Robots and Bad Drawings

5 things from the studio this week

Here’s five things from the week that was:

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1. SOME ART MAKING

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I spent the beginning of the week knocking out some roughs for the 5th book(!) in the Big, Big series and found myself questioning my career choices in a cloud of rare imposter-syndrome-funk (stuff is greasy and gets all over your stylus).¹

By Wednesday afternoon, the funk was lifted by some good news. An illustration I did for Whirby (words by Molly Harris, HarperCollins, Feb 2026) was juried into the Illustrators 68th Annual exhibit and book! I cannot tell you how honored I am. Way back in my college illustration classes, we’d pour over these books. I even saved enough money (I did not have a lot to spare) to buy Illustrator’s 39.

I’m proud of the work and it feels great to know it’s appreciated by my peers too.

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★ Become a Paid Subscriber ★

I’ll leave you with this comment from recent paid subscriber, Stacey Ramirez: “Hi Jacob. I just upgraded to your paid subscription. I’ve been getting your weekly newsletter and I look forward to it every week. I get so much out of it. Just a note to say thank you and keep up the good work!”

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2. WORK WISDOM

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A former colleague once told me something that changed how I thought about teaching art. She said that in her years as a faculty member, she’d narrowed her focus to two essential outcomes: her students should know how to draw, and they should know how to tell a story.

Christopher Thornock shared this in a recent post and I was painfully reminded of it mid-struggle this week. I’m no stranger to self-reflection and feel like a good hard look in the mirror is helpful (unless you’re on a deadline, then it’s more like intentionally stepping in a bear trap).

There’s not a lot of ways to say this — but my drawing needs to get better. I feel like I know how I want to tell a story and have the chops to do it well, but my hands let me down sometimes. My finals are fun and exploratory, but if the foundation isn’t what it could be, the whole thing can suffer. I don’t really do new year’s resolutions, but if I do this year, it will be to sit and draw more. To work on the foundation.

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3. THING I LOVED

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Since the origin of our species, humans have tried to make sense of chaos, to understand ourselves, and – at least until the divisiveness of social media – to understand each other. We have always relied on communication to do this. And thousands of years before we had written language, and possibly before even complex spoken language, we used pictures.

These times we find ourselves in — book bans, the rise of open hate, the lack of empathy being seen as virtue, the scourge of AI — all demand more words like the ones Oliver Jeffers shared here.

Maya Angelou was right: people seldom remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel.

Go on, read the whole thing. I’ll wait.

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4. A BOOK TO READ

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I was watching friend Mark Hoffmann gab and doodle with the incomparable Felicita Sala and realized I hadn’t bought any of her books in a while. There are illustrators whose work can be admired on a screen, but to really understand its quality you have to hold it in book form. Sala’s work is like that.

The Hideout (authored by Susanna Mattiangeli) is a book worth owning. Let’s start with the color work. If you didn’t know about sage green and purple being contrasting colors that play really nice together, you will after closing The Hideout. Sala uses them to stunning effect. And the orange/red highlights!

The story here is sneaky good. It’s got Where the Wild Things Are vibes. I won’t play spoiler, but just know I cried. (And that I’m a big softie.) Kirkus captures the ending well:

Both art and text deftly illustrate a common, contradictory urge to escape the company of humans while also retaining its safety. The companions live—undetected—in a vine-enclosed space large enough for their feathery capes, leafy beds, and small fire for roasting pigeons on. When Hannah decides to return to those who miss her, the final pages leave readers uncertain about what—if anything—has actually happened.

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5. EPHEMERA, ETC.

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A bit of housekeeping! My plan is to secretly spend the minutes between holiday functions asleep drunk making headway on a book idea I’ve had bouncing around and drawing a ton. So I’ll have one more deep dive for paid subs next Wednesday and then I’ll see you all in the new year.

I’m thankful for you!

Best,
Jacob

1. I can’t show you those drawings, but I’m happy with where they landed. As always, stress can make your art look bad.