Gareth Hinds's Blog, page 4
July 6, 2015
ALA 2015 recap
At ALA with Ashley Bryan
Although I’ve been to the American Library Association‘s (smaller) Midwinter show, I’d never been to the main ALA Annual show until last week. It was a really wonderful experience. Alison and I flew out a week early to explore and visit friends in the area. Here are a few highlights of our travels and of the show (below the cut):
We arrived the Friday before ALA to do sightseeing and visit friends in the bay area. We started out in Palo Alto and San Jose. We visited two great bookstores, Hicklebee’s in San Jose, where the walls are covered with sketches by authors & illustrators, and Book Shop Santa Cruz, where I signed the very impressive collection of my books they had in stock.
In addition to being a wonderful store, Hicklebee’s is uniquely decorated with sketches by children’s authors and illustrators!
The newest addition (I chose the top of the door frame, because it was empty and not too many folks would be tall enough to draw there).
Macbeth next to The Crossover :-)
From there we drove down to Point Lobos. Just south of Monterey, this is one of our favorite spots for nature — wind, waves, seals, sea birds, sea otters, sea lions, and I’m pretty sure we even saw whales far out from shore! We also drove the seaward half of Seventeen Mile Drive and Sunset Drive, ending up in Monterey for dinner, then drove back to Palo Alto through a beautiful sunset. In several of these shots, what appear to be featureless bumps on the rocks are actually clusters of harbor seals sunning themselves.
Harbor seals on the beach:
Sea otters!
We headed up to Oakland and Berkeley Tuesday, then on Wednesday we went into town by way of the Golden Gate Bridge, stopping at Fort Baker to sketch and take photos. We headed into the park and went to the Academy of Science, then drove around a bit enjoying the hilly scenery of San Francisco itself, before heading to the Ferry Building and meeting up with more friends for dinner.
Jabba the Frog
Claude the Albino Alligator (who has his own FB page!)
Cervantes!
The beautiful Japanese Garden (this is a different gate than the drawing above)
and of course, the cable cars
Great views from the many hills of SF
Thursday and Friday were a mix of sightseeing in the city and setup for the show, where I had a table in “Artist Alley” to sell and promote my books. The exhibit hall ran Friday through Monday. It was an excellent show — not as wildly successful as NCTE tends to be for me, but better than a general-interest book or comic show. Especially notable events: my fist signing for Samurai Rising with the author Pamela Turner; a lovely Charlesbridge dinner; an amazing party at Chronicle featuring treats from their cookbooks; several other great parties we *may* have crashed; and finally the Newbery Caldecott Wilder award banquet, with acceptance speeches by the winners of those awards (with many thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for hosting us!).
It’s always exciting to see a big line waiting to get into the exhibit hall!
My table (next to Alexis Fajardo’s Kid Beowulf — I sense a theme)
Lots of other great artists were in “Artist Alley” with me, including John Hendrix, Nathan Hale, Raina Telgemeier & Dave Roman, and (shown here) Matt Phelan.
The legendary Ashley Bryan, whom I’m lucky to count as a good friend, stops by my table.
Beekle greets us at the banquet.
Dan Santat gave an amazing, incredibly emotionally honest speech about the self-doubt that has driven him to work so hard. Then Kwame Alexander rocked the house with a full-on sermon in verse about how to win the Newbery. Lastly Donald Crews gave a quieter but equally powerful speech about his and his wife’s careers across several eras of children’s publishing.
As soon as I got back I had a week-long aikido camp, so now I really need to get back to the drawing board and do some serious catch-up!
May 24, 2015
What Does the Fox Read?
This is the piece I’ve donated to the ABFE silent auction, which is this Tuesday at BEA (for those unfamiliar with the acronyms, the auction benefits the anti-censorship group American Booksellers for Free Expression, and is part of Book Expo America).
It’s the first time I’ve done a new original piece for the auction (as opposed to donating a piece of art from one of my books), and I’m hoping people will dig it. I also recently drew a fox on my Mom’s birthday card because I gave her Jane the Fox and Me, and I’ve discovered that foxes are a lot of fun to draw 
May 11, 2015
Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2015
I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend, with some friends and a sketchbook. Sheep and sheepdogs are a lot of fun to draw 
May 10, 2015
Brian Selznick and the Arbuthnot Lecture
Alison and I went to see Brian Selznick deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Friday on night at the MLK branch of the DC Public Library. Brian gave a very beautiful, deep and thought-provoking speech (no surprise). Afterward I introduced myself (and showed him my sketches) and he said he’s a fan of my books– which is one of those things that just kind of blows your mind when it comes from someone of his stature in the book world!
I’m quite happy with these sketches, though I was too far away to see a lot of facial details of any of the speakers, or to note that Brian’s suit had a super-elegant indigo paisley pattern on it.
February 27, 2015
Launch event recap
Presenting Macbeth at the TKPL, photo by Bruce Guthrie
I’ve had three Macbeth launch events so far, and all have gone swimmingly. First I was in Boston, dealing with snowbanks up to my chinny-chin-chin, but lots of folks came out to join me, for which I’m very thankful! Wellesley Books and Porter Square Books have been super-supportive of my work for years, so I was very happy to have the first launch events there.
The first event was at Wellesley Books, Alison’ former employer and a fabulous group of folks who are really family to us at this point. Lots of teachers came to this one, as well as friends and fans old and new.
