Susan Rankin-Pollard – Illustrations and Stuff

It’s amazing how much of your life can be eaten up by a slow move into a new home. It’s even more, shall we say, _interesting_ when you’ve accepted a wedding invitation on the opposite coast and you stay for a week because, well, they’re your old friends and, gosh darn it, you rarely ever see them! So between the end of LA SCBWI 12 and the 15th of this month, I was frantically trying to pack down as much of my home studio and personal belongings as I could. I didn’t quite get all of the studio. Personal stuff? Nada.

Off I went to New York where another frantic time was had. My hostess and friend since second grade did not have a dress yet and I still needed shoes. Both were accomplished just under the wire, including major alterations in less than 24 hours on my friend’s dress. We got to the wedding in New York from Northern New Jersey with not a moment to spare, which means that, because we could walk to the venue, I did so in sneakers rather than the high heels and pictures were snapped by the photographer before I had a chance to change them! Later, I met one of the staff in the restroom who said, “Oh! You’re the lady with the sneakers!” But props to children’s book illustrator AJ Smith for finding me a spot to sit and change my shoes and even tied the satin ribbons into pretty bows when I couldn’t quite reach them due to the sofa being a bit deep. Andy was my Hero of the Day!

The wedding was funny and touching and loud and fun. Before long, it was time for me to leave old friends and their families again and head back to California to finish packing and get moving, as it were.

My first trip back to the new house after returning from LA SCBWI 12 held a BIG surprise! In addition to the foundation, plumbing, and electrical work, Phil had had the floors throughout the house sanded and refinished! I was speechless. I teared up. Honest. I had been getting bummed out as I packed more and more boxes about the idea of not being able to afford to do it in time for us to move in and having to move everything back out again the following Spring. I was already bummed enough that the unfinished attic, when finished, would not have enough standing height to be a studio, but compared to the idea of moving in, then out, then back in again? Ugh! So, yeah. Tears. Happy, relieved tears.

I had another surprise when I got back from New York: My studio had all of my furniture in it! Before I’d left, we’d only moved in my drawing table, a seat, and the tall taboret. Very sparse. We’d also moved the bed, the table and most of its chairs, the rocking chair, and two low-slung wing-back chairs. Oh, and mostly filled the storage portion of the garage with boxes. But now…! Now I have a studio!

Sort of.

I can’t actually sit in there are work and work out getting comfy and into a routine and things on the walls yet, because… Because the floor is so nice I need to protect it with rugs and carpet pads from the wheels on my chairs. Remember that bit about me being picky? And about how moving eats up your time? I’m hoping to check second hand shops this weekend for small, persian rugs.

All of this is merely delaying the inevitable:

Getting comfortable enough in the studio to settle into a productive routine, so that creativity has something to return to when it chooses to come back.

I keep finding myself wanting to work, not being able to work, and when I sit down to sketch instead, … nada. For now, I’m forgiving myself for this because I have a lot of Getting To Know Myself to do. This was repeated a few times at LA SCBWI and I thought about it a good while a few times. The fact that I can’t sit down and just automatically sketch my favorite thing tells me that I don’t have a favorite thing. That is unsettling.

But it’s ok. I now have a quiet home in a house I love and a good neighborhood. I have access to all sorts of community art activities, like life drawing and painting seminars, and the local library branch. I don’t have any interruptions or distractions, save for a Facebook habit (I’ll work on that.).

With the work of the change of environment basically done, now begins the work on the self and seeing just what I have to share with the rest of the world.

This past weekend, I once again ventured to Los Angeles for the annual SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) international Conference. The biggie. This go around, I had roommates and a few Facebook and Twitter contacts, so I wasn’t quite so on-my-own, stranger in a strange land, as I was last year. For this, I am very grateful. Going alone once gives you a lot of headspace and your own bed, sure, but having a little group means you can being in multiple places at one and not have to have your meals alone.

