Recent Sketches

I've been working away on a new series of promotional images -- which I'll be posting soon. In the meantime here's my most recent page of sketches. Bears are both fun and kinda' scary.

Chalk Drawing at "A Children's Place"

There's a great children's bookstore here in Portland called "A Children's Place". So they have their 35th anniversary (wow!) celebration going on this weekend. They were kind enough to ask me to participate by doing a chalk drawing from one of my books.


We had quite a variety of artists come out and join me. These are just a couple who were working away while I took a break.



And this was the finished piece. It's and elf from my first book "Finding Fairies". I have only the greatest respect for those street artists who do this everyday. It's not the easiest thing to have a go at.

9.20.09 Various Sketches

I can only imagine that some version of "Harvey" was floating around in my head as I started these.

Upcoming Event

My studio partner and I will be giving a talk about the life and process of an illustrator as part of "A Children's Place" bookstore's upcoming 35 anniversary. This is the first time I've done a ticketed event. Feels pretty high-class!

9.16.09 Various Sketches

Crawling inside the heads of some amazing Disney artists.
The best part of any Disney production is getting to see the inspiration drawings/paintings that led up to the finished film. So much to learn from these illustrators!

9.15.09 Various Sketches

I participate in an illustrator blog where the challenge is to do at least a page of sketching a day. This is oddly more challenging than it sounds but incredibly helpful. I find it easy to fall into the trap of "this is what I do -- this is how I draw". When you've got to do that every day I find that it gets old eventually. One can't help but start branching out to try other things. I've noticed that I no longer draw edges (or at least edges aren't the focus of my drawing) but rather shapes of light and dark and let the edges sort themselves out.

Painting Portland Parks

Been working on some plein-air paintings the last few weeks. Here's some examples.

Travel Sketches: Korea

Some drawings done from not-good-enough to post photos (the subjects kept moving). Playing with pen and ink mediums.

Creatures

I'm having a great time playing with old images of monsters/creatures from various manuscripts. Basically extrapolating from tiny drawings into these various different poses/interpretations.

Sketches: Animals

I can never draw too many animals. You never know when you might need the visual memory to create a new creature.

Travel Sketches: Korea

Continuing the sketches from my trip to Korea. This is part of a Buddist temple in the northern part of South Korea. Freakin' beautiful. Right on the edge of the ocean!

Travel Sketches: Korea

A quick sketch done while traveling in Korea recently. This is a view from the rooftop in a neighborhood of Seoul.

Two Book out this Fall

Just in time for the holidays -- the last two books in the Dandilion Rhymes series:

God Loves Me More Than That



and "When God Created My Toes"



Both are available on Amazon or ordered at your local bookseller.

Author Portraits: Twain

In continuing the "Who's more fun than . . ." theme, here's Mark Twain.
I'm noticing an early trend -- this might actually turn out to be all about authors with exaggerated facial hair.

Author Portraits: Tolstoy

Thought that I'd create a series of portraits of fun, interesting, thought-provoking authors.
Who better to start with than Tolstoy?