UVSC (uvu) Forum on Children's Literature

Children's Literature Forum 2009

Go to that link and you will see that I am one of the presenters or speakers or whatever we are called. I'll be there Friday March 13 and talking mostly about illustrating chapter books. I've never done a big important presentation like this before, so hopefully it won't be horrible and painful for those attending. If anyone attends my presentation... oh no. The paranoia has set in.

chibi/anime nick

Finally! Something not from years ago. This is a project that's still in progress, but here are some samples of the character art. It's been fun to take an existing character (see bottom sample) and then turn him into a sort of anime-type style. I don't know anything about anime or manga but when we were designing the game, and the main character Nick was going to be doing some crazy martial arts stuff, I figured transforming him into an anime type character was really the only way to go.

Then I was supposed to make some icons for happy and unhappy, and instead of a plain ol' boring smiley face, why not make a crazy big-eyed chibi version of Nick? Naturally! Too much fun making those big shiny goopy eyes.

hamm & facebook

About a month ago I wrote about my anti-Facebook stance. Well, a couple weeks ago, after being reassured it wasn't scary, I decided to face down my paranoia and fear of social networking sites and signed up for Facebook. I've never been terribly skilled or interested in networking (that's why I have a rep!) but it's turning out to be pretty cool. So I figured I better mention my turnaround if people find me on Facebook after my mild dissing of said site. :)

Also, I thought I'd give a little illustration world update. I always seem to be mentioning that I'm too busy for this, too busy for that, but all I seem to post are random things I did years ago. Mostly that is because I'm never quite sure what I'm allowed to post or not, so I tend to err on the safe side. But to give a taste of what's coming up, I have two more Whoopi chapter books as well as two picture books coming out this year. I'll post more on each as it comes closer to their release dates.

To continue with the celebrity theme - above is a sample I did (5 years ago) for a possible book written by soccer star Mia Hamm. Didn't get the project, but here is the sample for you to enjoy! This is from back in the day when I actually did a pencil drawing first and scanned it.

missing links and abandoned sketches

I was doing a search for some elf reference and my little elf illustration came up a few times, and I noticed that the links are all broken. I moved web servers about a month ago, and I guess I didn't quite transfer everything, so most of the pictures posted at the old baronesss blog are gone. Sorry about that. I'll get to fixing it sometime, but that might not be for awhile. Too many other things higher up on the priority list.

When I was looking to see if I had a handy backup available (didn't) I found this little sketch. It was going to be for a logo for a kids organization in Brooklyn. The job sort of fizzled and never went anywhere, and I forgot about it until now. I kind of like the kids. Maybe I'll finish it someday.