More Glorious Samples! A Warm Winter Tail

This book looks cool in 88 degree heat.

It is a busy fall! I recently got initial samples of A Warm Winter Tail by Carrie Pearson from Sylvan Dell. I do not like to show bias, but I love how this book turned out! It is also available in Spanish

I will be signing this in October at Books by the Banks, so stop by! I will post signing events as they come up.

Here is my favorite spread:

Squirrels keeping warm.

Spike loves new books!

Boston: Final Vacay Post

We were in Boston for too short a time... Anyway, I did get some sketches at the Boston Common and the Boston Garden...

Swan boats in the Garden

The duck sculpture is based on Make Way for Ducklings by Caldecott winner Robert McClosky and is sculpted by Nancy Schon.

I have always loved McClosky's work. Blueberries for Sal is a favorite.

Me with the sculpture...

The park is lovely...

We also headed to Copley Square and the Boston Public Library. What an amazing collection of art! The Edwin Abbey Holy Grail murals and the John Singer Sargent Triumph of Religion murals are the tip of the iceberg. There was cool art everywhere, even a room of amazing (but creepy) puppets.

Some of my mediocre photos are posted here on the Cincinnati Illustrators Blog. 

Anyway, more sketches of course...

One of the stairway lions...

Gorgeous courtyard

Marble turtle lamp in the Abbey room...

Northeast Vacay 2012 Sketchbook Part 3

Sketchbook pages from the Norman Rockwell Museum

After Vermont, we stopped at the Norman Rockwell museum. It was a little rainy, but still worth it. I wrote more about the visit on the Cincinnati Illustrators Blog. As a fan of Howard Pyle, I was not disappointed. The campus was dotted by Norman Rockwell's son's sculptures.

Me standing in front of NR's studio.

We then made the trip to Boston. Here are some images from the sketchbook. We stayed at Taylor House Bed and Breakfast in Jamaica Plain at my friend from high school's suggestion. Super cute area of town...

Our bed and breakfast...

Northeast Vacay 2012 Sketchbook Part 2

Pixie the cat, the cute Rhode Island Reds (Yay fresh eggs!), and the giant forklift (maybe 10' tall?) at the marble quarry.

 

My feeble attempt to capture the light.

As I mentioned in the last post, we headed to Danby, VT to visit our friends Andrea, Ed and Olivia.

The view from their house is breathtaking. Since our only view is of North Bend Road, it was refreshing.

The light was always different and the night sky amazing. It was a wonderful visit and they send us home with honey from their own bee colonies.

I should also mention that they arranged for us to have the most amazing tour of the marble quarry. It was cool to see the operation and scale of the tools required.

The real thing...

Keeley the wonder dog. Such a sweetie!

Me and the neighbor's dog Whiskey. We have a similar fashion sense.

Next, it was on to Boston with a side trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Northeast Vacay 2012 Sketchbook Part 1

We just got back from whirlwind tour of the Northeast including Upstate New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

I have been attempting to keep up my sketchbook.

Here are some of the images:

My Aunt Joan and Uncle Dick's Victorian mansion in Stamford, NY.

The trip up was a little grey and got rainy. It was storming when we arrived in Stamford. We visited too briefly and headed up to Vermont.

Welcome to Vermont...

The main reason to go to Vermont was for my Godmother's daughter Nora's wedding in Woodstock, VT. The bride and groom went by "Team Floogen". It was a lovely ceremony and included a happy hour the night before at a place called Bentley's and Brunch the day after.

The day of the ceremony, there was a really cool food and art festival in downtown Woodstock.

Looked good but we stuck with a lobster roll.

The first bite is taken with the eye...

 That afternoon I got a bit of sketching in even though rain was a worry. They had some gorgeous buildings in that town, especially the public library...

I also sketched the building adjacent to the library.

Cool building in the library quad...

Here are some wedding sketches:

The bride got a wonderful dress at Kleinfeld, lost of detailing. I never got the name of the designer. Sadly, she did not get on the show, but discussing the name "Kleinfeld" gave me an idea of a Seinfeld/Kleinfeld mashup comic for Pop Smoothie... I will post it this weekend.

The bride and groom left the ceremony on a motorcycle and their cake topper feature and bride and groom motorcycle theme as well.

The next day was a farewell brunch.

Pano of Quechee Gorge outside of Woodstock

Next, we headed up to Danby, VT to visit our friends Andrea, Ed and their daughter Olivia.

I will post the sketches from that the next post, but first, the view from their backyard:

Bernie Sanders and this view! (This photo is in evening light...) What more could you ask for? Stay tuned!

New Samples! Squeeeee! Sensing Their Prey

It is a good day when there is a big ole' box of books on my doorstep. I just got samples of the 6-book series I did for ABDO/Magic Wagon. They are available on the Barnes and Noble website.

It was a delightful project to illustrate and had the most variety of any animal project I have ever done and that is REALLY saying something. Everything from lions to creepy crawlies like the fellow below...

This Brownsnout Spookfish creeped me out, but they are probably attractive to each other...