Last week I was on the road, in good old PA, for both business and leisure.
First there was the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teacher of English, my favorite show, which was in Philly. This is the first year that Candlewick has sent me officially, which was pretty sweet in that everything was paid for and I got some fancy dinners. However, I kind of missed being on the show floor all weekend as I have in the past. Even though that’s exhausting, it’s just fabulous to meet so many teachers, almost all of whom are excited about my books! I still got a lot of that excitement, but I didn’t have a chance to meet quite as many teachers this year.
During our day off from the show, we went to see Eastern State Penitentiary, which is awesome, and then to the Philly Zoo, which is aging but quite cool. We didn’t have much time at the zoo before they closed, so we mostly just saw primates. And lions. Drawings below.
After the show, we stayed in the area and had Thanksgiving with Alison’s parents. Now I’m back, and trying to finally finalize the Odyssey cover.
I recently gave a talk at the Aldrich library in Barre, VT (where, incidentally, I used to play D&D as a young nerdy child). This is more or less my standard presentation — although I made a few last-minute changes, so I was improvising a little. Here’s a 15-minute excerpt from the 1-hour presentation:
I just returned from a fantastic week of vacation in San Franisco. Lots of cable cars, parks, gorgeous weather, and expeditions down to Santa Cruz and Monterey, plus visits to many good friends we hadn’t seen in quite a while. Here’s the trip according to my sketchbook (which seems to favor mainly animals).
Well, I had a very satisfying Christmas visit in VT. We drove up early to avoid the predicted bad weather on Wednesday, so we had a nice leisurely time after that, with lots of good food, family, reading, and just the tiniest bit of work on the Odyssey.
One of the things I’ve been meaning to try with my tablet PC is life drawing at night, and I did that for the first time in the car on the drive up:
We did our presentation at the Center for Cartoon Studies a few days ago, and it was great! It’s a lot of fun to talk to folks who want to know about all the nuts and bolts. We discovered that 2 hours was not nearly enough time for both of us to share all the info we wanted to. They are already talking about bringing us back next year, and giving us two hours each.
Here’s the CCS front window:
Here’s Alison doing her talk. If some of the students look zoned, that’s because I already talked to them for an hour and a quarter. Plus they’re all cartoonists, so they can’t not doodle.
Here’s me in front of the CCS museum/library with Alec Longstreth, who organized the visit. The reason he has a huge beard is that he decided not to shave until he finishes his 200-page graphic novel. And apparently this is only 3 months of growth!
Next week I’ll be presenting at the NH Creative Club, open to the public (with a $15 cover charge, I believe, to cover the cost of the venue). For more details see my Facebook page.
School is back in session, and I’ve been doing a few author visits. I was at the Newton Library last month, South Shore VoTech last week, did a skype interview / vodcast with Park Tudor High School, and I have upcoming appearances at the Plymouth Library and the Center for Cartoon Studies. I’m particularly excited about that last one because CCS has a lot of big-name faculty and seems to be doing everything right (even though I’m not sure anyone should be spending their money on an education specifically in making comics).
That visit will also be my first joint presentation with Alison, which I think will be very cool. We’ll be talking to all those aspiring comic creators about the realities of publishing and selling graphic novels. And getting to know the faculty too, of course.
Just got back yesterday from Milwaukee. I actually liked it a lot (unlike the last time I visited which was for a convention, in the winter, about 10 years ago). This time we were there for the wedding of our friends Tim and Sarah:
They threw a great shindig. We also got to the Art Museum, which is architecturally stunning:
Here’s a fun drawing I did at the entrance to the main galleries, and a photo of me drawing it:
They have a couple of nice suits of armor — a subject I can never resist drawing:
Milwaukee also has a pretty decent zoo, but I won’t make you look at my zoo sketches unless you want to. Except the penguin.
Okay, so I’ve been traveling too much, which is why I haven’t updated much. The past few days I was home in VT, where I did an author event at my hometown library.
While I was up there I rescued some forgotten childhood artwork from my Mom’s basement. Most of it is going in the recycling or a box in the attic marked “do not open until the artist’s death,” but there are a few pieces I want to scan because they represent distinctive personal stages of my work. Here, for instance, is a sample of what I’ll call the “big fights” series, in which numerous human and supernatural combatants fight simultaneously on a full sheet of paper.
So yeah, as mentioned in the last post, I did an author visit at Penn State Harrisburg for their summer writing program. Actually two writing programs, one for kids and one for adults. I was a pretty big hit, or so it seems from the feedback.
This blog tool is too clunky for uploading a large number of photos, so I’m going to start a new Flickr account for this sort of thing with the username garethhinds. (You know what I hate about Flickr, though? Photos appear in reverse order unless you go to the set.)
Of course I also did some sketching, and here are a few samples. Arguably one of the best features of Harrisburg is the lovely path along the river:
Some more from the river, and some plants at Ashcombe’s nursery:
The nursery also has bunnies (with too-cute names)!
And you know what else is in Lancaster — lots of Amish! Seriously, I mostly didn’t draw the Amish themselves, as they have this thing about graven images (guess I won’t be joining that religion, bucolic as it may be!). But drawing their horses, barns, and buggies I have no problem with.
