Books: David Derrick's new picturebook-tigers and crocs!

A stack of worthy and notable titles has been growing on my desk, demanding attention and certainly deserving it but my gosh, it's been a busy year offline.

So the stack waits for proper reviews, but there's one that has a launch party coming up in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, October 26th (as of this writing four days away) at the Wildlife Learning Center, and I'd like to spread the word. It's a picture book written and illustrated by my friend, fellow story artist Dave Derrick:

 



Dave loves drawing, and he really loves to draw animals. This little story about a junior crocodile and tiger cub doing their best to out-boast each other is loaded with charm, done with gestural ink line and watercolor wash.


A detail of the cub. This guy suggests a self-portrait to me-in that way that certain drawings seem to look like their artists. Hard to explain, but I'm sure plenty will know what I mean.

 

 

 

 

 

The endpapers feature a panoply of the animals and birds of India, the story's setting.

 





 

 





Using this flyer-either printing it out or bringing it along on your phone-assures admission for Dave's launch event. Should be a fun time!

Squid Pro Quo

Growing around my desk this past month is a stack of fine new books I've wanted to write about. One by one they arrived, were pored over, enjoyed...and then the struggle began to find the time to do them blog justice.

Time: there's the rub. As the days go by this colorful group has migrated around my workspace like Kipling's cannons: looming to the left of me, tipping to the right of me, but never sitting quite where I want them--square in the middle. That position is claimed by a Cintiq tablet. Lately I've found that between work and what time remains to home life the blogging wedge finds a very thin edge indeed.

Happily, though, reviewing is a pleasure I still enjoy when possible, and never so much as when writing about new work from talented people. In that spirit I take up the keyboard this week and mark those recent titles, beginning with the first picture book published by my friend David Derrick: Sid the Squid and the Search for the Perfect Job.





Dave has been storyboarding, blogging and sculpting constantly in the five years I've known him. He's one of the most energetic and intrepid artists I've ever seen in action, and he's smart enough to play to his interests when planning a project. When he grabs hold of a subject he goes all the way, and one of his fascinations is sea life. He studies it, photographs it, swims with it and best of all draws it(all these permutations visible on his website), so it's natural that his first stand-alone children's book became a sweet-natured fable about a giant squid. It's a charming, simply written story about an anthropomorphized cephalopod and the little girl who helps him find the best way he can be employed in and around the northern California bay area, winding up at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Droll adventures ensue.


In most picture books it's the 'how' rather than the 'what' that makes it notable. Like virtually all of us in story Dave has been working on a Cintiq for some time and decided it would be interesting to use it for book illustration. While digital, his technique retains a pleasing graphic quality and a neo-impressionistic use of Photoshop paint. As far as Sid himself is concerned, it can't be easy to elicit character from a creature with little more than eyes to act with, but he manages to makes Sid very appealing. My favorite illustration is one of the giant squid dejected after having bombed out of most of his job attempts, spilling over a park bench clutching his appendages to his "chest" like knees.

It may be playing a little fast and loose to offer a legendary predator of the deep as an earnest red-orange character putting out fires, washing windows, or rescuing real-life mortal enemies like whales, but conviction can get you places. Dave clearly believes in Sid and his story and he delivers him-and us-to its end safely and sweetly. Nice job.




A detail from the endpapers for "Sid the Squid". These deep-sea portraits are among my favorite drawings, and were done in ink. The illustrations proper were all drawn digitally, via Cintiq.

African Diaries-A New Sketchbook

I've posted about my friend and fellow story artist David Derrick before, pointing to his blog. He's a multi talented man who somehow finds time for constantly exploring new things and continuing to build on the knowledge he already has, putting it to good use. There's no one else I know who's as knowledgeable about flora and fauna--especially animals. He has a special interest in the life of the African continent, and finally had the chance to go there on safari this past year. He made sure to record much of what he found there and just published some of the choicest excerpts from his sketchbook in a lovely trade paperback, "African Diaries".

