maximo in the window

my darling maximo in front of the window. grease pencil sketch, march, 2011

cover development

Remember the rough rough cover sketch? This drawing is a refinement of the key figures in the sketch. The snake is painted on a cave wall, and Nik, accompanied by Carlito, is now discovering it. Eeek!

To come across this strange serpent in a dark cave would be scary. Even more scary if someone came in after you with a gun. Which is what happens next in the story. Eeek!

Stay tuned for a fully fleshed out cover in color. Eeek!

I just wanted to write Eeek three times. Thanks for indulging me. That was fun.

color palette: blackberry

The blackberry, with it's thorns, blossoms, and berries, symbolizes my life of late. The thorns, of course, are pain. The blossoms, beauty, that persists in spite of everything. And the berries? Well, they are the fruit of my love, and labor, and though the berries are long gone from their vines, I have jam by the jarful.

I made this palette before the blossoms became berries, as you can see by the dusky pink. The blackberry blushed furiously from within her green leaves, perhaps from being slowly stripped by cold nights, and the raw winds of winter.

So, with this post I am back to blogging, and I want to let my readers know that you are my blossoms, and my fruit. Thank you for making the thorns bearable.

Now I'm going to eat jam from the jar with a spoon.

oh my cuteness!

One of my funny muses is experiencing the sublime joys of eating purple cabbage. I'd like to say she's laughing, but that would not be truthful. Lulu is merely in between chews.

Oh, my cuteness!

rough cover

Rough! Rough-rough! That's me, barking an explanation of the illustration. It's a rough sketch for the cover of Volume One of The Nik Notebooks.

But why bark? I'm at the end of H1N1 and it's all about the respiratory system. The bark has stolen my sweet voice and hidden it away somewhere. I'm sure I'll find it later.


ABOUT THE COVER:
Nik is in a cave she has just discovered within the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains in Guanajuato. Phosphorescence painted on the cave walls gives the room an eery glow.

Nik is startled when she sees a frightening image of Quetzlcoatl, an ancient feathered serpent diety who eats humans whole, painted on the cave wall. Many Mesoamericans worshiped a form of this diety, but the most famous images of Quetzlcoatl come from the Aztec Indians. This one is mostly silver.

And it's rough! Rough-rough!

color palette: bottom shelf

Outside a wind blows, ripping the last ragged colors from our trees, and inside — my refrigerator — on the bottom shelf, fall's perfect palette in the form black dinosaur kale, a green acorn squash flushed with fiery orange, the pale globe of a crisp green cabbage, and the cheery spears of carrots wait to be transformed from cold, earth knowing vegetables to a steamy, colorful meal.

birdsong

I have of late, but wherefor I know not, lost all my mirth.

Actually, I do know. Familial collapse and swine flu took all the words from my fingertips.

But witness this! Words issue forth!

There is hope yet, and mirth will return like birdsong.