Seagulls

Seagulls live on my roof. I think of them as frenemies.

One minute I am enchanted by their sound and tenacity. The next I am annoyed with their excrement.

Either way I find that I often draw them or put them in my work.

See the seagull on my chimney?

Storystorm!

Sometimes I go to the bookstore having already spent my book budget for the month. I do this because I cannot resist bookstores. Whenever this happens I find myself wondering, why oh why am I doing this to myself? I know I'm going to buy a book—probably more than one. And perhaps even one of those books will NOT even be a picture book. And then not only am I being bad with my budget I'm also going to want to read that long non-picture-book book RIGHT NOW! Only inevitably I will already have a stack as big as my leg (or possibly larger) of non-picture-book books I want to read RIGHT NOW. Also, didn't I just do this, like last week? Yes, I have a problem. I can't help it. I LOVE BOOKS!

So what, you may be asking, does this have to do with the title of this post—Storystorm? Storystorm is this thing in picture book land where picture book writers gather (virtually) over on Tara Lazar's blog and support one another as we each come up with a picture book idea for every day during an entire month. I have no idea how many years I've participated in Storystorm (used to be called PIBOIDMO). I will not go back and look because that will make me feel like I am getting old too fast. Let's just say it's many. And the practice has not only helped me come up with many fun ideas during the month it takes place, it also has taught me to cultivate ideas all year long. And it has to do with my enormously large pile of to-read books because just like books, I have WAY TOO MANY IDEAS!

But joking aside, I actually like having too many books and too many ideas. The abundance of these things matters. I've heard it said that you only need one good idea. Sure. And I suppose I'm supposed to feel satisfied with one book too?

I make my best work when I throw my perfectionism out the window and aim for quantity over quality. Yes, I want quality—but I find that it comes only from vigorous practice. And that vigorous practice only comes from a spirit of quantity. Quantity helps me achieve quality.

This is true especially with ideas. The more ideas I come up with, the more I find the ideas to be interesting. It never fails.

So here's my annual cheers to another month of brainstorming ideas with Storystorm! And while I'm at it I'll raise my glass to brainstorming of all kinds—where quantity cultivates quality. And also I'll raise my glass to the giant mountains of books that are waiting to be read, in my house, in my library, and in my local bookstore. Is there anything better?

Cheers to abundant possibility!

StoryStorm 2017: This is fine

Today I finished up my 31 picturebook ideas for Storystorm 2017 (formerly known as PiBoIdMo). Hooray! I love Storystorm. I get many (most?) of my good ideas through the practice of brainstorming so this exercise is always a natural fit for me.

This year I notice a theme through many of my ideas: anxiety. Probably not a surprising theme for January 2017.

But especially not a surprising theme from someone who had severe issues with anxiety as a kid but whose severe issues were completely without name or notice at the time. How many times did I hear the dismissive, "Stop being such a worrywart!" Too many. Maybe the reason BEDTIME FOR FRANCES by Russell Hoban was one of my favorite books as a kid was because of how dismissive all the adults were of Frances's fears in that book. I related to that problem as a kid (my grown ups loved me just like Frances's do—love you mom!—it's just that grown-ups don't always get it).

My dad died when I was three and in my small town, as well-meaning as everybody was, everyone avoided talking about the bad stuff. With hindsight I see that I was like a deer caught in headlights for years and no one really acknowledged that it was scary as hell to lose my dad. And no one acknowledging it made it scarier.

I've been having a bit of déjà vu in the last week with the new president and the whirlwind of chaos that has followed. There still are so many strange silences from people I know. And I view those silences with curiosity and sadness.

And also as inspiration. Maybe I can take my childhood fears and make something of them now. Maybe I can even make them funny? 

Or maybe I'll just make a book about a duck.

Anyway, go check out the famous This is Fine comic if you haven't seen it. It's been used already for lots of memes on the internet. But with regards to all of the above thoughts on anxiety, it's horribly perfect for this week.

