Last official day of my part-time job

My 16-week contract has expired and all of the clients have gone home. I have a few more days to work. I’ll be doing evaluations, removing the my projects from the web, and turning out the lights…until it all starts up again in 6 weeks. Yes, I re-upped.

Over the next 6 weeks I’ll be working on my children’s picture book in every free hour. Now I’ve feeling burnt out. My p-t job requires deep focus and lots of dealing with people who aren’t well-prepared for what it takes to complete the course. I do admire those who “get it” at some point. It’s a good feeling to see someone take a few concepts and run with them.

Still Working on the Giant Burritos, Part 5

I have several more days work to do here and I’m running out of titles for this picture. “Still Working” is starting to lose it’s charm. I remind myself that it’s an inch a day, every day, and eventually this will be completed.

When I step away from the screen, I can see that the colors are overly saturated. I’ll fix that…eventually. And I can see that the owner of the cafe, Senor Jaguar, is looking really mean and scary in his t-shirt. And that glare he’s giving the kids makes me wonder what’s going on in his mind?

My First POD Sales Report

After I published The Jaybird That Jumped Down A Chimney, I was able to let it go and move on to the next book. I didn’t think about sales except to remind myself that I should try to do some promotion. It would be a good idea to at least put a link to Amazon in the side bar. But I got distracted with the new book and spent all of my time working up the storyboard for the new book. Eventually I procrastinated on adding the link until a few days ago, after my partner said, “I looked at your blog. How can anyone buy the book if you don’t give them a link?”

When I published my book at the beginning of January, I dialed my expectations down…all the way down to zero. Were someone eventually to buy my book, that would be a good day and I would be calm and appreciative. But when I visited my Ingramspark dashboard this week and read that 3 more units had been sold, I felt an unexpected welling in my chest as my dialed-down expectations all expanded to life. Selling three copies of my book triggered an intense joy and gratitude that made my eyes and nose sting with emotion. Three people had bought my book!

To my three readers, wherever you are, I send you my sincere thanks. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Big Day at the Art Factory — three more pictures colored and ready for inDesign

Yesterday, and today, I spent hours painting Buddy Butterfly’s many-segmented wings, all the while reminding myself that I should learn to create interesting characters that are easy to draw and paint, especially if I’m going to featuring the character on 20 to 30 pages. Buddy is my favorite character, but he’s a pain to draw and paint. All, the same, I love the guy.

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night with the fear that what I’m doing will be a flop. It took me a while to calm down. I had to remind myself that I’m doing this because I like what I’m doing. So, I’m moving ahead at full speed. In fact, I have five more books planned for Jimmy Jay and Buddy Butterfly.

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Coloring the Children's Picture Book Linework

At last I’ve finished re-inking. I started coloring today. I’m about 2 months behind my original deadline, but I’m moving steadily. For the coloring I’ll be using my iPad. I found that I can hook up my iPad to my desktop Mac by using the power cable. No other USB-C cable will work. The bad news is that I can only export images created on the iPad by “sharing” them to the iPad photos app; once they’re save as photos I hook up the iPad to the desktop Mac and open them in the desktop Photos app. It’s a hateful hack.

“I’m bored,” said Jimmy.

Day 3 and "All Aboard" is finished re-inking

It took three workdays to re-ink this image. Altogether, three workdays amounts to 4 1/2 hours of work, with a workday being about about 1 1/2 hours. This image isn’t really finished—I still have to paint it. When I finish the re-inking, I’ll paint all of the images in a batch, starting from the front cover to the back cover. Anyway, that’s the plan.

Drawing a Bored Child Jaybird Wearing Hightops

Note to self: add Jimmy’s playthings strewn carelessly around him. I want to show that he’s bored with everything that has amused him, his mobile phone, his music, and his comic books. Life is so painful when your toys lose their charm, and the craving for new adventures clouds your judgement. Jimmy’s friend Buddy Butterfly will contribute to his delinquency, and mayhem will ensue.

MEMO: Adjust Buddy’s color!

Falling Down a Sooty Chimney

This drawing was colored with Affinity Photo on the iPad, then finished in Photoshop. I have to say that Photoshop is a really marvelous program. I wonder at times why I’m trying so hard to avoid it. Perhaps what really matters is that I run Photoshop on my 27-inch iMac, where everything is easier than on the iPad. I love the big, gorgeous screen. The one really big upside of Affinity Photo is that I also have the desktop version when I need it.

In this picture Jimmy has just jumped down the chimney to rescue his foolhardy friend, Buddy Butterfly.

Looks like I’ll have to change the color of Jimmy’s pants or the chimney.

A Before and After with Buddy Butterfly

95/365

I believe I improved my drawing of Buddy flying to the chimney. The first version looked like he was lying flat on the roof instead of flying above it.

Another Work In Progress: Momma Jay Meets the House Owner

93/365

The big news today is that I admitted to myself that I won’t meet my March 31 deadline, no matter how positive I’m feeling about my progress. I have 8 to 10 more paintings to finish and I have to learn enough InDesign to create a simple layout with text and images. Once that’s don I have to go through the IngramSpark learning process — I have no idea how long that will take. So, I decided to the sane thing and create a realistic schedule based on my available time and skills. In the end, I extended my deadline by two weeks to April 15th.

Work in progress