February, even with its 29th day, was just too short! So I'm giving a combined February / March update.
One word for February: rollercoaster. The lows were very low indeed: my Grandmother Whitt passed away on February 20th. Her illness and death occupied my mental, physical, and emotional space for a good chunk of the month, and I will miss her dearly. On the upside, my high point in February was a true milestone: I received my first children's magazine assignment! I'm doing two full-color illustrations for Highlights High Five, a monthly publication for preschoolers. My illustrations are slated to come out in the September 2008 issue. They accompany a short story, in English and Spanish, about a boy who makes a face in the sand at the beach. I dropped my color art at Bowhaus yesterday for scanning, and I just have to finish some tiny line drawings that will appear as icons on a sidebar (they illustrate the Spanish words that the story introduces). I have scans of my sketches for this assignment, but I'm hesitant to post them, since I don't know how (and whether) I'm allowed to reproduce the images. Hopefully, I'll be able to use them on my website, postcards, etc. for self-promotion, but since I don't know, I'm playing it safe.
Also on the magazine front, I finally submitted a cover idea to New Moon Magazine. The theme was "Things that Go Bump in the Night," scheduled for the September/October 2008 issue. Here's how I described my rough sketch in my cover letter:
I tried to hint at two possible meanings of the theme. On the one hand, the cover shows a rockin’ costume party in full swing. A bunch of girls are all dressed up and dancing—bumping!—the night away. On the other hand, you can see an ominous shadow creeping in from the bottom corner—that’s the more obvious reference to the theme. There’s a surprise waiting on the back cover, when you discover that the scary shadow is only a girl in a bird costume, on the way to the party with her friend.
Clever, I thought, but two weeks later, an e-jection showed up in my inbox. The Girls Editorial Board "really enjoyed" my design, but "decided not to use it." Vague but encouraging. The editor sent me a list of upcoming themes, so I'll try again.
Horace and Amelia update: finally, I have a manuscript that's a go! In mid-February, I sent Steven three versions of a Horace-meets-Amelia story. I liked all three, and I felt sure that he would, too. I was ready to pick one out, polish it up, and get on with the dummy. Turns out Steven had other ideas. He wasn't crazy about any of the versions and asked me to take another crack at it. Of course, he was right. So I dragged myself to the library, checked out some Olivia books for inspiration (models of brevity, economy, and humor...perfect picture books, as far as I'm concerned) and returned to the keyboard. Click, clack, cut, paste, print, mark, scribble, tappity-tap-tap. I got one-on-one feedback from my YA friend, Edith, and hit the laptop again. Clickity-clack. Got group feed back from my children's writers group, then sent it off to Steven...and waited. After a couple of days, the verdict arrived via email: thumbs up! We talked on the phone later that week, and with a few tweaks, H&A will move into the dummy phase. Yipeee! (And speaking of Steven, he sent my Pie book out to some new editors...fingers crossed!)
In the just for fun (and 90th birthdays) category, my mom enlisted me to do an illustration for my Grandma Calhoun's b-day festivities. 
Les grand-meres Calhoun and Whitt forged a friendship years ago in College Station, and they continued to giggle and joke and drink lots of Chardonnay well into their old age. Somewhere along the line, they invented alter egos: Sophie Lou (Grandmother Whitt) and Genevieve Sue (Grandma Calhoun). After Grandmother Whitt's passing, my cousin Sandy found some song lyrics that she had written in honor of her "partner in comedy and crime," and they were the inspiration for my ink-and-marker illustration. I had to whip it out in a day and a half, since I needed to get on with my finishes for Highlights, but it was fun to do. There's Genevieve Sue herself, up on the velvet swing in her blue pantaloons, making the Aggies crazy with her home brew and naughty tunes. Grandmother Whitt lives!
Well, that's the news from La-La-Land. Geoff's off on his race to Cabo (same boat as last year: Aeolos. Track it here for the next few days), and I'm a "sailing widow," as the in-laws like to say. I'll be keeping myself busy for the next few days preparing images to submit to a call for entries for the 2008 RISD Alumni SoCal Biennial. Submissions are due April 4th, and time's a-wastin'!