And if you want to see the artist's update (because hope is nice) here's a link to that too.

Pictures from The Last Bookstore in LA

I had a FABULOUS time at the recent SCBWI conference in L.A. I loved the new location, I took away great thoughts for my work, I got to see muppets in action (!) and I was nominated for the Sue Alexander award.

I've been busy busy busy fixing some work. Sometimes I need a break from the Internet when I'm hard at work/play (am I the only one that feels like the Internet can be an echo chamber?). But I felt like it was long past time I at least posted these pics

Isn't this bookstore amazing? Their art section was my favorite. Although they had a stellar comics section too.

Cheers to a playful and promising summer's last few weeks.

Back on the bike!

I posted this on facebook but thought I'd post here too.

Starry Starry Ride...

This week I'm celebrating the magic of getting back in the saddle after a setback. I cut this collage out before

my bike crash

last summer. Needless to say, I had no desire to finish it after my crash.

But this past week I decided to follow through. I glued it to mark the week I finally got the courage to get back on my bike (a little over a week ago now).

Cheers to getting up and trying again after a crash.

More new illustration

 

Here's one for contrasting emotions.

I started this one with both my kids at home squabbling in the background. What inspiration!

The original paper I used for the scales is one of my favorites. It looks like a basketball in real life:

Meditative drawing

I posted this on Facebook but thought it might be nice to post here too

:

A combination of too much chai yesterday afternoon paired with anxiety from reading way too much about the Paris attacks before bedtime left me wide awake in the middle of the night last night. 

Usually if this happens I get up and write in my journal or read a book or do some yoga and I can manage to go to sleep again. 

I don't often draw when I wake in the night because my inner critic rages at the midnight hour (unless I've stayed up in a manic obsession over a specific project). But I've been teaching art this fall and I showed the kids I teach how to draw Indian Rangolis a few weeks ago. Turns out Indian Rangolis are pretty therapeutic to draw when my brain is in overdrive. 

It felt like a quiet rebellion to use my anxiety as an excuse to focus on beauty for beauty's sake while I cozied up to the stove in my studio. Here are my prayers for Paris and the world, drawn mostly in the anxious hours of the early morning, myself like so many: striving in the face of fear to turn toward the light. 

I'l

l add that I've had a lot of requests for coloring sheets.

Good idea. The

se aren't great pictures because they are just s

napped with the scanner app on my phone but I'll put some up so

on for anyone i

nterested.

Weavers in Laos

In our last months living in Malaysia, my family and I squeezed in every second of travel we could possibly squeeze in. It all went by so fast and everything was so busy that sometimes I'd visit some amazing new place or country and not even make a peep about it here on my blog, or on facebook, or even to best friends. 

Now that I'm home and things are *starting* to feel a little more normal in life (what's normal? I'm kind of glad it escapes me), all our travels can seem like some sort of crazy dream. Like, wait, was I really in Laos just a few months ago?

Yes.

And maybe it's not too late to share some neglected cool stuff from there and elsewhere in my last few months of living abroad.

I wanted to go to Vientiane, Laos, because I had read about Laotian weaving...

I have a thing for weaving.

Maybe because my aunt is a textile designer and as a kid I always looked up to her (she was a real artist! Wow! Could I be like her someday?).

Or maybe because of the texture. Or the implicit warmth in the medium. Or maybe it's because textiles are just so beautiful.

Anyway, my work-in-progress novel has a grandmother character who is a weaver and who also spins thread so it was lucky serendipity that I got to watch some weavers in action while I was working on writing a book that included their craft.

The weaving studio I visited in Laos is owned by an American woman, Carol Cassidy, who hires local weavers and designs pieces for selling abroad and in her gallery. She is working to keep some of the more traditional methods of weaving and ikat alive.

Woman weaving an ikat piece.

