Easily Distracted
where I’m excited about a lot of the little things
It’s newsletter time and I don’t really have much to write about. Or maybe I have a lot of things to write about, but none of them are really a big enough deal to dedicate an entire issue of Random Orbit, and I fear they might be sort of boring. It’s kind of like I’m at a dinner party and everyone at the table has interesting and important conversation subjects, while I have a bulleted list of potentially banal topics.
Well, whatever. Let’s check off this list.
• dogs building buildings
February 4 is the book birthday for Hard Hat Hank, a new picture book written by Charlotte Gunnufson and published by Disney. I’ll be writing more about this for the next issue of the newsletter, but I received my box of books the other day, and I’d like to show it off here. Go pre-order it now to make sure you get your copy asap!1
• and an otter thing…
Since the collage show went up two weeks ago, I’ve been back to work on this picture book I’m illustrating about a whale and an otter. It’s in full-on production mode right now, which means the sketches and layout are done and frankly most of the real creative work is complete. I’ve even drawn the entire book. So it’s the part of making a book where we’re finding little things that could be better or aren’t working, or aren’t consistent. I get very long emails from the editor full of very good suggestions and comments, and then I try these things, or I don’t, and we go through it again. It’s not tedious yet, but it’s getting there.2 We still have the cover to design, and it’s a weird cover, so that’s fun. And the book itself is really fun. No complaints. But I am ready to get it out the door and get started on the next project.3
• taking pictures
I’ve been down a photography rabbit hole the last few weeks. I love taking pictures and I used to carry a camera around everywhere. Over the years I have owned film cameras and digital point-and-shoots and nice dSLRs that were too big to carry around, and like many photography enthusiasts, I found myself just using my iPhone.
Before we went to France last summer, I bought a used Fuji X100f, which is famous for its clever simulations of film and its stylish retro design. It felt like using a real camera again. But it felt fussy and was limited by its fixed lens. It was the perfect fixed lens for me, equivalent to a 35mm wide-angle on my old film camera. But as soon as we returned from France, I knew I wasn’t going to hold on to it.
When I sold it, for more than I bought it for actually, I traded up for a used Sony mirrorless full-frame A7Cii. The neat trick of this camera is that it’s very easy to adapt old manual lenses to use with it.4
I happen to have several old lenses that either I used on the Nikon I got for high school graduation or I inherited from a family member. At first, I thought that while this seemed like a neat idea but totally impractical, but then I remembered that I took thousands of photos in NYC and Paris and Tunisia with a manual lens and got some pretty good pictures. I also took a lot of good pictures with an AF lens. And it’s definitely easier to just point and trust the autofocus. But I like having to think about the composition, the light, the depth of field, and then snap the photo. Here’s a gallery from the last three weeks, from the opening of my show at Chapterhouse, a bike ride out in the snowy Wissahickon Valley, a studio photo, and some walking around the neighborhood.
I am heading to London in May, and I plan to take one of two of these old lenses with me.
• speaking of that collage show
A few readers of Random Orbit said hello two weeks ago at Chapterhouse, and I appreciate you coming out. The opening was packed, and fun, and I know of five collages that have sold so far. Here’s a little gallery of images from that night.
• walking in a winter wonderland
Some of these are with the old lenses, some are with a modern AF lens. It’s hard to take a bad photo of the gorgeous snowstorms we’ve had in 2025.
• some bugs!
I like posting the sketches I’m always working on for these bug stories. Working out how the books will look, if I ever finish writing them. Here are several. Some were drawn on the iPad, some in ink, some both. I was looking at a lot of woodcut relief prints last week and a few of these come right from there.
• and finally, cat content!
What’s that you say? The cover looks off-center? Hmmmm.
Tedious isn’t bad. I don’t mind tedious. I have the attention span of an old elephant when it comes to being able to sit down and draw things. So tedious is like meditation for me. I believe very strongly that if you find something to do in your life where you enjoy the boring parts (practicing piano scales, hemming pant cuffs, getting up at 5:00 am and riding one’s bike in the pre-dawn cold) then you should do that thing for a living. And here we are.
Projects. Plural. A book about a city block that decides to up and move. The buildings, not the people. A new Little Golden Book I’ll be illustrating soon. And these bug books. My god I gotta get these bug books ready for prime time.
Yes, it has one of the best and most useful auto-focus systems on the planet and I am excited about 45-year-old manual-focus lenses. What’s your point?
As long as there is cat content, I'm here.
i looooove all the bugs! Hank is looking great too. Do you ever visual your creations moving or is designing special moments (& composition, great linework, textures, & color!) more how your brain works?