Diandra Mae, Melinda Beavers, and Jennifer Meyer are all very talented ladies and introduced me to a lot of fine and talented people. One in particular was kind enough to ask to see my not-a-portfolio portfolio and offer me her suggestions. I was delighted and handed it over. From what I hear, she’s spot on with her assessments and she didn’t disappoint. In fact, she dove right at one of my biggest fears and allayed them without knowing it! “Don’t lose your lines.” This is my number one fear when moving on to a finish, because, well, I have a serious love affair with sketching. There’s so much energy and life in sketches and I worry about the finish looking dead by comparison. She suggested minimal cleanup of construction lines and then working from there. I instantly felt a huge sense of relief. It will be fun and interesting to see the results in the coming week. Thank you, Kelly Light!

There’s more that I want to share, including some of my favorite quotes from the the speakers I heard and books I’ve seen, but I’m still recovering from having done so much in so little time, with little sleep and modest food. Come back in a day, or two for that. For now, I’ll leave you with this:

“Never write on an empty stomach. Use paper.” -Dan Gutman

While on a recent trip to Vegas with my husband and two dear friends, we happened upon, of all things, Martotano’s at The Rio hotel and casino. Steve Martotano has taken South Philly food to a higher level and when I saw Sunday Pork and Rigatoni on the menu I HAD to try it. Sunday Pork with Rigatoni is probably one of many dishes in the arsenal of the South Philly Grandma that is falling by the wayside with our modern lives being so busy and having become more and more processed and quick in terms of the food we eat. But I remember the occasional Sunday dinner like so many other kids had so often.

Many of those few, big Sunday dinners were at my aunt’s house. This was my Mom’s sister, who married italian, gave me 3 cousins and they stayed in Southwest Philly. My parents chose to move to the ‘burbs, so we didn’t see them all that often. It made those childhood get togethers all the more special. Mom grew up down the street and her side is slavic. Her mother far outlived her father and died when I was almost 3, so while I have a couple of distinct memories of Baba, I’ve no real food association with her. Dad often throws a pork chop into his pasta gravy and Grandma (Dad’s Mom) always made her own. We may be of german and irish descent, but when you’re from South Philly, like my parents are, it doesn’t matter

Ordering that dish turned out to be just the thing to really lift my spirits after 2 whirlwind days of walking around to see as much as we could while dealing with crowds, lines, noise and lots of lights. Remember in Ratatouille when the critic asks for perspective and he Gets It? It was like that. I can count on one hand the number of times that food has had an impact anything like this and this one blew them all away. I can’t really remember what the others were. That may be because the drinks there are also VERY good.

Before the meal was over, I had decided that, since I couldn’t take the leftovers back to San Jose with me, I was going to make it when I got back there. I did a little searching online and found just about the recipe I was looking for over at That’sNotWhatTheRecipeSays! That’s a blog which is now forever bookmarked to read on my I Have No Brain, Let’s Read Blogs Days.

The following recipe, which I’ve chosen to post on my Dad’s birthday, includes a few tweaks and, since I prefer to use a slow cooker (I love the one from William-Sonoma that my roommate has), I’ve included the cook times and temperatures for it. I hope you enjoy it as much I still am. I just had some for lunch!

South Philly Sunday Pork with Rigatoni
Serves 6 adults for 2-3 days. Hey, it’s a Sunday Dinner sized recipe!

4 – 5 pound boneless pork roast, trim some of the excess fat. Don’t go crazy, though. You need some of it.
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
2 quarts whole plum tomatoes in juice
2 small cans tomato paste***!!!
8-10 pickled cherry peppers, stemmed, seeded and quartered
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon basil*
1 teaspoon oregano*
1 teaspoon thyme*
1/8 tsp of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 pounds of rigatoni

*add more later on, if you want.
***!!! See the scrapings left behind in the can? Do NOT use water to swoosh them out! I know you really want them, I did, too. Reserve some of the juice from the plum tomatoes and use THAT to swoosh it out. You’re welcome.