What's ikat? AWESOME is what it is! It's a kind of weaving where the threads are tied in tight bunches before they are dyed. The dye doesn't color the parts of the threads that are tied so that after you remove the threads, whatever color was underneath remains the color it was. A beautiful pattern reveals itself when the threads are later woven into cloth.

Ikat thread bundles, tied and ready for dying

Ms. Cassidy, the owner of the studio, was there when we visited.

Ikat thread getting ready to go on a loom

She showed us around and said it was fine to take pictures and watch.

It was one of my favorite craft experiences I had while living in SE Asia.

 

Ms. Cassidy was a delightful host and her enthusiasm and passion for her studio and work brought a smile to my face.

Oh my gosh, COLOR!

Also, as a side note, if you ever get the chance to eat Laotian food, do! It's delicious.

 

Lucky for me, while I wanted to go to Laos to check out some weaving, my husband wanted to go for the food. He took a cooking class. Yum!

 

And our son? Well, there was good stuff for Oscar in Vientiane too.

Shearing Sheep

Sometimes, when I return to my blog after a good travel adventure, I feel overwhelmed. Too much I could share. What the heck do I choose? How do I put anything at all into a blog-sized bite. Other times I feel raring to go with lots of posts and only the question of how many is too many?

 My trip to Western Australia left me wondering how many posts are too many. So at the risk of over-sharing, here's another highlight from my trip: I visited a sheep shearing farm!

One of my favorite books as a kid was Tomie dePaola's Charlie Needs A Cloak, and I felt a bit like I was stepping into a small part of that book at the farm. After all, I saw sheep getting sheared! Just like in the story! (No weavers though).

 

Another cool part of the sheep shearing farm were the dogs.

 I had never heard of the sort of dog that runs on top of sheep! I think it's called a Kelpie.

 We even got to feed a baby lamb.

 

Baaaaa!

WHALES!

Fifteen minutes into our boat ride we saw...

 WHALES!

 Two of them!

Humpbacks.

 They were young whales, or so our guide told us.

So they were curious.

Which could explain why they hung out with our boat for 40-50 minutes,

popping their noses up,

 swimming back and forth under and around the boat,

and sometimes even waving their noses at us when we waved at them (it's true! the guide told us to try it, and it worked! Curious whales sometimes play with people like that, he said).

It was one of the most magical moments of my life.

My son loved it too.

 We also saw two Southern Right Whales involved in, ahem, courting.

They were a bit less interested in our boat though.

We even saw sea lions.

 It was a day I'm certain I'll never forget.

P.S. This was all while still in Western Australia, for those who didn't read my last couple of posts.

A moment of zen in the clouds

 Today is my birthday!

 I'm off to Western Australia this week to celebrate.

 Meanwhile I thought I'd give a little reverse birthday cheers to anyone out there reading this.

 Here's a few photos, a little moment of zen, from the flight I took last month from L.A. to Seattle.

 When the weather cooperates on that journey, you see mountain, after mountain, after mountain. And it's absolutely beautiful.

I wish for you a mountain-top moment or a head-in-the-clouds good-version-of-dreaminess today.

Cheers to a great day!

More color in Penang, this time using the Hipstamatic

 I took these pictures in Penang, Malaysia, using the Hipstamatic photo app on my Iphone.

 Pretty cool for phone pictures.

 My sister's been using an app called Instamatic. Supposedly it lets you change your pictures retroactively for similar results. I'm very curious if I'll be able to use any texture photos taken this way for my illustrations.

Time will tell...

Kite Maker or Collage Artist?

Last week my family took a short trip north to an area of Malaysia called Kelantan.

Many artists around one of the main cities of Kelantan, Kota Bharu, are especially known for practicing several traditional Malaysian handicrafts. The painting above and detail of it below, done by a Malaysian artist named Yusoff Abdullah, hung in the airport at Kota Bharu. The painting depicts many of the local handicraft traditions*.

One of my favorites of these traditions is known as Wau, or kite making.

