New Year New Routines

It’s Mouse’s World, I’m Just Drawing it

It was a good mail week. My illustration is on the cover of February’s High Five magazine. It’s always an honor to get a cover assignment, but it was a treat to get make it one of my mice. I have been a bit obsessed with drawing mice for a bit: have you seen the logo for this newsletter?

Starting Fresh with Good Habits

I’m trying my best to make every day a bit more productive and healthy. And for me, that is 30 minutes of writing, 30 minutes of playing in my sketchbook, and 30 minutes of movement. I’ve found it’s best if I sit to write early, just after my teens head off to school, when the house is most quiet. I usually get my exercise in next, leaving a long chunk of ‘work’ time before taking a late afternoon sketch break. I’ve always struggled to prioritize writing time, and this new routine has been such a gift! What new routines are you trying this year?

Storystorm

For many years, I have participated in Tara Lazar’s Storystorm challenge. I’ve been a fan since the early days when it was called PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month). For the uninitiated, every day of January has an inspiring blog post from other authors. You commit to writing down at least one picture book idea each day. It’s a great jump-start for writing each year, and really activates the weird-idea area of my brain! I highly recommend giving the challenge a try. This year’s badge illustration is by author-illustrator Courtney Pippin-Mathur.

This year, I was invited to write a post. I hope writers will find it helpful! You’ll find my post here on January 17th. 

How-to-Draw a Corn Snake

Working my way through unusual pets, today I’m featuring a corn snake. If you have a detail-oriented young artist, you could have them add the scales to the dot pattern below.

Watching / Reading / Listening To

Watching: The Traitors, season 4. I probably should bring my sketchbook to the couch for this show - the outfits! the location! the dramatic lighting!

Reading: Everything by New Hampshire author Annie Hartnett. My local bookseller has been raving about Annie’s work for years. I read and loved The Road to Tender Hearts and Unlikely Animals. Both stories are charming, a bit magical, and treat characters from children to the elderly with equal warm attention. If you need something cozy that tugs at (but doesn’t break) your heartstrings, she’s for you. I’m waiting to read her first novel, Rabbit Cake.

Listening to: Bad Religion. I’ve circled back to one of my favorite bands from my 20s, and find them more relevant than ever. Recipe for Hate is one of my favorite ‘no skip’ albums. I’m jumping around and listening to old favorites and other tracks I missed. It’s also what I call ‘deadline music’.

ps. You still have to wait for my book news. Can you believe it? Don’t worry, it’s definitely coming in next month’s newsletter! And actually, it should be announced before the end of this month.