Slice pork roast into one inch slices, season with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in large dutch oven, or cooktop safe 6 qt slow cooker insert, and add as many of the pork slices as will fit without touching each other. Sear pork slices on both sides (about 3 minutes a side on medium heat).

Remove pork and leave resting on a plate. Add chopped onion and garlic to pan drippings and cook until tender, about four minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir thoroughly. Tuck pork slices into sauce and simmer on low heat covered for 2 hours. Uncover and continue to simmer for an additional hour. If desired, meatballs can be added at this point. If using a slow cooker, cook on high for one hour, then simmer on low for 4 hours.

About 30-45 minutes prior to serving, remove pork slices from the gravy and pull apart using 2 forks, or a knife and fork and place back into the gravy. Serve pork and gravy over two pounds of cooked rigatoni and garnish with a small scoop of ricotta cheese. Use low-fat ricotta, if it makes you feel better about it!

Pasta Tip! Add some extra virgin olive oil to the water long with the salt. When the rigatoni is al dente, drain and toss with a bit more olive oil. This is especially good for spaghettis and fettucini. Nobody wants a pasta knot.

And that’s it! A little time consuming, but really simple and so darned tasty!

I have learned a few things about writing this past week. Things that will serve me well, not only in the process of writing, but in other areas of life as well. They are thigs that are best learned by experience, but I’ll tell you what they are anyway so that, should you see the warning signs, you’ll say “Aha!” and take the necessary steps that helped me. Or not. It’s up to you and I won’t judge.

The first thing I learned is that it IS possible to have Too Much coffee or tea. Your stomach will tell you when you’ve had Enough coffee or tea with the standard, “Ok, we’re full here.” Then it will notify you again when there has been More Than Enough. This is the “Ok, we’re really quite full here, you may have noticed by the sluggish discomfort.” This is a good time to back off and have some water in a little while, because at Too Much, I presume the stomach might tell you about it in more violent ways that involve loud vocalizations and emissions and one end, or another. I stopped at More Than Enough. While avoiding catastrophe, I did suffer with sluggish semi-paralysis and had to stop writing for the day. Three is now my maximum and, to cut down on fat from half and half and to curb my honey usage, I’m experimenting once again with vanilla soy milk. It’s rather good in Peet’s Masala Chai.

The second thing I learned happened when I got nervous while working on my manuscript. Feeling myself begin to flounder and staring down the “What HAVE You Gotten Yourself Into?” gun, I closed my text editor and browsed FaceBook. There I noticed mention that she was going to work on her synopsis. Susan is the reason I entered the scholarship competition in the first place. She’s an inspirational gal and, while I haven’t seen her in several weeks, she’s been a great cheerleader. She and I are both working to meet the deadline to submit our works for critique.

“A synopsis,” thinks I. “Great! Maybe I should take a break and do that. Ok, what are the basic guidelines…?” A quick search yields the answer. Three to twenty-two pages? …the average number of pages for a synopsis being five. It seemed a little overwhelming. “Ok,” thinks I. “How can we break this down? Make it more manageable? What are they looking for in the most basic format?” The synopsis, being a short hand version of the story used to sell your book to agents, editors, publishers and, eventually (one hopes) readers, can also serve as a road map when you write it part way through writing the story. It’s a bit like doing an outline, which I did before I sat down to write any of the story, but outlines feel so… rigid.

And then it hit me.

I decided to do a Who Is? list that would mention all of the important players and indicate why they were important in only the detail necessary. Eventually, it became a Who, What, When, Where? list and it’s 4 pages long. Well, 4 pages of 18pt Helvetica, so I can see it easily without picking it up from next to my keyboard.

Today, I printed it out and, with the print out next to the keyboard, I felt much more at ease. I now have direction, even if some parts are still a bit fuzzy. I now have a path to follow and I can break down the task into manageable bites by looking at the list and choosing a place in the story to work up to for that day. The goal is to break it all up in such a way that puts me at an end point with 2 days to spare so that I can go through the whole thing and tweak it a little before I send it off.

