn't turn out that way but it was still fun to imagine. Because of the shuttles we have great technologies and understand out world better. And because of them we understand that space flight is not as routine as we were led to believe. I will always remember where I was when Challenger exploded and when Columbia broke up. Columbia especially since it was my birthday and it seemed that she tried so hard to keep her passengers save. Read the accident report and you'll understand.

Now that the program is ending I understand why but I still wish the magnificent vehicles were not obsolete. It's hard to watch something I loved, end but I think the future of spaceflight looks even more exciting.

We're not going to hang around in low earth orbit anymore. We're setting our sights on the asteroids and Mars. The shuttles were never designed for that and they have become too expensive to keep flying while trying to get to these new destinations.

So now I say farewell to the shuttles and thanks for the great ride!

Columbia
Challenger
Discovery
Atlantis
Endeavour

Conference Notes

This last weekend I had the great pleasure of attending a fantastic conference. The Northern Ohio chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators put on a great program about picture books featuring Laurie Knowlton, Judith Enderle, Stephanie Gordon, and Melissa Manlove from Chronicle Books.

I have come to expect great things from the Northern Ohio Chapter and they delivered yet again. All of the speakers were vastly knowledgeable and completely generous in sharing. I am still digesting the pages of notes and handouts and I find myself guarding them like gold.

I felt like years of knowledge were condensed and poured straight into my brain. In fact on the ride back to Dayton, from Cleveland I found myself going over the things they said to the point of having to pull over a few times to make notes.

Northern Ohio has a very active chapter and they have numerous programs leading up to an annual fall conference. I can't recommend more the need to attend at least one conference. It made a huge difference in my sense of motivation and accomplishment.

On another note. My gallery website has been down for a few days. I am hoping to have it back up soon but until then there's always this blog and my the Jouan Illustration Facebook page.

SCBWI
SCBWI Northern Ohio
Jouan Illustration on Facebook

Art Update

Here is the updated image from the last post. I am having a ball in Adobe Illustrator and I am discovering new ways to get the textures I want. I am particularly happy with the planet cloud details as well as the texture on the foreground panels. It took a bit of wrestling with the program but I solved some functional issues.


I look back on some of my earlier efforts with the program and can see where I have made some progress in my understanding. I really did miss using it. I was just never satisfied with the earlier results. They were fine for some of the basic freelance work but I've never been satisfied with "fine" when it comes to my personal art. Maybe someday I'll explain why I stopped using it five years ago.

My earlier Illustrator work seems almost primitive now that I look back at it. This marks a slightly new direction, or at the very least, a new set of skills in the picture-making process.

I've come to the point in this piece where I set it aside for a while and look at it again in a few days. I find that I can have fresh eyes when I do. I don't always have the luxury of such time but for this one I am experimenting with technique. Not creating to a deadline.

If I still like it in a few days it may become a portfolio piece.

Escaping Isolation

To ward off the inevitable feeling of isolation that accompanies so many artists, I regularly try to read art blogs. One of my favorite lately has been Escape from Illustrator Island run by Thomas James out of Portland, OR.

I find that he puts together a great mix of tips and practical advice for all of us who create illustrations. For instance, he recently compiled a list of tips to improve self promotion through various sources including social networking sites, printed media and online website portfolios.

Working my way back to greater productivity as I have, I found his resources to be invaluable and in some case validating. It helps to know when you are on the right path and when to make changes to maximize productivity.

Getting Back to "Normal"...

It has been the craziest of weeks. For those who did not read the last post, western Ohio lost most of it's power distribution ability during the big windstorm generated by hurricane Ike. As a result, for the better part of a week most of us here had no power. In my part-time hours I work for a local public library and my branch took about a week to get electricity. Being computer based, there was no way to check in books so everything returned was piled up until power was restored.

All my other hours are spent taking care of my young son and painting. I have to admit that it has been a little hard to concentrate on anything but family and home lately. We've had a few home repairs that needed to be made and they have gobbled up all the other time I had.

I did take care of placing a few more images on the website and some downloads for art directors and publishers. The tearsheets are divided into the major areas I work. Science-fiction, children's art and Scientific art with an emphasis on astronomy and physical science.

I even took some time to finally send my picturebook to an agent (I'll create a post on that another time).

I'll soon return to descriptions for art on the website. It was something I started a long time ago but I got caught up in a few projects that took me away from it and onto other things.

ISP Woes

For the last week we have been dealing with the lack of an internet connection. It has reached the point in my life where I would have a hard time choosing between cable or DSL if I had to choose one. (And I sort of lean toward DSL.)

Long story short, the old AT&T was our longtime service provider and we cringed when SBC bought them. Recently the "New" AT&T migrated us from their old service but in the process we received new equipment and a new login. They promised a lower rate and faster service. If that doesn't happen we'll go with another provider in the area that my friends at work have. They love it and say that when you call you get a live person answering the phone! (Amazing!)

The Summer Reading work is progressing well. There was a major change in that the art will now be in color instead of black and white. It was early enough in the process that there wasn't too much backtracking and I think the overall the imagery will look great. The only problem is that having the internet down has meant that delivering digital files to clients oon disc rather than via e-mail. Even simple e-mail was impossible.

Definitely DSL over Cable!

Design Police

I love this site! Sometimes I wish I had something like this for all the times I see bad design in action. My wife calls me the Art Snob when I get into those moods but good design sometimes needs to be enforced! Design Police