Next up was Porter Square Books, with a great turnout including lots of good friends, and two fabulous actors from ASP doing a scene from Macbeth as part of the presentation. Mara and Jesse were great. If you’re in the Boston are you should really check out ASP, they stage wonderful productions.
The second round of events is here in the DC area. Monday night I was at the Takoma Park Library. Great turnout, including some of my fellow aikido students. The talented Dave Burbank turned the tables on me by doing this great drawing while I was presenting — and pulled in some imagery from my Macbeth reference photos as well!
Portrait of me presenting at TKPL, by Dave Burbank
Also Bruce Guthrie took all these great photos. This is the best-documented event I’ve done by far!
Me with Dave Burbank and Karen McPherson (two of my favorite librarians!)
Presenting at TKPL, photo by Bruce Guthrie
Tonight I’ll be at Hooray For Books in Alexandria, VA. No projector, so I’ll be drawing oldschool, on an easel. Next week I’m doing an event for local schools at Politics & Prose, and then my local events are done for a while. (To keep up with all my events and major news, sign up for my e-newsletter here.)
February 7, 2015
For Les
Les Kanturek died almost 2 years ago, on Feb 25 2013, after a long battle with cancer. Of the many excellent art teachers I was lucky enough to learn from during my education at RIT and Parsons, Les was one of my favorites, and one of the few who became a close personal friend in the years after I graduated. He had an incredibly generous heart and a great sense of humor, and he made even dry subjects like how to do self-employed taxes fun to learn. He helped countless young illustration students find their artistic voice, and he will always be missed by those who had the good fortune to know him.
Here is a short video profile of Les created by Ray Zablocki: http://www.rayzablocki.com/179648/1870225/work/parsons-les-kanturek
You can see some of Les’ quirkier projects on his blog. There is a Facebook group called “For the Love of Les” featuring lots more stories and photos of Les.
Scott McCloud at Politics and Prose
Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics*, has a huge new book out called The Sculptor, and he’s on a 14-city tour promoting it. Last night I went to see him at Politics & Prose, in conversation with Michael Cavna of the Washington Post. The conversation was wide-ranging, and offered great glimpses into McCloud’s applied philosophy of comics storytelling. I’ll say more about the new book, but first some sketches:
(I found Scott’s likeness a bit hard to capture, so I’m afraid most of these aren’t great likenesses. Michael is easy though.)
The Sculptor is massive in scale, and ambitious in its goals. Scott hits the big universal themes: love, life, death, and art, and digs into each one pretty deeply in the course of 500 pages, bringing the story together in an appropriately big and dramatic climax and a complex ending that encourages several re-readings (of at least the ending, if not the entire book). I recommend it highly.
*Understanding Comics, if anyone isn’t aware, is the preeminent work about the medium of comics, written in comics, and is very accessible and interesting to anyone whether or not they read comics. If by chance you haven’t read it, you really, really should. Here, I’ll make it easy to get started:
February 6, 2015
Dunsinane
I went to see David Greig’s play Dunsinane, a production of the National Theatre of Scotland and Royal Shakespeare Company, playing at Shakespeare Theater Co. through 2/21 — More info here. I thought it was quite brilliant. It starts more or less where Macbeth ends, with Siward attempting to stabilize the country whose monarch he’s just unseated. It quickly asserts a more accurate version of the history than Shakespeare’s – Lady Macbeth is still alive, is known by her actual name, Gruach, and has a living son, Lulach. Macbeth has ruled for 17 years (relatively peacefully by Gruach’s account). A finer point, and I’m not sure if this is historically supported, but by clan heredity she embodies the crown of Scotland, her husband(s) being king only by marriage. The story is basically told from the point of view of the English soldiers, who find themselves in hostile territory, trying to stabilize a country whose culture they don’t understand — a deliberate parallel to the Iraq and Afghanistan situation.
The play is powerful, the acting is superb, and the themes are satisfyingly complex. Highly recommended.
Here are my sketches from the performance, with the usual caveat about a dark theater, blind contour, unflattering likenesses, etc.
I’m on a panel with several of these folks on Sunday. It should be very cool.
February 3, 2015
Mary Stuart at the Folger
The Folger Shakespeare Theater’s Mary Stuart just opened, and per my usual modus operandi, I went and did sketches. The house tends to be quite dark there, so most of these are “blind contour” drawings, with the bizarre proportions and overlaps that result from that.
The story is quite engaging, and the acting is excellent. The play has, as its title might suggest, a sympathetic view toward Mary Stuart, but also conveys the complex and dangerous situation in which Elizabeth I found herself with little choice but to treat Mary as an enemy. The sets and costumes are extremely well done, though I found the lack-of-color palette combined with a lack of action in the play made the performance a bit less interesting visually. Still, the personalities and various twists of the story kept me engaged, and I recommend the show to anyone who is (at least somewhat) interested in the Elizabethan period of history.
January 30, 2015
The Tempest part Deux, and more upcoming Shakespeare-related theatre
STC was kind enough to invite me to attend their magnificent production of The Tempest a second time. Sketches below!
Next up for STC are The Metromaniacs, a “rediscovered French comedy masterpiece” from 1738, translated/adapted by David Ives, and David Greig’s Dunsinane, a sequel to Macbeth, produced the National Theatre of Scotland and Royal Shakespeare Company.
Also the Folger is doing Mary Stuart, about the power struggle between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.
Tempest sketches part two (part one here) —
Prospero’s final monologue is especially powerful in this production. Here it is in its entirety:
Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint. Now, ’tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardoned the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