I have also learned that I need to schedule some doodling time in there. I love listening to music. I love doodling. Doodling can be done to music. I miss the music. Writing with music, or talk radio on works… not so much. Not for me anyway, and since I hope to make this a graphic novelette, there will need to be illustrations and comic pages. The music, well… Music soothes the savage Sue.

And speaking of music, my washing machine just sang to me, so remember! Easy on the coffee/tea, have a road map and goof around when needed.

Those of you not yet following me on Twitter or G+ who’ve sent me a message via LiveJournal, or by some other means, I assure you I’m fine! I took a bit of a break from blogging and LJ, and I tried to ease up on FB and reduce my social media involvement down to mostly Twitter, but then there’s that whole G+ thing…

Anyway, I’m fine, just busy, and nothing terribly deep to say in all that time.

I do have a few bits of news that I can share, some of it vague, because I can’t divulge all details, but some of it I can now point to and say, “Go look at this!” Like this:

Nickelodeon Dance

And this:

Let\'s Cheer!

My first bits of professional voiceover work! What I can’t tell you is what’s happened in regards to that career path since those videos went live 2 nights ago. Whoo, boy.

Before those went live however, I participated in a themed life-drawing event in San Francisco that was a part of a show at SOMArts. ( WARNING! Some of the imagery is VERY naughty! Some is just silly, like Ron Jeremy’s bronzed underwear!) My good pal Della Calfee has a couple of images in the show, 2 of which are being used prominently in the print adverts and on the web site. Anyway, they kept 2 of my drawings for display with the show and a critic in attendance took pictures of them! No idea if she tweeted them, or what yet.

But before that, I received word that the first chapter of the middle grade readers’ book I’m writing was selected as the winner for the only scholarship offered for an intimate, seaside writers’ conference out here. Admittance, room, and board are all covered, as is the fee for a manuscript critique from one of five faculty members (authors, agents, publishers) of my choosing. The top three slots are occupied by agents who represent author/illustrators, the other two slots are publishers (Big thanks to Ursula Vernon for her assistance in making that decision, and to Susan Taylor Brown for making damn sure I entered the competition!).

Have I mentioned that this all happened in the last six days?

There’s a part of me that has me looking over my shoulder, because it’s convinced that Allen Funt has risen from the grave and will jump out from behind a bush any minute now and shout, “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!” It’s been an incredibly surreal week. I’m honestly not sure just how much more awesomeness I can take just now! Mind you, I’m not adverse to finding out…

In all of this… With all of this going on… I am pleased to say that the house we’re renting here has not sold out from under us and is now off the market until some unspecified date that will be determined by the end of the rainy, winter season. Sometime in March, I would guess.

It is amazing to me how The Powers That Be are always trying to prove to me just how Not Subtle my life will always be. I’m grateful that they’ve finally chosen to show me that a pile of really good stuff can happen all at once, too. Nice change of pace.

If you’re seeing this on WordPress, visual changes will soon be occurring. As for overall content, I’ll be writing more about lots of stuff and posting more drawings soon, like my forays into Corel Painter, bits about voiceover goings-on, writing, and yarn work. There will also be articles and interviews, some of them via links, but hopefully some of my own doing in the future.

Take care! I’ll post again as soon as I catch my breath!

The days until the conference are becoming less and less and, surprisingly, I’m not all that panicked. I’m assembling materials to print for the portfolio showcase and that’s going well. I’ll have black and white, half-tome, and color pieces to show, in both traditional media and pixels.

A little while back I asked for storybook titles to re-illustrate and this suggestion was made.

_How Fletcher Was Hatched_ is the story of a dog whose friends, an otter and a beaver, find a way to make him hatch from a giant egg to regain the love and attention of his owner, Alexandra, who lately has a thing for hatching cute and fluffy chicks that go “peep”!

