Fountain Square and the Columbus Comic Covention Formerly Known as Mid-Ohiocon

Wednesday we tried out a new place for the downtown Illustrators Lunch, Rock Bottom Brewery. We seem to be cursed in our choice of lunch location so I hope this one will be around a while. 

After lunch, I did a little sketch of the fountain. I have always loved it and it was the brief time of that day with lovely weather.

This weekend, I dipped my toes back in the con pool. Since I am doing my web comic, Pop Smoothie, I hope to make it to more of these. SPACE in April and maybe CAKE in Chicago next year.

It was a wonderful time despite my lack of stuff for sale.

Anyway, here are some sketches I did during the event. I wish I had gotten some of the more elaborate costumes, but they were Saturday for the contest.

Steampunk Lady

Painting away at our table. Photo by Christopher Moshier.

Quickie doodle. Who doesn't like fairies and foxes?

Park(ing) Day With Queen City Bike

My sketch from Park(ing) Day

Photo courtesy Queen City Bike

Friday was Park(ing) day where different groups in Over-the Rhine converted parking spaces into little parks. My friend Cheryl Crowe asked me to sketch in the Queen City Bike space for the afternoon. It was great fun. I had dressed expecting cold and rain, but we lucked out!

More about the event and more pictures of other artists and spaces:

http://5chw4r7z.blogspot.com/2012/09/cincinnati-parking-day.html

http://www.urbancincy.com/2012/09/cincinnatians-transform-dozens-of-parking-spaces-into-temporary-parks/

http://www.blogotr.com/otr/cincinnati-parking-day-2012-in-otr/

 Me Sketching; Nern Ostendorf models the yarn bombed chair by Katie Wearne. Photo courtesy Queen City Bike

Full park view... Photo courtesy Queen City Bike

A beautiful evening...

A CSO violinist was entertaining diners...

 After an afternoon sketching, A friend and I went over to the Joshua Bell Concert with the CSO at Music Hall. The concert was AMAZING. If you have not seen him perform, I highly recommend it.

Indiana Bat Festival and Aquarium Sketches

In the mood to sketch chrome after Lunken. Still snuck in a dragon... Guess what my Christmas card will be this year...

 It is a bit of a hodge podge of sketches lately. Over the weekend, I went to the Indiana Bat Festival at Indiana State University. Laura Hohman and her husband Jim were nice enough to let me stay at their place so I did not have to get a hotel room. It is a great show! I also love all the taxidermy, weird plastic molded cross sections of plants, cells and animals, and skulls/skeletons that decorate the halls. Definitely different decor than what we had at DAAP!

Today, after our weekly illustrators lunch, Linda Bittner and I went to a really cool  exotic aquarium store called Aquatics and Exotics in Mt. Healthy (in walking distance from her house).

Done at the Indiana Bat Festival over the weekend...

At the aquarium store...

These are so super cool!

Encyclopaedia Britannica Lion Plush Set

The art on this one was my favorite. I also did the interior art for the chimp and elephant sets.

I am not sure where you can order this. The others are still available on the Encyclopaedia Britannica web site, but the lion is not. The toy site is here: http://www.teknektoys.com/OurToys/EncyclopediaBritannica/Lion.aspx

I got mine from the Amazon Marketplace but the shop I got it from no longer has it.

Lunken Airport and Gateway Quarter

MG and cool chrome plane at Lunken... This is my new itty bitty sketchbook that fits in my new purse.

Squeezed in a couple sketches between deadlines and posting some old ones. I have been biking more lately at the newly expanded trail at Lunken because I love it! This weekend was Aviation Days so it was a double bonus. The weather was a little iffy yesterday though or I would have taken a Cessna ride over downtown Cincinnati.

The MG outside the show was gorgeous. It almost had cliched sparkle. Too bad a bunch of bikes were leaned against it.

I did this several weeks ago. I have biking at the cool new trail at Lunken lately...

Sketch of our view from the 1215 at a little outdoor table waiting for our call to get int Bakersfield OTR Friday.

Cover: Wordsworth and the Dragon

© 2012 Scotti Cohn and art by Christina Wald

After working bit by bit through a minefield of deadlines, the cover for Wordsworth and the Dragon. Stay tuned as we put together the final layout and illustrations for Scotti's wonderful book!

A Day at the Renaissance Fair

This woman had a gorgeous fairy costume. The Henna Hut was a cute little building.

The Ohio Renaissance Fair opened yesterday in Waynesville and I went with some family members and fellow artist Amy Bogard. The first weekend is a 2 for 1 deal which convinced me to go.

Amy and I spent most of the time sketching. The festival has expanded a lot since I last visited; there are tons of really cute buildings and cosplay has really exploded in recent years. Lots of elves, fairies, and pirates were represented in addition to the medieval garb.

I actually felt sorry for the people in costume because the air was a humid soup. It was not pleasant.

The Swordsman Theatre and a cute little fairy girl with matching orange crocs.

Lady in the Lake with curious bullfrog.

Loved this tree decor.

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!