On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the kids spend the day with our dear friend Ann. This way we know that they are fed, loved, and properly entertained at least three days a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays and on the weekends, they are at the mercy of Robbi and me. Generally, we alternate between working and kid-watching. Right now it is my turn to sit on the babies.
Just now I went in to say hello to Robbi and found her scratching away with her pen and ink.
When Robbi draws, it is a violent act—metal scraping against textured paper. I feel sorry for those involved, the helpless paper, the witness nib.
Today, Robbi is working on illustrations for Volume 31, which is going to be a series of unrelated illustration/text pairings held together by style, voice, and format. It’s another experiment in process. I wrote a dozen or so prompts and Robb drew a dozen or so illustrations. Then we traded off and are going to respond to one another’s work.
The trick is maintaining voice as I switch from ideas that arose whole cloth out of my own head to ones that are echoes of someone else’s idea. It has been fun so far. We won’t know whether or not it worked until we put it all together.
Now it’s time to get ready to go to the dump to do the recycling, to the drug store to buy some swim diapers, and to Peebles to get a new bathing suit for Alden. Apparently, she has grown.
This afternoon, when it’s my turn to work. Robbi will be taking the kids to Betterton beach.
For now, another corner of the barn, another artist plies his trade.
I’m pretty sure he’s not responding to anything but his inner child, messy and colorful.
Robbi’s a lefty… looked at the daily affirmations drawing and took note of the lefty strokes in the door shadows. Ditto for Kato.
Hemajang – you have discovered my secret. It really is my secret weapon. I think being singled out as the oddball kid (I had to use those awful green-handled lefty scissors that never worked) is at the root of my creative weirdness. Or, maybe I was just a weird kid. Either way, if I ever make an illustration that then has to be flipped for whatever reason, it totally throws me off because the lines are all going the wrong way. And my people are always comfortably looking and walking to the left, which is never good when you’re trying to do something for publication. Everyone likes things to move to the right. Progress, and all that!
oh, and also – I’ve been rooting for Kato to be a lefty too, but what that photo doesn’t show is that he has a cookie in his right hand. He delegates very well – he only uses his left hand if he doesn’t have something to chow on in his right, which is actually rare. So maybe he’s ambidextrous.