Focus

Thinking a lot today. Did more thinking than drawing actually. I'm really into working on the Donkey in the Garden, which I see as the first part of a trilogy. Today, Susan received her issue of More magazine, and Kathy Giusti, the founder and CEO of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation was featured. She spoke of the doubling survival rate of people with multiple myeloma, thanks to new treatments. Very hopeful.

Simple

Started my morning watching the Mexico-Netherlands game and then continued in the afternoon with the Costa Rica-Greece game. Gosh, I love the World Cup!

My days are defined by World Cup, packing, and graphic novels. Aaah...a simple life! 

Prism

I'm excited about this. Perhaps I'll finally learn how to write a grant!

http://prismcomics.org/aboutus.php

Field Trip

Spent the day with family at the Academy of Sciences. I'd always gone there during the school year with 20 or so second-graders, so it was much calmer going with a handful of family members (although one family member is 4-years-old; kinda like a bunch of grumpy second-graders). When I came home, the light upstairs was perfect, so I went right to work on yesterday's blue penciling.

Teach

Began the blue-pencil drawing of the next page of the teaching book. Once a curriculum is out of the hands of teachers and mandated by nonteachers, doing anything out of the box is nearly impossible. 

This page is about how teachers should do as much creative teaching as they can, weighing meanwhile job security and good working relations with their grade level team. I'm realizing that you can't really see this sketch. It's of our second-grade team. I'll darken the blue line. 

Black and White

Today I went out to lunch with my daughter to Zachary's. While waiting for our pizza, we decided to hang out in Pegasus Bookstore. I, of course, made a bee-line to the graphic novel section. I picked up a book that had drawings that were simple, striking black and white. Reminded me of Marjane Satrapi's work.

I wondered what my work would look like using this style. Couldn't wait to get home to try it out. It's kind of fun, but decision-making is just as, if not more so, difficult than using values.

Meanwhile, I continue working on Stella.

Comfort

Started working on the next page of A Donkey in the Garden. I try to rotate the three books, working one day on Stella, the next on Donkey, and the following day on the teaching graphic novel. Susan and I are in moving mode, so much of the daylight hours is taken up with packing boxes and running errands. I work on the teaching book in natural light, so I haven't been working as steadily on that one. I'm beginning to crave it big time!

The other craving I'm having is comfort reading. Moving is stressful even though I'm retired, so to keep myself sane, I need to engage in some self-soothing in the form of Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal! Yes, I read and reread the Harry Potter series all in Spanish. I didn't pack the first of the series. All is right in the world.