In honor of the most famous groundhog in the world, and the people who like to celebrate his Feb. 2 predictions.
If you don’t know who he is, look him up. He’s quite a holiday for some of us in the area.
Birthday!
Stu’s birthday today. He didn’t want anything special, just to stay at home and enjoy the evening.
The cake was marble.
Taxes
Started working on my 2007 taxes today…This is the first time I’m not using software, so pulling out all the receipts and separating what’s what is taking a little time. But once I get a system down, I think things will go a little quicker.
The good news is, last year was the first year I’ve netted in the black! I’ve been spending so much money on promotional stuff–two Web sites (soon to be three), postcards, postage, conferences, membership dues, directories–and this year I cleared two year’s worth of redness! Here’s to black!
Hand Lettering
Here’s a preview of a new area I’ll be uploading to my site: Hand lettering. I copied the “Kids Pix” to my other site (www.nora-jayne.com), and as soon as I’m comfortable that the word has gotten around that it has moved, I’ll post samples of some hand lettering that I’ve done on my graphx site.
I won’t be making fonts from these, at least not anytime soon. I just like the way hand lettering allows letters to hug each other. It feels more live, and more personal than an un-manipulated font. Not that fonts are bad — no way, I love them. These ones are just…different. But I’m not a calligrapher. They’re way better than I could ever be. I’m just a hand-letterer.
Moved!
What a long day! But productive!
I moved all my kids illustrations over to just one site: www.nora-jayne.com. I had to re-save all the images and thumbnails, and create new rollover links for two portfolios. (Not to mention changing all the templates for every page on the site to include the new portfolio.) The preliminary work always takes so long, but once it gets done, putting the pages together is so rewarding.
I had originally thought I should keep my “traditional” kinds of kids illustrations on a separate site from my “twisted” kids illustrations. Somehow, all this time it has never felt quite “right.” So I’ve copied over the twisted kids. The only things I’m going to keep on my graphx.us site will be my editorial illustrations, graphic design and hand lettering work. I haven’t taken down the twisted kids from the graphx site yet–and I won’t for a while–but only until I can get the word out. I need the space for my new hand lettering images.
Now I have to work on re-branding my twisted kids to conform to the branding I already have started with my traditional kids. More work, but definitely worth it.
Career
Met with my friend, Rose, this afternoon to talk about the direction of our illustration careers and what our next step(s) would be. Of course, we met at Panera. What a productive afternoon! My friend Alice even popped in unexpectedly, neither of us knowing the other would be there. Anyway, Rose and I talked about studying, drawing, blogging, taking museum and gallery field trips, and our April Illustrator’s Conference field trip to New York.
I guess you could say I got a little over-stimulated.
Cold cold cold
Pretty cold here tonight. Only 16 degrees and snowy. I’m sure you folks in Anchorage would probably think that would be a heat wave, but for those of us in southwestern PA, that’s a wee bit chilly.
We built a fire.
New Year’s
Here’s my idea of a new year with the potential for lots and lots of drawing and painting and illustrating.
Yikes! Wow! Yuck!
Our new book is out!
The Yikes! book became official today (even though it’s been available on the Internet for a few weeks now). It’s written by Elizabeth Snoke Harris, and illustrated by Yours Truly. It was great fun to work on. The Art and Creative Directors over at Lark (Robin and Celia) are so easy to work with, it didn’t feel like work at all.
Putrid
Trying to teach grids to the graphic design students. I’m not sure why everybody wants to complicate things. A simple layout with white space works great.
This is Halloween, Everybody make a scene
Not as excited about Halloween this year. Went to see “Nightmare Before Christmas 3D” this afternoon, but that didn’t even help. I have the DVD (and the VHS), so I’ve seen it a gazillion times before, but I just thought seeing it in the theater would really get me out of this melancholic haze.
Nope.
Issues
Having some issues with students. I feel like somebody needs to teach them how to be students before I should be expected to teach them how to be graphic designers.
Let’s just say not a good day.