News and Sketches

Cinders and Sparrows has gotten several lovely reviews since I last dawdled in here, including from The Horn Book Magazine (which called it "particularly deft") and The Southern Bookseller Review ("perfectly atmospheric and spooky") as well as A Mighty Girl which chose it as one of its books of the year and called it "suspenseful and magical".

Thank youuuuuu! I'm terribly pleased.

Also, the cover art by the Balbusso sisters won in the book illustration category at the 62nd Annual Illustration Competition, which thrills me. They're such incredible artists, and every time I so much as glance at the cover on my bookshelf I'm delighted all over again.

Now, for Cinders art that will definitely nawt win any awards, but was fun  regardless, my journey to learn how to draw continues! Here are some sketches from the book that I've done these past few months.

A Deathborn-Beast:

A windswept Zita:

Tiny Zita and the Butcher in the land of the dead:

A villainous and float-y Magdeboor III:

My mom gave me a big set of pencils and graphite last time I was in Switzerland, so that's what I've been using. I really want to learn how to work digitally, because I remember when I was 11 and first learning how to write music, the jump from handwriting to digital writing made all the difference. I'm kind of irrationally hoping the same will happen with drawing, which doesn't make much sense, but I WILL CONTINUE TO HOPE and also maybe buy Photoshop.

Here's a sinister Mrs. Cantanker to top things off: