I start most days by choosing a palette. It's often a fairly subconscious process as I flip through my pants, shirts, sweaters, etc in the semi-darkness of my closet. I have a lot of drab, typically male colors: khaki, olive, grey, brown, black. But I also have some ludicrous shades to pick from because I like to buy light color trousers and dye them in my washing machine. I have bright orange cords, raspberry and Pepto-Bismol jeans, lime green, lemon yellow and purple paisley chinos.
A surprise book: Bad to the Bone
Maybe it's because of my initials, but when I was little, I was determined to become a vet when I grew up. In fact, I got my first job at the age of 11, working for a vet at the local dog pound. It was only when I was in high school, and proved abysmal at Chemistry, that I realized I'd have to take another career path.
At any rate, I have always loved dogs. The dogs I loved the most weren't the Lassies and the Benjis, the dogs that rushed to the rescue and did tricks and were cute and cuddly. No, my favorites were the ones that got into trouble, that showed character and individuality, the dogs that are bad.
For the past few months, I have been concentrating on drawing bad dogs of all types. And, inspired by Ogden Nash and Edward Gorey, I've been moved to write some little poems about dreadful pooches.
All of which leads me to the surprise part.
I love my new publisher and can't wait for An Illustrated Life to come out this Fall. In fact, I am so impatient for a new book that I decided to print up a limited edition book on my own, collecting about forty pages of those bad dog drawings and painted ripped from my sketchbooks.
This little book is only a limited edition. It's four-color and I am really happy with the quality of the printing. I think it really captures the intensity of the watercolors I've been doing. Some of the drawings are done with a Rapidograph but most were drawn with a dip pen and they have a good energy that captures the mischief nature of their subjects. There's a lot of experimentation with the quality of the line and the way I'm using color. It's a bit of a departure for me, an intense exploration of a single topic but the folks who've seen it so far think it's pretty funny and beautiful.
So, as part of this publishing experiment, I've decided to share this little book, Bad to the Bone, with my readers. I'm selling it more or less at (a super-low) cost, because I'm interested to see if this is a good way to make and share books. If you like it and want me to make more books of this sort, let me know and I'd be willing to give it a go.
I am really pleased with this book. I hope you'll like it too.
Here are a few pages from inside it. (We've made a Flash Book Preview too). Best of all, see the whole kit 'n' kaboodle once it hits your mailbox.
