My son, Cameron, created the illustration for this chapter in 37 Cents a Fart…and Other Infamous Animal Stories. Candidly, it’s one of my favorites, right behind the epilogue illustration which I think stacks-up with the finest illustrating that’s out there. That’s the fun part of the equation. The truth, however, is that sometimes that great illustration does not flop out on the page like a fresh-caught tuna. It fights and submerges and gnashes its teeth, more like Jaws. The problem was one of perspective as well as capturing “the look”.
The trouble with anything in the arts is this: You can call upon someone to draw, write, sketch, sculpt something to very exacting standards…and it can technically meet those standards. Item-by-item it’s exactly what was ordered or commissioned only…it just doesn’t capture the scene. Other times, you can have a crude scraggly little two-minute sketch and someone yells, STOP! That’s it. That’s the beauty as well of the frustration of being in the arts. You can’t quantify it.