Illustration Friday: Swamped

The night sky was swamped with twinkling stars.

This is a color sketch of Ted and Jackjacks done on typing paper.

Twitter!

Hi everyone! Spring has sprung here in Virginia, and everything seems to have almost instantly come alive with colors, and lovely smells. This really is my favorite time of year.

I wanted to add a little update on my agent search. A lot of agents are at the Bologna Book Fair in Italy (lucky ducks), so things are on hold until they get back. For those of you who are also searching for an agent, I thought I'd pass along a little tip. Many of them have Twitter accounts, and aside from reading interviews online, following their Tweets is a great way to get to know their personalities and tastes, which will help you make better decisions on who to submit your work to.

Let me get on my soap box just one moment....I promise you this: if you work very hard, to the best of your abilities, study other authors and illustrators you love and practice your craft, you WILL get published. It's often a long road, but well worth the journey. They only way you won't get published is if you give up. If you get discouraged, ride it out. Cry, eat chocolate, whine to friends, shout at the kid's lit gods for being so unfair and often brutal, cover your bed in wet boo-hoo tissues--then get back on that horse (that's an order, and not a suggestion).

Keep that tough skin on too, I have had my fair share of rejections. Rejection is inevitable. And if someone knowledgeable in the business gives you a detailed critique, hold onto it like gold debloons off a sunken pirate ship.

Learn all the rules of writing and illustrating, and throw some (or many) out as needed.

As an aside, my twitter account is paigekysr. Hope to see ya there.

Get back to work! ;)

Penguin Illustration 2nd Version

Hooray!

Well folks, it's really been an amazing week! The responses to my submissions have been well beyond what I could have possibly hoped for and dreamed. Thanks so much to everyone who has stopped by and posted words of encouragement. That really meant a lot to me because, plain and simple, I have worked so hard to make this dream come true and it's pretty scary to finally send your work out there. Your mind can't help but fill to the brim with all the what ifs.

I have my Happy Tums in hand, and I call them that because sometimes even good stress ties my stomach in knots lol!

I'll post with more details as soon as I can officially say I found a rep.  For right now I'm going to keep putting my nose to the grindstone.  

DUH!

Well genius ol' me turned on comment moderation and forgot to add my email address.  I had NO idea I had comments to look over!  Good one, right?  I'll look through them right now!  Sorry about that, heh :) Thanks everyone for your patience with the dummy lol!

Illustration Friday: Intention

Sebastian the circus dog leaped through the flaming hoop with the best of intentions, but then...(fill in the blank and I'll post my favorite submission under the illustration along with your name and link to your blog!)

New Decision

I've decided to start sending multiple submissions-- seems like it's a fairly acceptable practice these days, as long as you let the agent know.  Sent a query off via email last night, and am working sending more to a couple of other agencies today.  LOVE the ones who accept PDF book dummies/e-mail submissions!  Some of them get back to you surprisingly fast.  Fingers crossed!

The book I'm currently shopping around is, "Hey, Look!  Bunnies!", and if everyone rejects it, I've other dummy books waiting in the wings. 

"Never give up!  Never surrender!" - Galaxy Quest (haha)

Plan!

Tomorrow I'm going to be putting together a dummy book (hard copy) to send along to another dream agent that I've had in mind.  This particular agency does not accept email submission (argh) so I'll have to do it the old fashioned way.  One of my favorite illustrators out there is David Ezra Stein, and while perusing his site I can across a great step-by-step article on making a book by hand!  Huzzah!  The hard part will be setting up the pages on my printer so they align correctly in book form.....or maybe....I should just have a company bind it.  Um.  Hmmm....

I'm On A Mission

Dear Fox in Socks Readers,

I am on a mission!  My dream is find a literary agent that 'gets me'.  Someone I click with who shares my passion for picture book making.  I want to be more open about my journey on this blog.   Perhaps it will give other yet-to-be-discovered authors encouragement, that it is possible to finally get your work published and in the hands of someone who loves and understands it.  The only thing I will be leaving out of my posts and reports are agency names and of course, agent names--purely out of respect for them and the work they do. 

