The Toymaker

THE GREAT TIDY - The Dresser

2009-12-27T23:24:41Z

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Every year after Christmas we do a big house purge, get bags of stuff ready for Goodwill, go through drawers and closets and get ready for January. This year as part of the Big Tidy, I put new drawer paper in my dresser. Mint green. Nice.
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My mom bought the dresser for five bucks at a garage sale fifty years ago to use as my changing table. In the last hundred years it's been a variety of colors, white enamel, sixties electric blue, olive green and finally stripped to the original oak.
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Only a third or so of the dresser contains my clothes, the rest is memories. There's the wonderhub's army gear, dog tags, aviation wings, the boy's baby clothes, baby teeth, pictures of grandmothers and great grandmothers. .
I'm not an elegant person, at least not now so much, but when I was younger I was. There are hints of that time here, leather gloves, scarves from Lucern, jewelry from Paris, scarabs from Egypt, an ebony clothes brush I bought at Harrods.
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There're also a few things that belonged to my younger brother who died when he was sixteen. There's a hysterically funny love note to a girl declaring that she was his favorite girlfriend. Tucked between scarves and sweaters there's a wonderful ABC book that he wrote, illustrated and bound with seventies wallpaper.
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Now all these random bits and whatnot are all put away and I'm looking forward to a new year.
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How about you? Do you have a drawer of fond memories?
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Marilyn.
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Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
~ Charles Dickens

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Wishing you a Happy Christmas and a Fine New Year!

2009-12-25T06:55:11Z

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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Wishing you all good things!
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Marilyn.
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The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas."  ~ W. C. Jones  
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Kim Dwinell's Monkeys!

2009-12-21T20:07:56Z

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I just love these picture's Kim drew of the Gibbons and Capulets at the zoo. So lively! She said that when she was an animator for Disney they used to go to the zoo once a week and draw. How awesome is that?
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What's your dream job?
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Marilyn.

More Zoo!

2009-12-20T18:27:19Z

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Just a few more sketches from the Santa Ana Zoo sketch day. The monkeys rarely stopped moving, which made them hard to draw. I was in complete envy and awe of my friend Kim's drawings. She worked in animation for years for Disney and really captured the way the Gibbons swung around, back, front and sides.
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You can see some of her lovely work here.
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http://kimdwinell.blogspot.com/
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Well, off to make another pile of Christmas cookies for a cookie exchange this afternoon!
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Stay warm!
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Marilyn.
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My friends are my estate.
-Emily Dickinson

Santa Ana Zoo!

2009-12-20T01:00:23Z

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I had the best of times today drawing animals at the Santa Ana zoo with the OC Illustrators. It's not a big zoo, and it's certainly not overfunded. There are a few monkeys and an elephant.
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What's really interesting to me is how animals limb's work, how they bend and how they sit. I can't wait to go back!
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Is there are zoo by your house?
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Marilyn.
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The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
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~ Chaucer
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Pen Making Class!

2009-12-18T06:34:16Z

Just got back from taking a pen making class with the family and several of our friends. It was great fun. I've done woodworking before but never used a lathe. We all made our own ballpoint pens.
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A big thanks to pen guru, Greg Minuskin, for taking the pictures. We got to use a band saw, drill, lathe and pen press.
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Don't be afraid to attempt something new.

Remember, it was amateurs who built the ark.

It was professionals who built the Titanic.

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Making Christmas

2009-12-09T18:14:04Z

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Last night we made a gigantic batch of peanut/coconut/sunflower seed oatmeal cookies for the hub's cookie exchange tomorrow. We made bags out of envelopes and stapled the recipe on with a bit of ribbon. Fifteen bags ready to go! I feel so homemaker-y!
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The frames are filled with cut paper silhouettes. (Aren't you impressed that I can spell "silhouette"? Took me forever to learn how to do it.) I had fun doing them. I'm trying to figure out how I could run black paper through my printer. Maybe an iron-on wold work. Hmmmm......
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How about you? What are you making this Christmas?
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Warm thoughts,
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Marilyn.
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It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart."  ~ Marjorie Holmes

Name these characters!

2009-12-06T18:15:48Z

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I bought four lovely box frames yesterday at IKEA. Black frames, white mattes... so I've been pondering filling them with some paper cuttings.
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If you can name these two characters you are either grew up watching the BBC or are an anglophile extraordinaire.
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We have two cookie exchanges this year. Any suggestions?
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Marilyn.
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Wake up, be bright, be golden and light...
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25 Days!

