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Welcome to my blog , The Hare Illustratère. I'll be posting about my art process and journey as an illustrator/author here.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Creative Stumbling Blocks

SEED PACK © Diana Ting Delosh

I'm in the midst of a creative block - hopefully towards the tail end of one. I first tried just working through it. If I was stalled on my picture book idea, I'd work on my various other projects. At least this way I was still creating and producing. No problems creating new card ideas for GCU. My sketchbook was overflowing with other ideas. I'm already daydreaming about my next book idea. I'll just take a short hiatus from my PB and comeback refreshed. Right? Wrong - I soon discovered I was fine on every front accept my current PB. The solution? Just grit my teeth and force myself to work on it. Did it work? Yeah - finally! And I'm happy with the art and I can chug along on the next illustration in the SF series. (Seed Pack is 1 of the illos from my PB that's giving me a headache!)

So what's the problem? Is it the idea? No -at least - I'm fond of it. And I'm happy with the sketches and the finished art when I finally finish them. So what is it??? Hate to say it but I believe it's the field of publishing and picture books that has me blocked. Lately there's been nothing but bad news - editors and art directors being laid off, whole divisions merging, folding. Here I'd just made their acquaintance and now, POOF no more. Combine that with the brutal competition even when the economy was good and my recent bad experiences of loosing dummies. Well is it any surprise that I wonder if my efforts are for naught?

Any solutions? Should I just rethink my ambitions? Sure - I've considered it many times. Even left the field a few times but unfortunately I've always come back to it. So now what? No real answers - but keep on doing my best work as well as looking into other fields and possibilities for my creations.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Life after tax day

OX, © Diana Ting Delosh, ink & watercolor illustration

Whew - tax day has come & gone... and at least it's all done & filed. Now to get back to life. It's April 16, mid-point of the 1st month of the 2nd quarter - what's up?

The Year of the Ox is proving true to it's promise that good fortune will be acquired through hard work and patience. Well at least I've got the work and patience routine down and a few proposals pending. Create, promote, submit, wait....wait....wait. Repeat steps 1, 2, 3, many many times.

On another matter - I officially gave notice at my part time job this week. The job had dwindled from 20+ hours to 4+ hours a week... which made me wonder why bother among other questions. Sure I could've stayed on until the inevitable no hours on the schedule. At anyrate I felt the monies lost could be easily replaced by my freelance activites and the 4+ hours could be put to use working on artbiz stuff. The PT job had lost it's purpose, namely to give me a regular funds, so I wouldn't be taking art jobs from hell. Well the regular funds dwindled to a joke and I was back to considering art job's from hell. Now the onus is to make it work without any back-up - again. Not sure if I did the right thing in this economy, only time will tell. So what was I saying about the Year of the OX? Yup - hard work and patience.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Mice by another name?

I recently received a call from my Highlights/High Five editor concerning my poem, Pip & Squeak. It had just come to their attention that there is a picture book by the same title and it also features mice. HORRORS! Needless to say we needed to come up with a new title and names for the 2 characters in our poem. Here I thought I had been so-o-o clever with the title. Pip and Squeak was a play on the word pipsqueak. What fun. Note - I did think of them as mice when it was first drafted eons ago, but when I submitted it to High Five last summer - I left it to the editors to decide: mice, kids, squirrels, geckos, whatever. They came up with mice. Probably because the names Pip and Squeak screams - Mice. So now the renaming begins. I call and suggest Skip and Scamp along with a few others. Skip and Scamp is chosen but then discarded. I think of more names. Skip and Scout, Rose and Bud, Bud and Twiggy, Stick and Twig, Skip and Clover, Skip and Flora. I'm also Googling to see what turns up and low and behold Bud and Twiggy is a famous couple! After a few more rounds of names, a decision is made: Skip and Scout. Just in time for it to get back in the production line to be published in the August 2009 issue of High Five magazine.

Needless to say from now on I'll do a search before I sub...but than again who knows what happens before it actually gets published!

Brush Strokes on Squidoo!

I'm currently a featured artist on Sherry Holden's Squidoo Lens. How exciting! Moi and 2 other artists will be featured for about a month. So if you have a chance please take a gander at: www.squidoo.com/ArtistsAtImagekind.