Kite makers use large wooden frames that they bend out of thin sticks:

And the patterns on most traditional kites are intricately cut out of colorful papers and layered over one another.

Here's an artist at work cutting a pattern using an exacto blade on a folded sheet of foil.

I watched him use a blade sharpener. It made me pause because most paper artists I know back home throw out their blades rather than sharpening them. (I personally most often use a scissors, FYI).

Here's a close detail to give you an idea of the layers of paper. Every color below is a different colored paper, glued on top of one another.

Inspiring!

* The signature here is from the painting at the top of this post. I mentioned that the artist's name was Yusoff Abdullah, a Malaysian artist who I could find little information on, which is why the uncertainty and the lack of links. Please accept my sincere apologies if I've given credit wrong! Also, please correct me, if someone out there knows better, I'd prefer to properly give credit and links if they exist.

Malaysia National Craft Day

I live just down the street from Kuala Lumpur's craft complex, called Kompleks Kraf Kuala Lumpur (basically that means Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex in the local Bahasa language). 

Recently they had a big festival full of artists and craftspeople from all over Malaysia, selling their wares and also offering demonstrations.

 

I only took pictures in the demo area, but my favorite tent to walk through was the tent full of colorful batik clothing.

Picture an entire gymnasium crowded with booths of swirling bright colors and floral water-color like patterns.

Many of the artists offering demos weren't around when I took these photos, but I was able to go back and watch others later in the day.

I especially liked the kite maker, who cut impossibly intricate designs out of foiled paper and layered the designs onto paper stretched over a frame.

Hmmm... it just occurred to me that it might be fun to make an illustration sample with one of those kites included.

Did I get that idea from the craft complex or by blogging about it? Either way, I'm grateful. It's fun to be inspired to make an illustration sample that's a perfect match for your medium and your current adventure.

Serendipity

This is one of my favorite pictures I took in Sri Lanka, just because it caught such a serendipitous moment of color -- the kind of serendipitous moment of color I'm constantly on the look out for and love to find. I just love the stripes of the guys shirt with the stripes of the tree and the red hat and the shorts that match the tuk-tuk perfectly. It may not be fine art or whatever, but it was a happy color moment.

My wish for you today? To dwell upon any happy accidents -- fortunate accidents. They happen more often than we notice. Or maybe someone who needs it most can have a little happy accident today. Is that a strange thing to hope for? No one hopes for accidents. But what about happy ones? Those surprises in life that are unplanned. If we never had happy accidents, we might never fall in love. So I hope for a little happy accident for someone who would appreciate it today. A good one. A moment of serendipity.

"Serendipity is putting a quarter in the gumball machine and having 3 pieces come rattling out instead of one -- all red" ~ Peter H. Reynolds.

Sri Lanka

 We just returned from Sri Lanka!

 In Sri Lanka we spent time doing tons of stuff Oscar loved (we loved it too),
like whale-watching (we saw a Bryde's whale),

taking tuk-tuk rides,

 playing in the ocean,

seeing elephants and peacocks in the wild (along with a whole host of other animals),

 reading on balconies with pretty views (yes, Oscar liked these times because he liked down time to play with his train),

  and best of all, riding on LOTS and LOTS of trains!

We also saw a cultural show with drummers and acrobatic dancers (Oscar's smile was infectiously wide),

 and stayed at crazy-interesting hotels, like Helga's folly!

 How much fun could an adventurous family with a kid have?
Well, the temples weren't really a kid thing to see.

  But wow! 

We did have one moment of breath-catching world-stopping fear.

 A train window on a small commuter train (a train window with a mighty sharp edge) slammed down like a guillotine a millimeter from my precious little boy's fingers. For a second I thought my entire world had changed (really, it would have chopped them off). But somehow his little chubby fingers were spared. So strange how a tiny fraction of a second could have changed his whole life (and mine by extension). But instead, thankfully, became nothing more than a mere footnote. Yikes. 