2009-12-01T20:36:21Z

It's December First! Print a Toymaker Advent Calendar!
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http://www.thetoymaker.com/Holidays/Christmas/Christmas.html
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Working away on my ten dollar gift challenge. What are you making for Christmas? What is your favorite part of the holidays and what do you not like? What's your fondest memory?
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Warm thoughts,
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Marilyn
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It is the personal thoughtfulness,
the warm human awareness,
the reaching out of the self to one's fellow man
that makes giving worthy of the Christmas spirit.

~ Isabel Currier.

World of Warcraft Report

2009-11-25T16:34:33Z

Well, I finally made Death Knight in World of Warcraft. It took forever. The boy even paid for the Wrath of the Lich King upgrade as my Christmas present. I'm completely hopeless as a player, utterly clueless. but I do have fun. We drive the wonderhub nuts as we yell back and forth across the hall,
"More mana, Mom!"
"Help! I'm being pnded!"
"I can't figure out to work the "Eye of Acheran"
"Mom, can I have some gold?"
"Mine your own dang gold."
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Fear me.
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A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.

The dollar gift challenge!

2009-11-23T06:01:33Z

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Hey Small Dog! Why are you so sad? What's that ? You have lots of friends that you want to give presents to but you don't have much money? That's not a problem at all! Let's get to work!
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We can make thoughtful presents just using materials that you can buy anywhere.
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Here's ten things that I bought at the dollar store. I bet we can make all kinds of nice things. You cool with that? Sweet!
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The only true gift is a portion of yourself."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you have a suggestion or idea for the Small Dog for a spiffy dollar craft, let me know!
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Sunshine!

2009-11-19T21:08:56Z

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Sending sunny thoughts your way,
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Marilyn.
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I wish you sunshine on your path and storms to season your journey.
I wish you peace in the world in which you live...
More I cannot wish you except perhaps love to make all the rest worthwhile.
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~ Robert A. Ward
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The Pudding Palace

2009-11-18T01:01:01Z

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You know the best thing to do with an old envelope? Make a house out of it! I got a catalog in the mail and used the envelope to make a Pudding Palace for the Small Dog. A squarish envelope works best. No glue required!
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Marilyn.
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The most important work you and I will ever do
will be within the walls of our own homes.
~ Harold B. Lee

Naruto Challenge - Believe it!

2009-11-10T23:40:44Z

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I stayed up way too late last night doodling Naruto characters.
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Okay, name all the characters.

For bonus points what's missing?
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Which two characters have the Sharingan eye?
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Who's nickname is "Bushy brows"?
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Who has a tattoo on his forehead and what does it mean?
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Who got teased as a kid for having a big forehead?
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Have fun!
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Marilyn.

Writing....

2009-11-07T17:13:03Z

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Writing is easy, rewriting is hard. A lot of my friends are taking part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
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http://www.nanowrimo.org/
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The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. One of the blocks to writing is the idea that everything has to be perfect, that each sentence springs perfectly crafted, like Venus rising from the sea, from your fingers on to the page.
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There might be someone somewhere that can write like, that but that person is not me. I suspect that it's not most other folks either.The idea of cranking out a novel in a month forces you to not get muddied down with the details but to get it out there. Get the story out on paper. There is something perfectly lovely about that.
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I've been writing a lot lately. Actually, I take that back, I've been re-writing a lot. The series that I'm working on with my writing partner, J. H. Everett is ten percent writing and ninety percent rewriting. It's great fun, pushing the words around like puzzle pieces, making the sentences cleaner and tidier. There are piles of things that have to be organized too, flow, structure and word count.
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Then the editing starts, all all the nit-picky grammary bits, commas and spelling and such. That polishing part goes at the end, like wallpaper or molding, for now I'm just working on the foundations of stories. My goal is to get the reader to keep turning the page and keep reading. Is the story exciting enough? I hope so!
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I don't think of myself as a writer. Mark Twain is a writer. Roald Dahl is a writer. I'm an illustrator that writes for fun, a dabbler, an ama, amature, (oh how do you spell that?) amateur... writing for the love of the thing.
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And I encourage you to write too. Put those stories down on paper. Go on! Writing is strong giddymaking stuff once you give yourself permission to do it.
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What do you like to read and what do you like to write?
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Marilyn.
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Storyteller: Here again, milady?
Scheherezade: These people sit for hours, just listening.
Scheherezade: It's a miracle.
Storyteller: People need stories, more than bread, itself.
Storyteller: They teach us how to live, and why.

