I was invited to participate in a pop-up shop at Blue Umbrella Books in which 3 author/artists offered their books and art for sale during Shop Small Saturday. Ryan McCarthy and Joseph Seal combine their artwork and writing. Ryan is a manga author/artist. Joseph has illustrated the cover and done some interior art for his novella The 100-Year Wind. Meanwhile, I drew a pen & ink drawing of Kip, the fox kit, a character in my new novel The Worth of a Woman, however, I had my 3 Christmas novellas and my 4 Christmas anthologies with me as I had at the Congregational Church earlier in November, plus all my current pen & ink black squirrel art prints, plus the fox, the chipmunk and the vampire bat (sounds like the beginning of a bad Halloween joke!)
Curiously, I sold more prints than books.
Maybe I should ditch being an author and just draw!! (Right! Like I could ever stop writing! As I was drawing the rest of a racon and the beginning f a great horned owl this evening and tonight a new beginning of the Garnet and Quella Memento Mori novel was running through me head.)
I needed to relax today because I haven't been feeling well since Sunday night. I was doing better this morning after getting more sleep than normal, so of course I ran out and did some Christmas shopping and other errands before work today, worked all afternoon, then came home and began drawing after dinner...after a prolonged snuggle with a very needy and affectionate Revere whom I'd left napping on a pile of my sweaters in the dining room...the mystery of his disappearance one morning last week finally solved! Black cats blend right into black sweaters in a dark house. I only noticed him today because he lifted her head as I walked right by him and I caught the flash of his white fur from the corner of my eye and jumped.
I am finished with the initial raw first draft of White Bishop Among the Pawns. I was surprised by some information that was revealed near the end of this novel- it has to do with Six, a dark and rather sinister character who appeared in Black Knight, White Rook, the second novel in the Romney Ivy series. I need to go back and make a few changes near the beginning of the book to bring the ending into alignment with it because I wrote his character as being one thing, but he's actually another thing. I also have to fill in more about Ivy Welsh great uncle who was also in the second book, and who comes to Massachusetts in this one to provide wise counsel for Romney and his allies.
Tonight, I was amazed how the drawings are just coming to life on the paper after an 18-year hiatus drawing. I got two boxes of brand new Hunt 102 crow quill pen nibs by Speedball...my all time favorite drawing pen nib. The racoon is in black and white. The great horned owl will have color. I've inked in two of three layers of his irises. Trying to get the right color golden yellow.
I'm enjoying doing both writing and drawing in my spare time, and wish I had more spare time so there could be more flow to my work rather than choppy, rushed hours after dinner interrupted by household obligations and needy cats wanting to play. Well...one day I will be retired...hope the hands and eyes hold out that long or I will be bitterly disappointed!
No comments:
Post a Comment