(I couldn't help but hear the naysayers -- the imaginary ones in my head -- saying, "I told you that you shouldn't be traipsing around the world with a little kid! Think of the dangers! Serves you right! What a terrible mommy you are!" Those naysayers sure are a pesky lot for adventure companions).

 Unfortunately for others around us in Sri Lanka, heavy rains were creating many life-changing situations. It was the worst in the cultural triangle, up north.

 

In fact, we never made it to the hotel we were supposed to stay at there -- the roads were flooded!

 I couldn't stop thinking of all the houses and businesses I saw standing in water. 

I thought of all the stories surrounding me and hoped and prayed for their heroes to pull through.

We did see plenty of smiles, by the way, despite the rain, and sweeter because of it.

 We also visited an elephant sanctuary and a elephant dung paper-making factory (yes, elephant dung paper -- crazy, huh? I'll put a separate post up about that next week)

 This trip, more than any other I've taken, seemed to feed me with new ideas for illustrations and also for writing.

 Maybe it was all that time spent indoors during the rain.

  But anyway, I had no distractions when I got home (the Internet wasn't even working) so I dove straight into my new ideas. Yay for diving right in.

Oh dear! I almost forgot to mention the food!

 Sri Lankan food is incredible, and different than anything else I've eaten.

 I'm usually not a savory breakfast sort of girl, but the Sri Lankan savory breakfasts we ate (pictured above) were unforgettably good. Please note that they are Bryce's favorite.

Look at all these curries and chutneys:

I'm so grateful for these rich experiences I'm sharing with my family right now.

I'm also grateful for the moments of clarity I've been having regarding my work -- especially those moments of perspective that come after a difficult battle with a stubborn art piece or a stubborn mental attitude.

 Nothing like dragging yourself away from the familiar to see things in a new way. I suppose that's sort of what this entire time living abroad is shaping up to be: a time for learning to look at life and my work in a new way.

P.S. We also brought a new member of the family home from Sri Lanka, the spiky guy pictured above, name: Rasheedi.

My cheerleader is in town!

 I've had my mom visiting here for the last two weeks!

 

These are pictures from the Islamic Art Museum.

 I had to share one of my favorite art spots in Kuala Lumpur with my mom!

 My mom's my cheerleader. She always brings out my inner little engine that could.

 She's also an ex-English teacher and an extremely helpful copy-editor. It's good to have a copy-editor on your team.

 

Laini Taylor put up a great post about cheerleaders a few weeks ago. Maybe you saw it? 

If not, here's the link.

 

So who is your cheerleader?

To Bali and Back

I've been in Bali with the family the last couple of weeks.

 

Is this my life?

 

Yes, I suppose so.

 My favorite part was meeting artists and seeing the places where they work. 

 Bali has some of the most amazing handicrafts in the whole world, which is one of the reasons I wanted to go there. 

 And I wasn't disappointed.

I especially loved the Ikat weaving,

 

the shadow puppet studios, 

the carving that was everywhere, 

 and seeing children learning to draw.

 I also loved this place called Threads of Life which is an organization that promotes preserving traditional weaving traditions throughout Indonesia.

 Overall the trip inspired me. 

I was inspired by the way the people expressed their spirituality,

by the scenery,

 by the colors,

and perhaps most of all by the way it seemed everyone on the island was an artist (I'm not exaggerating that point).

 Sometimes I'm frustrated living in Southeast Asia; I feel like there's more obstacles than usual to my work and I'm also so far away from the community I love.

 But, as I've said before, I'm also so, so, deeply grateful for this experience and adventure into the new and unknown.

And I'm not sure why, but it's also making me want to break away from some of my shyness and share my own art with the world better.

I hope I can find a way to do so.