When I was a little girl, I absolutely LOVED this book and Mom read it so well! She deserves a lot of credit not only for fostering a love of reading, but for theatrical reading! She did voices and everything! It’s left a warm and lasting impression. Here was the perfect book for me to do a re-illustration project! An older book, something well-loved, but not an overdone classic, and something I could be passionate about and sink my teeth into.

First thing I did was find someone selling a copy of it. It has some mustiness, or mildew in it somewhere, so I’ve got to keep it in a ziplock bag (anyone know about book cleaning?), which is a bummer, but I’m just so glad to have it anyway! Then yesterday I chose a page. Something that would sum up the story and be an emotional point to show off my ability to portray emotion. Here’s the page I chose and the sketch I did to update it.

I’m really pleased with it. The two holes, through which moonlight will come in, were left there in the building of the egg so that Fletcher’s friends could give him “water and the occasional strawberry.”

What’s funny is that while I was drawing this, I began to experience muscle memories. I began to remember that, as a little girl, I had tried redrawing this page already! So, yeah… Really liking this! I’m going to finish this one today!

The days until the conference are becoming less and less and, surprisingly, I’m not all that panicked. I’m assembling materials to print for the portfolio showcase and that’s going well. I’ll have black and white, half-tome, and color pieces to show, in both traditional media and pixels.

A little while back I asked for storybook titles to re-illustrate and this suggestion was made.

_How Fletcher Was Hatched_ is the story of a dog whose friends, an otter and a beaver, find a way to make him hatch from a giant egg to regain the love and attention of his owner, Alexandra, who lately has a thing for hatching cute and fluffy chicks that go “peep”!

When I was a little girl, I absolutely LOVED this book and Mom read it so well! She deserves a lot of credit not only for fostering a love of reading, but for theatrical reading! She did voices and everything! It’s left a warm and lasting impression. Here was the perfect book for me to do a re-illustration project! An older book, something well-loved, but not an overdone classic, and something I could be passionate about and sink my teeth into.

First thing I did was find someone selling a copy of it. It has some mustiness, or mildew in it somewhere, so I’ve got to keep it in a ziplock bag (anyone know about book cleaning?), which is a bummer, but I’m just so glad to have it anyway! Then yesterday I chose a page. Something that would sum up the story and be an emotional point to show off my ability to portray emotion. Here’s the page I chose and the sketch I did to update it.

I’m really pleased with it. The two holes, through which moonlight will come in, were left there in the building of the egg so that Fletcher’s friends could give him “water and the occasional strawberry.”

What’s funny is that while I was drawing this, I began to experience muscle memories. I began to remember that, as a little girl, I had tried redrawing this page already! So, yeah… Really liking this! I’m going to finish this one today!

The days until the conference are becoming less and less and, surprisingly, I’m not all that panicked. I’m assembling materials to print for the portfolio showcase and that’s going well. I’ll have black and white, half-tome, and color pieces to show, in both traditional media and pixels.

A little while back I asked for storybook titles to re-illustrate and this suggestion was made.

_How Fletcher Was Hatched_ is the story of a dog whose friends, an otter and a beaver, find a way to make him hatch from a giant egg to regain the love and attention of his owner, Alexandra, who lately has a thing for hatching cute and fluffy chicks that go “peep”!

When I was a little girl, I absolutely LOVED this book and Mom read it so well! She deserves a lot of credit not only for fostering a love of reading, but for theatrical reading! She did voices and everything! It’s left a warm and lasting impression. Here was the perfect book for me to do a re-illustration project! An older book, something well-loved, but not an overdone classic, and something I could be passionate about and sink my teeth into.

First thing I did was find someone selling a copy of it. It has some mustiness, or mildew in it somewhere, so I’ve got to keep it in a ziplock bag (anyone know about book cleaning?), which is a bummer, but I’m just so glad to have it anyway! Then yesterday I chose a page. Something that would sum up the story and be an emotional point to show off my ability to portray emotion. Here’s the page I chose and the sketch I did to update it.

