PiBoIdMo 2013: Mission Accomplished

I finished PiboIdMo 2013! Yay! Complete with over fifty ideas....probably half of which are tossable, but it's still comforting to know that I can pull ideas out of the old cranium. Even if they're so ridiculous only myself and one other person might find them funny or plausible. Now comes the hard part. This is the third year I've participated and have yet to complete a manuscript based on these ideas. My task this week is to whittle down the best 3-5 ideas of this year and possibly revisit the last two years.

Easy right? Not so much for Miss Lack-of-Attention-Span/Don't-I-Have Laundry-to-Attend-to? I usually have little problem coming up with ideas (some wobbly as mentioned), but fleshing them out, that's what separates the men from the boys or the senoras from the senoritas. Something like that. 

Doodle of the day: leaning brain

The other thing one notices after having done PiBoIdMo for the third year is how one's brain leans in a certain direction. I tend toward listing things: craziest inventions, ABC or 123 books, dogs around the world etc. Or, completely wacky stuff (Princess Dentist) or children who are outcast for some reason (Fussy Eddie, Nerdy Betsy). Or if I'm desperate enough, I just take an existing story and try to rework it. Just look at Cinderella....that's been done a trillion times. Not by me....yet.

So, fellow PiBoIdMo'ers or People on the Path toward Righteous Writing and Illustration (henceforth known as POPRWI), take faith in knowing that we're all stumbling along. Some in a direct and focused fashion. Others get up, race along, fall off the edge of an embankment, push off the ground, brush off the dust and hobble toward the finish line of publication. (Which as we all know is never truly a finish line. It's a process and as long as we know we're not alone, all is well.)

All things Sendak

Maurice has been on my mind lately. Through another blog, I became aware of "Sendakifying" wherein some illustrators took a scene from a Sendak book and used the style of another illustrator. How cool I thought, I'll try it. Well, it's harder than it looks. (Maybe it depends on who you're blending with Sendak.... hey I like the sound of that: Blending with Sendak, could be a whole new workshop/trend etc.) I chose Garth Williams, because he's another illustrator who's been on my mind as of late. I got a cool copy of "The Rescuers" by Margery Sharp and was entranced by William's illustrations. 

So, who better than to try than Mr. Williams (especially since no one had yet Sendakified him)? It's kind of a psychological as well as technical journey, trying to get inside the head of two illustrators simultaneously. Some people have done an amazing job. Check out Sendak's "BumbleArdy" in the style of Richard Scarry (another fave)..... just hilarious!

Here's a small work-in-progress-- my version of "The Wild Things" a la Garth Williams:

Not well-known fact: Sendak along with his brother Jack wanted to design toys.

And yet another interesting Sendak-related tidbit: "Where the Wild Things Are" was originally "Where the Wild Horses Are" and this blog entry describes how it evolved. I love seeing the behind-the-scenes evolution of a particular book or illustration.
Note to self: get a copy of "The Art of Maurice Sendak"!