It’s been 5 years in the making, but my coloring book, The ABCs of Lesser-Known Goddesses, is finally a reality.

I’m so excited, I have a book signing in St. Louis on Saturday and the books were scheduled to arrive next Monday. I am so very happy they arrived before the signing.

There have been some mumblings that I do a follow-up coloring book for the gods. I don’t know. The research takes a lot of time. But maybe I can be convinced.

I hope to see my local fans at Picnic on Saturday. I’ll be out in the heat all day. Come by and see me. Bring cold drinks!

Happy Memorial Day!

It’s hard to believe it’s already Memorial Day weekend. It’s a raw 55°F outside. I have a long sleeved shirt and a sweater on. We may even have to turn the heat back on overnight.

Tornadoes slammed through Missouri yesterday and there are more forecast for today as well. So far my town has been one of the lucky ones without major damage. My thought and prayers turn to the unlucky ones, most recently in Joplin, where the death toll keeps rising. I have friends nearby and am so very thankful all of them are safe.

Normally, during May, I am hard at work on the road.

Not this year. I decided last fall to stay home and work on creating a new body of work and improving my health. So far, so good. Although neither the body of work nor my physical body are where I want them to be, I do see progress on both fronts.

I only have one event scheduled for this summer. It’s local, in St. Louis, and I’ve been going to this event for around 13 years. Only the last 6 have I been there as an author. It is still amazing and unbelievable to me that my first book came out so many years ago. I am truly blessed by my publisher and my fans.

In book news, that first book: An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child entered it’s third printing last month. And my most recent book: The ABCs of Lesser-Known Goddesses – an Art Nouveau coloring book will hit the book stores in June.

I received a proof copy from the publisher this week. They promise me I will have a box of freshly printed books for my St. Louis appearance on June 11, 2011. I will be signing all my books and giving a workshop at the 19th Annual Pagan Picnic on that Saturday. The Picnic is a 3 day affair, with a music concert on Friday night and the actual fair on Saturday and Sunday. Last I heard it was the biggest festival of its kind in the nation. Pretty amazing.

I hope those of you in the St. Louis area will come out and see me, say hi and see what I’ve been up to!

For those who want to down load the hi res PDF of the free coloring page please sign up at my Yahoo Newsgroup. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LyonMartinNews/files/MemorialDaygators.pdf

Have a great and safe weekend!

Wolf Star coloring page ready for down load

The new coloring page is ready for down load. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LyonMartinNews to get your print quality Wolf Star coloring page. If you’re not already on the mailing list signing up is fast and easy.

Stay up to date on what I’m doing and where I’ll be through out the year.

If you have an ereader, Google Editions has ebooks for An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child; Aidan’s First Full Moon Circle and Watchers for sale! As always you can buy the bound books from my publisher or at your favorite book seller.

Enjoy the coloring page!

creature for Feb 24, 2011

I spent the morning going over bills and making calls to companies. Somehow, no matter how good a mood I am in before I do these things, by the time I am done, I want to rip things and stamp my feet. I guess I need to meditate on why that is.

I decided to play some soothing music and do my daily doodle to try and get my happy on again. Getting there. Slowly.

The picture book dummy challenge is moving forward over at #kidlitart. (Twitter chat) This week we start on thumbnail story boards. You can read the challenge post here. The chat is tonight at 9PM eastern for those of you who want to stop by. You don’t have to be doing the challenge to join the chat. Anyone interested in kid lit art can be included in the conversation. Just be warned it moves at light speed!

Just a reminder of our schedule for the challenge:

Here is the schedule as it will be presented during the challenge. Blog posts will introduce each step by providing key points to consider, resources, and chat topics for that phase.

Jan. 6-Jan. 13 (1 week): Pick your project

Jan. 13-Feb. 10 (4 weeks): Draft the story

Feb. 10-Feb. 24 (2 weeks): Develop the characters

Feb. 24-Mar. 10 (2 weeks): Storyboard text and art

Mar. 10-May 5 (8 weeks): Produce tight, full-size sketches

May 5-Jun. 2 (4 weeks): Produce final art of two spreads

Jun. 2-Jun. 16 (2 weeks): Comp the cover and assemble the dummy

Jun. 16-Jun. 23 (1 week): Research submissions; prepare dummy package

Jun. 23-Jun. 30 (1 week): Submit

Jun. 30: Wrap party!

That’s it! Nine easy steps to dummy success!

If you are taking on the challenge, please stop by my blog and leave me a comment on your progress (or lack thereof.)

creature for 2-22-11

As a continuation of the Picture Book Dummy challenge (#PBDummy on Twitter) I’ve been blogging about the mechanics of each step along the way. Currently, the challenge is in the character development section. Normally, what I do is hunt down links to what other experienced artists have had to say. Sadly, aside from a smattering places, and fewer books than that, there isn’t much out there. My two blog posts (to the right) on the picture book dummy are actually among the top search results. And I have already said what I said, so linking to myself is downright silly.

One of the differences in creating a picture book illustration as opposed to single images is the need for sequential art. The characters in the story line need to be drawn multiple times, accurately and in many different poses. Facial emotion is a top priority in story telling through visual media.

With that in mind I hunted for information on comic and graphic novel art development. There was a tad bit more, but still rather slim pickings.

Names that came up were:

Tom Bancroft (Walt Diseny) Creating Characters with Personality
Will Eisner Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices
and Scott McCloud Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art , Understanding Comics.

All of them are pillars in what they do (did) but beyond the basics, the media of children’s books and the comic book require a different type of art. Most dramatically, is the fact that most graphic novels and comics are done with the end reader as an adult in mind. Sexy, blond bombshells and mysterious, evil villains receive top billing there. Picture books, on the other hand, often feature young children, animals, or adult stand-ins with very childlike qualities. With Disney movies, the end viewer is the family, but animation requires a different skill set than a printed piece. What these people have to say about character design and visual story telling provide a strong foundation for any children’s book illustrator.

And with that said, I am off to my pencils and pads. I have a bunch of characters to bring to fruition for my challenge dummy. I’ll post something when the characters reveal themselves to me.