The F&Gs (unbound review copies) just arrived! I've posted about it in my Inkygirl blog.

For those interested, I've posted about what went into creating the "little girl pretending to be a rampaging monster" image in the spread from I'M BORED above. Includes step-by-step images, photo from my meeting at Simon & Schuster, and the final spread.

If you're looking for a holiday gift (esp. writers & illustrators), please consider visiting my friend's Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/artbeco

Beckett Gladney's husband Paul was just laid off work. :-(

Beckett is a talented illustrator and writer, and was the one who convinced me to enter last year's SCBWI Illustration Portfolio Showcase (the one that ended up getting me a book contract for I'm Bored with Simon & Schuster BFYR).

She and Paul have two young kids. You can read about them in Beckett's wonderful blog:http://artbeco.blogspot.com/

Beckett makes absolutely gorgeous sketchbook covers, notebooks, craft kit covers, jewelry and other items. AND she does custom work! If any of you happen to be looking for a holiday gift , please do visit Beckett's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/artbeco

Photo by Beckett Gladney

Two weeks ago, I was in California and walking barefoot in the sand beside the ocean. MUCH nicer weather than Toronto right now, aaaugh!

Anyway, here's Part 1 of my Lost Weekend With David Diaz post.

Ok, I admit I added the "Adventure" part in the title to make this seem more exciting.

What I'm doing: waiting in an overheated room at Sunnybrook Hospital to see if I'm allergic to a type of antibiotic. The others waiting in this room have been given their own pills and/or injections. Now we're all sitting around, pretending we aren't watching each other to see if any of us keel over.

If any of us DO show an allergic reaction, it's likely to be a bad one (drug allergies are like that), so there's a walkie-talkie in the middle of the table for emergencies. Typical waiting time is FIVE HOURS. Happily, I have my iPad and iPhone with me! Sadly, we only have the boardroom with its table and power outlets until noon, after which we have to hang out in the regular waiting area.

I'm now 99.99% sure that the reaction I had a year ago was caused by Scombroid Food Poisoning rather than a drug allergy, but since this is the last in a series of tests I've been undergoing in the past year and has been booked for about four months, I figure I may as well tie up this one loose end.

Besides, it's great for people-watching. Most people in the room are reading. Two are doing needlework. I'm tempted to sketch them, but that might come across as creepy. Hey, just noticed that one of them has an e-reader -- looks like a Kobo.

Anyway, this also gives me the chance to test out posting to my Squarespace blog using the Squarespace iPad app! Let's see how this turns out...

Apologies for the exclamation mark abuse!!!! But I can't help it!!!

You can see a larger version of the cover for I'M BORED here.

And if you're on Facebook, please do "Like" I'm Bored (thanks!).

Thanks so much to my Torkidlit author pal Adrienne Kress for writing such sweet things about me in her blog this week.

I was blown away by MacWrite and MacPaint on the first Mac computer. Sure, MacWrite could only hand a few pages of text before it ran into problems, but it was a pioneer in the field and helped changed user interface expectations forever. We could change font styles and sizes! Format paragraphs!

MacPaint was also a pioneer. Not only could you create art digitally, but you could use those images in other applications. That program, as primitive as it may seem today, changed so much in the way I thought about digital creativity.

Most of my friends in university were and still are Mac enthusiasts. We'd have "Mac Weekends" when we lived out in the country, whenever everyone would bring their Mac for networked gaming and Macgeekbonding. One of our friends ended up working for Apple, and on the first iPhone.

Jeff's been an Apple fan for far longer than I have. Apple products he's owned include: Apple ][+. Macintosh 128K. Macintosh 512K. Mac Plus. SE/30. II. IIcx. Quadra 840AV. PowerBook 180. PowerBook 3400c. Newton MessagePad 100. Newton MessagePad 2000. G3 Graphite. iMac. iPod. iPod Touch. iPhone 3G. PowerBook G4 Ti. PowerBook G4 Al. Mac Mini. MacBook Pro Core2. MacBook Pro Core i7. iPhone 3Gs. iPhone 4. iPad. iPad 2.