Here is a review from a critic who's not an artist but knows an interesting read when he sees one. I can't describe the book as well as he has.




As my old money pit manager Bud Plant would say "Highest Recommendations" for this title, which you can get for $14.95 here.

In addition to sketching and writing notes about what he saw on safari Dave took his sculpting tools and clay on location. Below are a few examples of what he came away with. He's particularly inspired by the great, lively genius of animal sculptors Bugatti and Barye.

Mara King, a sculpture Dave did on location in Kenya that he's now cast as a bronze. I can't ever get enough of good rough animal sculpts like this.
So again, I'd urge you to add this to your shelves. And remember to take a look at the other sculptures and goodies at Dave Derrick's blog.


I've got a lot of catch-up to do with posts, but they are coming. Thanks for dropping by and eyeballing the archives and intermittent posting this past year. Hopefully 2009 will be full of pleasant experiences for everyone.

Dave Derrick Draws Africa

photograph courtesy of David Derrick

I've recently pointed readers to my friend, fellow story artist and co-author Dave Derrick--but it's not too soon to bring him up again as he's just returned from a safari to Africa.

That continent, its unique look and its life have been a special love of Dave's for years(inspiring his chapter in Scrambled Ink, an original just-so sort of story). It's been the number one place he'd wanted to go and he took along his sketchbook, his clay, and his paints.

He's only begun to post his impressions and artwork, but I feel certain that anyone visiting here should be sure to check in regularly to get a peek at what he's done. His observational skills are something.

Here it is: African Diaries




illustration by David Derrick

David Derrick blogs about drawing from life and plein air sculpting

Story artist Dave Derrick is a guy who inspires me with his talent, energy and determination to constantly seek out and accomplish new things. He's just put up a blog which can be visited here.


I have an especially soft spot for the sort of animal drawing he's adept at. He draws constantly from life, but to my eye his animals always have an extra personality and charm that's probably equal parts what's there--and what's inside the artist himself.

In his brand-new blog he's going to post examples of his studies and the ways he uses them-most recently in sculpting. He's definitely someone to watch and learn from (he's one of the artists included in "Scrambled Ink" as well-that work is pictured in my earlier post). Pay him a call.


all artwork courtesy of David Derrick, from his blog

"Scrambled Ink" starts to spill

The other day an advance copy of Scrambled Ink-the book that I and six of my friends had collaborated on-arrived in my mailbox. It's a weird feeling, to be able to finally hold an actual book. In hardcover, 180 pages and with a gracious foreword by Mike Richardson(owner/publisher of Dark Horse), it's slated to be on shelves in bookstores everywhere in July as well as, of course, online.
Dark Horse did a beautiful job-they're really a class outfit. Diana Schutz(our editor), Dave Marshall and Tina Alessi all went above and beyond with its production.

I'm very proud of my friends who managed to produce beautiful extracurricular work while busy variously animating, doing story and visdev. We're all very different from one another and our stories reflect it, but when I flip through the book I see the personalities of these guys I've come to know and love on the page, and the stories seem to me to go together in much the same congenial way we did sitting under the olive trees at work eating lunch, chatting cross-legged on the floor of one another's offices, crammed into an Amtrak booth bound for San Diego or leaning furiously over the foosball tables. Good times.
I hope it finds readers who enjoy reading it anywhere near as much as we did doing it.


There's plenty more where this came from, but here's a sampling of what's inside the covers:

a page from "Burger Run" by Dave Pimentel

Ken Morrissey's illustration from "Greedy Grizzly"; he wrote and illustrated it, with an assist on the prose from Keith Baxter

a glimpse of J.J. Villard's work

Dave Derrick's is a story set in Africa

Ennio Torresan's roman a clef, highly autobiographical

...and me(plus my inspiration on my mousepad there):



The table of contents; click to enlarge
When the book's more readily available we're probably going to do a couple of shindigs with it(the fun part of publishing!), which I'll post about here as they're scheduled.
Certainly most of us will be lurking in San Diego the week of the Con. Hope to see you there!