P.S. two of the above pictures (the crazy painted wall and the creative boat) are actually from a small island called Gili Trawangan, off the coast of Lombok -- the next island to the east from Bali in Indonesia, where we also spent a couple of days relaxing on the beach. There were no cars on the island -- only horse-drawn carriages and bikes. How cool is that?

While I was anyway in Los Angeles...

...I made a dream come true.
I went to the Getty!
I especially loved the illuminated manuscript exhibit and Van Gogh's Irises.
Oh ya, and the sculpture park and gardens...
Sanctuaries that pose as art museums make the world a better place.

"If the children ask, 'What color is God?'..."

"...You can choose whatever color you want. That's why I illustrated the hands here all colors."
--Ashley Bryan, speaking today about an illustration in his book, All Things Bright And Beautiful.

I'm in Los Angeles, California, at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' Conference. And to be quite frank, the main reason I knew I had to come was because one of my favorite illustrators of all time, Ashley Bryan, 87, would be here.
I remember when his book, Let It Shine, came out a couple of years ago. I checked it out from the library, along with the enormous stack of picture books I usually check out (how I've missed this ritual in Malaysia!) and one afternoon I opened it to read while my nearly one-year-old baby, Oscar, napped in my lap.

It's a book of three African American Spirituals, all songs I, myself, regularly sang in church growing up. And Ashley's art opened something inside me up that first time I read it -- just like a real, spiritual hymn does, when it's sung from the heart. I remember crying there on the spot, sitting in our rocking storytime chair, cradling my precious little Oscar. I read the book over and over, several times in a row. And I sang the songs the pictures illustrate. Thinking about that moment now, I'm reminded of one of my favorite poems, by the 14th century poet, Hafiz, Dropping Keys.

Dropping Keys
by Hafiz

The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.

While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.

To me it felt, and still feels, that Ashley Bryan's illustrations in that book are like the keys. They unlock and open something beautiful inside.

So that brings us back to today. Today also gifted me with a bit of magic. I spent an hour listening to Ashley Bryan talk about creating art. Eyes can tell you so much about a person. Ashley has the kind of eyes that dance. They are alive. (It might be my new biggest dream -- should I be so lucky -- to have my eyes do the same thing when I'm his age).

And his words, too, have the sort of spark that's contagious. By the end of the hour session, every person in that room looked more alive, fired-up, and ready to find and share the best of who they are.
Here's a few quotes (perhaps I should say they are as close to the real quote as possible, I tried as best as I could, but I might have missed the exact way he said them a bit):

"The Artist is not a special kind of person. Every person is a special kind of artist."

"Everyone of us is writing to pull something real and true out of ourselves and give it to the world."

"Whenever we start something new, it's good to affirm who we are within, that's why I start with reciting a poem."

"African American spirituals came from people who worked from the break of daylight to nightfall. But they still created. They found a way."

"My editor wanted me to get something written down about my life. So we talked about it. And in that conversation, she asked me, 'How did you persist through all the obstacles, in your life and somehow still manage to do what you do?' and, well, I answered, 'Isn't that the very story of life?' And isn't it? That's what we do as people -- we work to overcome obstacles. Life's about not giving up when you face challenges but plowing through those challenges. It's everyone's story."

Two more things I learned during the session. First, the xerox photos of scissors on the end-pages in Ashley's books are of his mother's embroidery/crochet scissors and his mother's dress-making scissors. He uses those two pairs of scissors to cut out every collage in his books. His mom never let him play with them as a child, but now he plays with them everyday. I LOVE this. So many artists use razors for cut-paper work. I'm with Ashley. I use a scissors. Scissors are a perfect thing.

Second, Ashley said he always carries around his recorder. As in the instrument. Because he never knows when it will be time to play some music. So he played for us. So fun.

I did take pictures from the session, but unfortunately I didn't bring my camera cord so I can't download them! I'll add them later. *UPDATE*: added them! Sorry it took so long.

Tomorrow Ashley will give the ending keynote address for the conference. You can bet that the last poem of the conference hasn't been recited yet.