I often get his hand-me-downs when he upgrades, and I've been very happy with that. :-)

One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes, which I rediscovered on Jeff's Facebook Page yesterday:

‎"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."

R.I.P., Steve.

I've posted some of my favorite "Jeff, my Mac Guy" photos above and below.

Part 4 of my trip report. Other parts posted so far:

Part 1 - San Francisco: Hotel Kabuki, Japan Town, Mission District

Part 2 - Postcard Row, Shoe Garden, More San Francisco Sightseeing

Part 3 - TWiT Party In Petaluma

Apologies for slacking off in my trip report. I wanted the writing of this report to be something I could linger over and enjoy, not dash off  like a hurried shopping list, but life has been getting in the way.  Over the years of writing trip reports in my blogs, I've come to realize that these trip reports are as much about helping me remember events and emotions as it is about sharing with others.

Today I am going to talk about our visit to the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center in Santa Clara. Our original plans had not included the visit to this place, and I'm grateful to Jeff for noticing it in a tourist brochure after we had already started the trip.

I have always been a fan of the Peanuts comic by Charles Shultz. It was one of the first  comics that I ever read as a child, and I was always a big fan of the animated Charlie Brown cartoons on television as well.

When we first arrived,  Jeff and I wondered why the museum signage was so closely associated with the skating rink next door. Why not keep them separate, to be less confusing for tourists? Later in the museum, we discovered Schulz (or "Sparky," as he was nicknamed by friends) loved ice sports.

And DUH, I should have remembered all of the hockey and figure skating references in his comics! Anyway, it turns out that Schulz owned the Redwood Empire Ice Arena; the arena opened in 1969 with a gala event that started in 1968 Olympic gold medalist Peggy Fleming as well as the Vince Guaraldi trio -- I wish I could have been there!!

Anyway, the museum was amazing. I had figured it would just be a small exhibit aimed at children, but there were many displays and a time of information geared toward adults. Or more specifically, grown-ups who are kids at heart as well as long time Peanuts fans.

One of my favorite exhibits was this wall:

Sure, it may not look like much in this photo, but scroll down:

Keep going:

Pretty cool, huh?

This mural was designed by Yoshiteru Otani and is composed of 3588 ceramic tiles, or about 10 years' worth of daily strips.

There were displays of Sparky's early sketches:

As an artist, I was inspired. Charles Schultz clearly sketched from real life a ton, and not in his Peanuts cartoon style.

Another surprising discovery:  some of his strips were much larger in real life than I expected, and made it possible for me to peer more closely at Schulz's wonderful line work. MUCH looser and freeform than they appear in the comparatively tiny strips that appeared in newspapers.

Here is a nursery wall that Charles Schultz painted for his daughter Meredith very early on, in oil paints:

After the Schulz family sold their home in 1952,  subsequent owners painted over the wall at least different times. Then in 1979, owner Polly Travnicek uncovered  the original painting using cotton balls and sanding liquid.The wall was donated to the museum in 2001.

Another of my favorite exhibits was the re-creation of Schultz's studio:

After we left the museum, Jeff and I headed over to The Warm Puppy Café, where Charles Schulz  used to eat regularly:

Schulz died in 2000, but the Café keeps his table near the window reserved:

For more information about the Charles M. Schulz Museum, see:

http://www.schulzmuseum.org/

Some related videos...

1984 interview:

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography

When CNN announced the death of Charles M. Schulz:

I shared some (somewhat embarrassing) artwork from when I was 16 years old in the most recent KidLitArtists.com roundup re: an early illustration that had an impact on your career as an illustrator.  I'm a little horrified at how little my style has changed from back then! But then again, those early illustrations really helped me appreciate how FUN drawing could be.

Read the full blog post here: Pivotal Illustration Roundup - KidLitArtists.