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-01T03:04:53Z

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Costume finished. Most adorable assassin on the block.
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Had a great time making it.
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Hope you get lots of treats!
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Marilyn.
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Nothing on Earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night. ~Steve Almond

The Next Book :-)

2009-10-29T21:48:17Z

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Working away here on a paper toy book for Sterling that's due out next year. Here's a little peak at one of the flourishes from a toy theater.
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Marilyn.

Koi Fish Party!

2009-10-29T17:02:24Z

I love getting photos from people who have made my paper toys. It's always neat to see where, like messages in a bottle, the toys have sailed to in the world. Here is a nice note from the Merwin family in China...
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Thank you for the instructions on how to make the Japanese Koi fish. We live in China so driving down to Party City or the like to pick up a few party decorations is not an option for us. This past week we made a bunch of your koi fish to use as decorations for our son's fish themed 4th birthday party. He loved them!
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Waving from the other side of the world!
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Marilyn
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http://www.thetoymaker.com/AroundtheWorld/Japan/TMKoiKites.html
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Now on to the Halloween Costume

2009-10-24T23:23:58Z

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Ever year I use my meager sewing skills to put together a Halloween Costume for the boy. In past years he's been Indiana Jones, Link from Legend of Zelda, Arthas the Lich King from World of Warcraft and last year a headhunter.
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This year, Altair from Assassin's Creed. Wish me luck,
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Marilyn.

Sleepover!

2009-10-24T06:39:12Z

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The boy is having a sleepover for his birthday party.
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It's 11:32PM. Imagine this time five.... or five hundred....
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They're all talking at the same time, watching five videos and karaoke singing to Boston all at the same time between practicing the Napoleon Dynamite dance.
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Thank you whoever invented headphones.
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Marilyn.

Wild Thing

2009-10-17T17:02:26Z

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The SCBWI OC Illustrators are coming over in an hour. Our theme this week is "Terrible Yellow Eyes" and the challenge was to draw something based on "Where the Wild Things Are" I'm not particularly interested in seeing the movie but I do like the book. I got to see the original artwork for it once long ago and it is really wonderfully drawn. I met Maurice Sendak a couple of times when I was in my twenties, once when he spoke with Ted Geisel and another time at an ALA event. He was very shy but also witty. I was most impressed by his work ethic.
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This is a picture of me and my friend Alice Provensen. She is The Queen of children's books. We were judging an art contest at an elementary school in Mission Viejo. It was such a delight to see the children's work. We're working with other artists and writers to help get books for the school library, which is particularly woeful. You can read more about the Amazing Alice here:
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/provensen-says-book-2601050-books-new
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And to spend one's life as a so-called "creative artist" is probably the most comfortable, cozy, and privileged life that a human being can live on this earth -- the most "bourgeois" life, if one uses that phrase to describe a life that is so comfortable that no one living it would want to give it up. ~ Wallace Shawn

Drawing Silliness.

2009-10-09T20:14:35Z

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How can it be Friday already?
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Marilyn.
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You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis

Kinda warms the heart....

2009-10-07T19:40:37Z

So I'm running out the door to my studio group meeting and the boy says, "It's dress up like a nerd day. Can you make me a wizard's hat?" So I start to grumble somethng like, "Why didn't you ask me last night and rasafrassa going to be late." Then I thought, well heck, I make things out of paper for a living. I can make a paper hat for my kid if he wants one. Five minutes later we had this....
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Speaking of making things... This is the wonderhub playing a Bach piece on a Gypsy jazz guitar that he made himself. It has a real nice sound to it. Now he's working on a classical version for me and a mandolin for Ev Stanton, my writing partner. Pretty darn spiff, if you ask me, living in a house where people make music.
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It's good to be creative!
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Marilyn.
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PS If you like children's books sign up for Ev's blog. (His pen name is J.H. Everett.)
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http://www.jheverett.com/blog.php
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Lots of wonderful book reviews!

Three doodles du jour...

