Pete is out to sea! What trouble is lurking in the murky depths, lying in wait for him?
I created this vector based digital illo for a friend of mine. It was a custom invitation to a Fish Fry and Pete is her family dog. He’s loved by everyone and never met a stranger.
I intentionally made this a very graphic illustration to support the addition of text in the blue field of water but I felt it held it’s own without text, too.
I just finished this illustration for the cover of a bi-annual newsletter for the SCBWI Mid-Atlantic. It’s the second of these I’ve done. The last illustration I did for them was for the summer edition. I really enjoyed working this image. I was inspired by the border collie sheep dog. We had a border more than 10 years ago. She was a sweet dog and we all miss her a lot. It’s a wonderful breed — intelligent and loyal. You can see the cover illustration with the design incorporated here.
I listen to the news a lot, lately — NPR mostly — and I hear a lot of stories about these difficult economic times we’ve suddenly (or so it seems) found ourselves in. Layoffs litter the headlines on a daily basis, but the stories I’ve heard from many friends and acquaintances leave the deepest impression in my mind. So many are losing benefits, suffering hour and pay cuts and, worst case, losing their jobs. I have to wonder, even about my own job. Is it only a matter of time?
When I was in college, I took on some strange employment to make ends meet. One such job involved taking traffic surveys in the early rush hours at intersections in the city for a group of engineers reworking the city’s traffic patterns. It involved finding a good place to park where I could see the whole intersection and where people were turning in order to plug data into a computer for each turn in a 15 minute time period.
One morning, I was positioned downtown on a side street off Broad St. I was waiting for the shift to begin and happened to be looking up at this very cool Coke sign. It was probably circa 1930 and had once been quite grand with big light bulbs encircling its big metal frame emblazoned with that unmistakable red and white logo. It was hanging on the third story of the building I was parked beside and blocked several of the upstairs windows with one being partially blocked due to a discrepancy in size. It was early spring and that window was open into whatever dark room lay behind it.
I was rather amused with this bit of nostalgia in the city and was even more so with the row of pigeons sitting inline on the signs lower ledge. They were quite content with themselves, cooing and trilling quietly in the hazy morning light — going about business as usual — which isn’t much for a pigeon.
I noticed to the far left of the sign some movement low along the ledge of that partly covered window. Fast as lightning, a feline paw reached out and grabbed the nearest pigeon who flapped and fluttered furiously but to no avail. It disappeared into the dark mouth of that window and I’m fairly certain into the mouth of a wily warehouse cat.
The other pigeons witnessed all this — I saw the closest ones turn their heads and stare with as much regard as perhaps one would a falling leaf or any such commonplace occurrence. They never cried out or flew away when their comrade was so abruptly abducted. It was as if they thought, “Ooh, poor Bob. Glad it was him and not me!” and they just continued on, somewhat nervously, in doing their pigeon duty and sat for the rest of my shift upon that defunct Coke sign.
When I see people getting laid off in these bizarre economic times, it immediately reminds me of that experience. People are like those pigeons, complacent to wait for their final blow. Too bad for So-and-So — glad that wasn’t me.
the masqueraders from the “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe pretending they can escape their demise .
This is an older piece but I felt like it fit with the theme.
Originally uploaded by traylorillo
Recently, my family has taken up Kayaking. We load the boats on the roof rack and head to the nearest waterway (flat or gentle current, thanks!).
Our brand of kayaking is relaxing, quietly paddling up to deer taking a drink on the riverbank. You displace mere inches of water so you can navigate very shallow waterways motorboats wouldn’t dare tread.
When I learned to paddle, I was concerned about running upon obscured underwater debris. At first, the thought of getting stuck on some submerged mystery junk freaked me out. My husband (and instructor), in his very no nonsense way, said, “You are going to run up on something and you’ll feel it. Don’t panic, just use your paddle and back out.”
On one of our first trips, we paddled into a shallow, murky lagoon. Half way in, our paddles touched bottom and we had to dig in and back out. I felt so much better once I was free floating and mobile again.
I’ve had to back out a few times since but I’m more confident about exploring shallow areas. I’ve run aground on a sandbar trying to get close to some geese and run up under some low hanging blackberry bushes trying to eat some ripe berries but in all those circumstances, I just used my trusty paddle and backed out.
The lesson crosses over into freelance design as well. Knowing when to “back out” can be a lifesaver.
I had a client last year who was eager for me to enter into a long-term contract that would require me to travel and put very long hours in away from my home and family. I was unsure if I had the physical and mental resources to take on this added responsibility. I worried that this very demanding client would make my work for other long-standing clients suffer or even disappear and farming the work out to another designer was out of the question. There were so many other warning signals I can’t begin to enumerate.
After much contemplation about the pros and cons of this job — what the hidden cost of it might be — I made the decision to turn it down. I sensed it was time to dig in and back out.
I wrote a professional letter to them explaining that I would not be able to take the job. To my surprise, the client was furious that I turned them down and I even got some hate email from them. They thought I’d be attracted to the money which in the long run would have been a loss.
The experience was upsetting but reassured me that I had made the right decision.
A month later, I was hospitalized with a serious illness. My entire world stopped short for months while I healed. All my freelance, full-time and other work screeched to a halt. I was touched to hear from long-time clients who cared enough about me to put their projects on hold in anticipation of me getting back in the saddle.
It’s been more than 9 months since that ordeal. I don’t regret a thing. I made a conscious decision about not taking on a job that would have probably destroyed me. I let go what turned out to be a red-flag client. I have my health back, my life is much less stressful and my work has improved and I’m moving in a direction that I really want to go in. I’m in free water again and able to navigate clear on through.
This was a summer themed cover illo for the Mid-Atlantic SCBWI summer edition newsletter. The final piece has a masthead and text superimposed over the center part of the composition (thus the space in the composition). I will post the image with text from the final newsletter as soon as it is published.
I recently finished this spot illustration for the SCBWI newsletter. It is for an article on Point of View in writing and how the POV the character has should be reflected in the choice of descriptive words. All this, of course, is greek to most folks, but to illustrate this, I chose an image of a character, in this case, a WWII era child viewing an approaching bomber. The idea was partially fueled by a story my seventh grade english teacher, Mrs. Patrick, told my class years ago. She was a young girl in the UK during those war years and remembered the terror she felt when she saw the German Luftwaffe planes. All these years later, it came in handy. Thanks, Mrs. Patrick, wherever you are!
Just another little watercolor study I’ve been playing around with. I’m experimenting with some techniques.
TT
This has been a sad week. The close of March closed a huge chapter in my family’s life. On March 31st, we lost my father-in-law after a five year battle with the enemy, cancer. He was a wonderful, warm person, who never met a stranger. Popsie, you’ll be missed so much. Your loss has put even me at a loss for words. No words can soften the blow or fill the great void your passing has left.
In memory of my father in law…who was more of a father to me than my own…
Winston Douglas Traylor
September 14, 1943 – March 31, 2008
Husband, Father, Grandfather, Brother, Friend
I can’t help but remember this poem by Emily Dickinson:
Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence –
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.~Emily Dickinson