I’m really pleased with it. The two holes, through which moonlight will come in, were left there in the building of the egg so that Fletcher’s friends could give him “water and the occasional strawberry.”

What’s funny is that while I was drawing this, I began to experience muscle memories. I began to remember that, as a little girl, I had tried redrawing this page already! So, yeah… Really liking this! I’m going to finish this one today!

The days until the conference are becoming less and less and, surprisingly, I’m not all that panicked. I’m assembling materials to print for the portfolio showcase and that’s going well. I’ll have black and white, half-tome, and color pieces to show, in both traditional media and pixels.

A little while back I asked for storybook titles to re-illustrate and this suggestion was made.

_How Fletcher Was Hatched_ is the story of a dog whose friends, an otter and a beaver, find a way to make him hatch to regain the love and attention of his owner, Alexandra, who lately has a thing for hatching cute and fluffy chicks that go “peep”!

When I was a little girl, I absolutely LOVED this book and Mom read it so well! She deserves a lot of credit not only for fostering a love of reading, but for theatrical reading! She did voices and everything! It’s left a warm and lasting impression. Here was the perfect book for me to do a re-illustration project! An older book, something well-loved, but not an overdone classic, and something I could be passionate about and sink my teeth into.

First thing I did was find someone selling a copy of it. It has some mustiness, or mildew in it somewhere, so I’ve got to keep it in a ziplock bag (anyone know about book cleaning?), which is a bummer, but I’m just so glad to have it anyway! Then today I chose a page. Something that would sum up the story and be an emotional point to show off my ability to portray emotion. Here’s the page I chose and the sketch I did to update it.

"Inside the egg, feeling very homesick, Fletcher wondered if Alexandra was thinking of him."

I’m really pleased with it. The two holes, through which moonlight will come in, were left there in the building of the egg so that Fletcher’s friends could give him “water and the occasional strawberry.”

What’s funny is that while I was drawing this, I began to experience muscle memories. I began to remember that, as a little girl, I had tried redrawing this page already! So, yeah… Really liking this! I’m going to finish this one tomorrow!

The days until the conference are becoming less and less and, surprisingly, I’m not all that panicked. I’m assembling materials to print for the portfolio showcase and that’s going well. I’ll have black and white, half-tome, and color pieces to show, in both traditional media and pixels.

A little while back I asked for storybook titles to re-illustrate and this suggestion was made.

_How Fletcher Was Hatched_ is the story of a dog whose friends, an otter and a beaver, find a way to make him hatch to regain the love and attention of his owner, Alexandra, who lately has a thing for hatching cute and fluffy chicks that go “peep”!

When I was a little girl, I absolutely LOVED this book and Mom read it so well! She deserves a lot of credit not only for fostering a love of reading, but for theatrical reading! She did voices and everything! It’s left a warm and lasting impression. Here was the perfect book for me to do a re-illustration project! An older book, something well-loved, but not an overdone classic, and something I could be passionate about and sink my teeth into.

First thing I did was find someone selling a copy of it. It has some mustiness, or mildew in it somewhere, so I’ve got to keep it in a ziplock bag (anyone know about book cleaning?), which is a bummer, but I’m just so glad to have it anyway! Then today I chose a page. Something that would sum up the story and be an emotional point to show off my ability to portray emotion. Here’s the page I chose and the sketch I did to update it.

"Inside the egg, feeling very homesick, Fletcher wondered if Alexandra was thinking of him."

I’m really pleased with it. The two holes, through which moonlight will come in, were left there in the building of the egg so that Fletcher’s friends could give him “water and the occasional strawberry.”

What’s funny is that while I was drawing this, I began to experience muscle memories. I began to remember that, as a little girl, I had tried redrawing this page already! So, yeah… Really liking this! I’m going to finish this one tomorrow!