2009-10-05T22:35:42Z

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I'm having all kinds of fun designing the toys for this next book. There is going to be a Flying Fish Car in addition to the Punch and Judy theater, a dragon, a new bug box and an animal picnic. All kinds of interesting things.
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Here are some tiny ink tests that I did this morning, working on crosshatching. Each one is the size of a matchbook cover.
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I went with my friend Diana and a carful of boys to the Long Beach Comic Con yesterday. It was quite nice and not too crowded. There were many talented artists there. I'll post picts when I get a second.
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How was your weekend? Do you have a favorite comic book character?
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Marilyn.

Danny Elfman Speech Part I

2009-10-04T18:02:46Z

This is one of my favorite speeches. I am in awe about Elfman's ability to learn from his experiences and use them to grow.
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College Commencement Address
to the North Carolina School of the Arts
Class of 2007
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Danny Elfman
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June 2, 2007
Roger L. Stevens Center
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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First, I’d like to begin with my sincere congratulations on successfully completing something that must have seemed, not too long ago, to be a remote, distant, semi-impossibility – and yet, here you are.

Second, a disclaimer. I’m reading from notes because, aside from having to rely on memory cells
ravaged and pillaged by the onslaught of time and functioning more or less like a 1981
Commodore 64 computer with only 32K left intact, aside from that, one of my greatest fears
is that of public speaking. And yet … here I am.

And the question is … what words of advice can I possibly offer that might in any way be
useful to you?

I could talk to you about “following your dreams,” which is a wonderful sentiment, but that seems just too obvious. This is a school of the arts and you are all, in one form or another, artists. So in fact, you are already, without my encouragement, following your dreams or you wouldn’t be here.

So I began by looking to my own experiences, to see if I could find some shred of something relevant. At first I really didn’t think so. As I reflected, it occurred to me as it often has in the past, that my life has basically been a bunch of random events, bizarre occurrences, and coincidences, some working out better than others. But then as I gave it more thought, it began to feel more like a season of “Lost” where everything happens for some strange “reason.”

And I began the process of rummaging through those remaining memory cells to recall the many dreams I attempted to follow, to see if I could find any patterns that made some kind of sense. And slowly, (in a way) it did… .

And so, I will in fact, talk to you today about “following your dream” and “going down that road.”

But I’d like to talk to you about how strange and unexpected the “real” process of “following one’s dreams” can be. Because for some of you, that road might be a smooth, paved highway. I envy you, and I wish you well, but what I’ve got to say will have no relevance for you. (This might be a good moment to get those iPods and headphones out.) But for many of you that road might be like it was for me: twisted, bumpy, full of potholes, misplaced exit signs, and dead ends.

So now, with your permission, I’ll tell you a crazy, meandering story. Mine. And like my life, I’m afraid it’s rambling and a little complicated. And for that, I apologize. And I invite you to draw from it what you will. It will take some patience, so bear with me.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall digress.

By the time I got to high school, I had only two interests: radiation biology and movies. I pretty much went to the movies every weekend I could remember. They were a major part of my life, but I had no dreams of actually working on them. Too impossible and distant – so science was my only option. I was quite sure of it.

However, I was a an odd, shy kid who didn’t make friends easily in a new school, in a new neighborhood, with no old chums to rely on. My first couple of new friends were kind of odd and shy like myself and, to my surprise, were all artistically inclined in one way or another. Poetry, cartoons, writing and, in several cases, musicians.

This was a new world. Stuff rubbed off. Through my musician friends, I was exposed to 20th-century classical music and jazz. I was blown away, but I also felt that I’d long since missed the boat. I had no musical ability that I was aware of. They had all started playing music as children. It was, I wistfully observed, too late for me.

Now high school was over, the travel bug had bitten me, and my only dream at that moment was to beat it – as far and fast as I could. College could certainly wait for my return, and, as I had saved up a little cash by various questionable and sundry means, a year of world travel seemed quite reasonable. But – and this is where that “dream” thing came in – I decided to purchase a violin to bring with me, and to attempt to learn to play while I traveled. I thought, though my time may have passed, why not? I thought just maybe … . Well, anyhow.

Skip to several months later, in Paris, getting ready to start the “big journey” and staying with my older brother who lived there and worked there. One day, while I was practicing that fiddle, I was overheard by the director of an avant-garde theatre troupe who was visiting at the time, and to my astonishment, was given the offer to “join up” for a summer tour. No money. Room and board. He seemed to think I was good enough, and being a “rag-tag” kind of thing, I simply had to play along with a number of crazy songs they had in their show. I thought, maybe I could get good and become a violinist? Now that seemed like a worthwhile, though distant, dream.

