Everything After August

Slowly but surely, illustrations are being checked off the list with an imaginary big red marker. The dining room is serving as War Room, where I’m spread out over our 3 by 6 foot wooden dining room trestle table, and flanked by t.v. tray tables on both sides. Melissa is a living saint for putting up with my sprawling, messy process, but this one is nearly finished. (I’ve been giving some thought to moving my artwork into a proper artist’s workspace, but nothing to announce yet.)

I’d still like to have this book out of my hands by tomorrow, the first of September, but I may need to steal this weekend to add tiny last-minute details. What sense can there be in rushing when you’re already a month behind? It’s a question of 48 more hours.

As for style, they’ve definitely leaned to the old style, which we all discussed way back when. And while I loved the new style and agreed with your arguments for it, my abilities to use digital means just weren’t up to snuff for this one. So the results are instead very moody, complex and textural. I’m using a lot of pencil to create shadows and shapes in graphite. Overall I’m very pleased, (though never over-the-top thrilled).

The next project on the other hand will in fact be done digitally in it’s entirety, (probably with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator). That will be the Alphadog project, which has gotten a universal “thumbs up” from the few close friends I’ve told about it. Alphabet books are such a simple concept, and probably done to death many times over in the marketplace. But I really think I could treat this book in a way that would transcend the predictable “B is for Bark” formula.