I have recently faced my first agent rejection over a book that my heart is set on.  She did like a lot of things about it, but her reason for rejecting it was one I did not agree with.  I am always open to criticisms and I have changed quite a bit of dummy book texts following suggestions from people in the industry.  But this book....I know there is something special about it and I aim to continue submitting it.

In my search for an agent, I do a LOT of research.  For right now I'm sending out one submission at a time--this may change, but I don't just want to get my book published.  I want to find an agent who will be a partner for years to come. 

I'll keep posting my ups and downs here.  It's been a tough day because I thought for sure this agent would like the book I submitted.  I'll sign off with a favorite quote:

“Every no gets you closer to yes.” ~ best selling author, Joe Girard

I'd like to add, rejection will always be part of the game.  No matter who you are, and how many published books down the line.  Hopefully I'll start building a tougher skin and not be hit so hard when they do arrive.  For right now it kind of stinks. :0)

Handmade Dummy Book

Giving this to my niece, Emma for her Birthday :)

Spring Rabbits

Spring is coming soon!  Spring Rabbits for everyone!

One Drop For Me

On The Prowl

Kitty Sketch

Bats

Unruly Neighbors

Unpacking

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who stops by to read my blog!  <3

Skater Rabbit

Illustration Friday: Fluid

Dummy Book Spread

Sketch For Illustration Friday

Thumbnail Sketches Template

Hi everyone, here is a template I made if anyone wants to use it--they're basic page layouts.   Just save it to your computer and print! **Make sure you choose 'fit to page' or the option that shrinks it to fit the page in your printing options**

Red Bicycle Color

Trying out a watercolor style for this story. 

A New Project

With "A Dragon's Tail" complete and submitted, I'm now on to my new story entitled, "The Red Bicycle".  Here are some of the beginning sketches...and yes I LOVE bears :0)

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey,
and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note - 1871 Edward Lear

Shiny Red Bicycle

Welp, I'm still waiting on a response from my secret submission to secret person, and while I'm waiting....I'm working on new ideas and working on improving my art and writing.  I updated my website and design/images, updated my images on the childrensillustrators.com site.  I'm trying hard as heck not be incredibly impatient and watch my e-mail while clicking 'refresh' over and over and over again.  I just want something good to happen from all of this.

Sometimes I do wish I had fallen madly in love with something more lucrative and more dependable, but this is it for me, in good times and bad.   I'm just not happy doing anything else.

For My Niece

Also, check out the front of my main webpage to see it animated!

A Storm Brewing

Starring: Mr. Toad of Wind in the Willows

Snow II

Snow

Night Reading

Illustration Friday: Suspense

This was an easy one for me idea-wise.  It's always around February I start waiting with suspense for spring time to arrive.  Even the smallest signs are a delight to me.

Another Dragon's Tail Illustratration

I'm going to be submitting my dummy book "A Dragon's Tail" to an agent this week!  Fingers crossed! :)

Penguin Slide

Roar!

A strange sound outside.

Illustration Friday: Twirl

Twirling snowflakes

Dragon's Tail Dummy Sketches Continued

More Sketches

Character Sketches

Another Day, Another Dummy Book

..and 30 more pages to go lol.  It's not daunting...really it isn't.  :) 

 

Fingers crossed--maybe a publisher will decide to adopt this one. 

Illustration Friday: Grounded II

Grounded: admirably sensible, realistic, unpretentious.  A perfect description of this boy's panda bear friend. 

Character Sketches

Illustration Friday: Grounded

Charlie was not only grounded for sticking his tongue out at his little sister, he also had to paint the new shipment of zebras. 

New Magazine Assignment (secret):-)

Here are some character sketches!

Risky in Space

My sketch for this week's Illustration Friday: Highlight, starring my dog and studio assistant, Risky.

Illustration Friday: Messenger

Winter is Coming!