But wait: This particular dream was supposed to be about a big world journey. The music thing, like college, would just have to wait.

I spent close to a year traveling across Africa ( I though it would take a couple of months) and lo and behold … I didn’t get good at the violin, but I did fall in love with percussion, and got to listen to a lot of incredible music and shipped quite a few instruments home.

Cut to … finally back home … off to college? Maybe music or film school or both but … no go … .

While I was traveling, my brother had come back to the States and founded his own street troupe, inspired by the French experience, and upon my return he immediately inducted me to be their “musical director.“ I didn’t even know what that meant, least-wise what I was supposed to do. I had still never taken a lesson nor could I read or write music. No matter. I played a poor but serviceable fiddle and had a bunch of cool West African percussion. And that was enough. To use the description “rag-tag” would be a wild overstatement.

We worked our asses off night and day. Because of the lack of money, there was a constant turnover of musicians. I think it took me about a hundred hours of work and maybe 1,000 phone calls to locate and find each replacement. But somehow we slowly improved. Every single night I wasn’t bussing tables, I was rehearsing. I passed the hat for money.

I gave myself a year max to “follow that dream” before going on to school. The year turned into seven or eight. We loved old 1930s jazz so reluctantly, I was forced to teach myself to transcribe various Duke Ellington big band orchestrations because somebody had to. And I taught myself to write them down on paper.

We really believed in that dream. But we also starved. There seemed to be no way to make this thing viable, and we couldn’t fit into any niche that might qualify for grants or endowments. The commitment and effort were enormous, but I finally came to the realization that maybe it had reached its limit – and the “dream” had no future.

Time for “a new dream”? Maybe I could refine some of these skills with the crude composing and arranging I had picked up. Could this be it? Perhaps. Also in that troupe we had begun to build our own mini percussion orchestras. Maybe I could become an ethno-musicologist, or better yet, start a homemade percussion ensemble. Now that’s starting to make sense, right? Wrong.

Woke up one day and heard this new up-tempo pop music from England called Ska. It reminded me of the West African pop music I used to listen to, and damn it, that’s what I wanted to do. Gotta follow that dream … again … but now I’m really having a hard time figuring out: Exactly what dream was that?

Cut to …

Now I’m playing electric guitar and singing in a struggling eight-piece rock band modeled after a West African pop group. Violin and percussion skills moot. Composing and arranging, useless. It was all very fun but I was kind of bitter that I’d wasted all those early years and got such a late start. I was 30 years old. Aren’t you supposed to start your first band at around 16? Whatever … .

A year became five or six. Again, we busted out asses and rehearsed night and day. We got better. We built a strong following. Even got a record deal. Things are going OK. I guess I’m finally realizing my dream?

Can’t put my finger on it. Something’s still not right. Still not quite seeing “the future.”

Then a young animator doing his first feature film comes to see my band. He liked it and thought maybe I could score his film. How the hell am I going to do that? I have no training. I felt woefully inadequate. My newly acquired band skills now seemed useless for this endeavor. I came so very, very close to saying no. So, time for a big deep pause.

Remember back – all those movies I paid so much attention to (including the music)? Combine that with what I’d picked up with the theatre troupe – I developed a pretty good ear during those years.

I did learn to write down music on paper once. And I did remember all the film scores I grew up with. And so I reluctantly agreed.

The young animator kid, by the way, was Tim Burton, and the movie was PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. I did it, and guess what happened? It jump-started a new dream and a whole new career. But that’s not the point of this story. That was a lucky break.

So here’s the point.

Over the next 10 years, I busted my ass to learn this new craft and to my surprise, I found that every detour and dead end I had encountered in the past ended up giving me great advantages. I began incorporating all of my ethnic percussion and love of rhythm. As my teachers, I turned to a half dozen film composers that, although I didn’t know it at the time, had embedded themselves into my soul and brain.

I drew from some of the crazy, irreverent stuff I did while banging it out in the street troupes, both French and American, and the ear training I got from transcribing those Ellington records.

And strangely, in a weird way, the “go screw yourself” attitude I got from being in a rock band paid off too, because it allowed me to be more fearless.

Even the starving years taught me to sharpen up my intuition and people skills and how to figure things out with nothing to work with. Things that proved to be really useful.

But most importantly, all those detours taught me not to lose hope from failure. One door closes, another opens up. And amazingly, in the end, nothing was wasted. All the time I thought I had lost wasn’t lost at all.