"Happy" Halloween!

Click to enlarge!

Typically melancholy Halloween wishes from the good critters at Harts Pass. Here's hoping that you have more fun than the wolf when you're out trick or treating tonight!

SCBWI Spokane

A quick photo of Marsha Qualey and I that arrived in the in-box this morning courtesy of SCBWI Spokane/Northern Idaho's Regional Conference (9.24.11). I did a reflective trajectory of my first decade in "the biz" and Marsha presented an excellent workshop-style session on writing/developing strong characters. Kelly Milner Halls (In Search of Sasquatch!) had a great Nuts & Bolts talk covering ALL of the basics, and Pamela Glauber (Holiday House) and Kerry Sparks (agent, Levine Greenberg) covered the editor and agent material to a 'T'. Wonderful presenters and a small but excellent conference!

A welcome dry spell in all of the recent school and conference visits means that I can get back to work on job No. 1 of making books :)

Harts Pass prints for sale!

Just in time for the holidays, I'm now selling hand-colored prints of the Harts Pass comic strip! I'll be hawking my wares at two local Christmas bazaars (Nov. 19th and Dec. 10th), but I'm also happy to ship them (near or far) for the additional and appropriate fees.

These unique, archival quality reproductions, are printed on 140 lb watercolor paper and packaged in clear acrylic bags. They sell for $20 a piece.

At this point, I have selected about 10 different images for reproduction on a larger scale and I will post the "catalog" soon. However, if you have a personal favorite over the last 71 (and counting) issues please just let me know and I'll be happy to create a special print.

Look for Harts Pass each and every Wednesday in the Methow Valley News, or read it online at the Harts Pass Comics blog.

GRRR!

Thank you Humbolt County!

A huge THANK YOU to both Pacific Union and Redway Elementary Schools for making my visits to Humbolt County last week SO GREAT! Kids, teachers, staff, pta, and other volunteers were incredibly well prepared and very welcoming.

Thank you as well to the legions of volunteers who coordinate 50+ school visits in two days, and all of the hotel rooms, transportation, and several wonderful dinner events, for 23 authors & illustrators from near and far. The Humbolt County Author Festival is an incredible event and I look forward to going back again in 2013!

For additional photos and a brief description of each, visit the Facebook page for Erik Brooks Illustration!

October Sketches...

...with a nod to things a little spooky!

The 2011 Humbolt County Author Fest

Bruce Hale of Chet Gecko fame!

Just a few photos from the 2009 edition, but I'm heading out soon for several great days of school visits and author peeps at the Humbolt County Author Festival. Hello in advance to all of the kids at Pacific Union and Redway Schools. Be sure to stop by the Humbolt County Library on Saturday 10-2pm for the grand finale autograph party!

Links to Literacy

Last October, I had the pleasure of creating a library "lynx" for the newly conceived Links to Literacy program of the North Central Regional Library System. Books matter. Reading works. Libraries ROCK!

An iPad Brushes Painting

I'm still working on this, but I was so excited by the results of my first hour with the iPad Brushes app that I thought I'd post the work in progress :)

For a while now I've been coloring my Harts Pass comics with Photoshop and a Wacom drawing tablet. Simple grayscale stuff with an occassional foray into color -- but not very painterly. Something about the immediacy of the stylus on screen/image with the iPad is really nice. Its more tangible and familiar than a hand on the Wacom but eyes on a screen... I'm also starting to get the hand of mixing colors via screen sampling, which is also really nice. I'll add an update with the finished lion later in the day.