Oceans away!
Today is World Oceans Day! Now’s a good time to share my recent visit to Portland’s Reiche Elementary School at the invitation of Side x Side, an arts integration program. I felt right at home upon seeing this lively mural: I came to draw ocean creatures with three second grade classes, and talked about using the long horizontal for this illustration in Here Come the Humpbacks! by Caroline Arnold. I brought along my handy humpback toy for reference. This artist made great use of his page area, lower left. Everyone was provided with a line drawing of their chosen creature to look...
Read MoreMECAF follies ’15
I inexplicably missed the last couple of Maine Comic Arts Festivals, for shame! But the fog lifting over Portland pulled me right in this year. It’s important to check out the local peeps first. Here is the inimitable Fulton Beal, wacky dad and crazy cartoonist. Former MECA peeps here, Meagan Gibson and Declan McCarthy: Something about Murilo Martins book, I’m A German Shepherd looked familiar. When I found out he was from Brazil, I gave him one of my PDX zines, about the Other Portland. Lo and behold, he was at ICON8, too! Funny how tight the circle of illustration/zines/comics...
Read Morea short Long studio visit
I love visiting illustrators’ studios. After the frenzy of the Holiday Sale and the magic of Willow the Wonder Pony, I marched my class down to visit MECA alum Liz Long in her studio. Not that long ago she was working in the MECA Illustration studios, when she created a whimsical body of work for her thesis last spring. Remember this dreamy installation at Longfellow Books? Liz and her classmates visited my studio before graduation, and I found this portrait of me that Liz left behind. I drew a portrait of her for my Portland zine, which I brought to ICON8, held in Portland, OR this...
Read Moresecrets of the sea
What an honor to be in another show at USM’s Atrium Art Gallery in Lewiston, Maine, curated by Robyn Holman, one very devoted fisher of art. She’s gathered in her net a spectacular catch of wonders in Secrets of the Sea. My three pastels from Here Come the Humpbacks! hang beneath a bladderwrak raku by Anne Alexande and next to an oil titled Tidal Dance by Wendy Newcomb. Since today is Happy Hump(back) Day, here are better views: The non-fiction picture book by April Pulley Sayre includes the epic journey humpbacks make as well as their obstacles. All marine life in Federal...
Read Moretbt: RISD redux
That crisp feel in the air? It’s the smell of back-to-school. I personally love autumn the best. It brings new rhythms and sometimes uncanny flashbacks. As the semester’s about to begin again at Maine College of Art while my own daughter faces her senior year and college applications, I went back a few decades to find my application slides for RISD. They still ask for a drawing of a bicycle. Back then, a drawing of boots was also required. I’d taken a life drawing class at Plymouth State College, so included this, done in 1975. Today I attended a life drawing session on...
Read Moredrawing with color
Peaks Island’s TEIA club house, above, is a daily view upon walks with the dog. It’s a well-loved setting for sailing, tennis, weddings, and cultural events. I was honored to lead a workshop, Drawing With Color, last week. We gathered on the porch for a discussion of the color wheel, examples of the relativity of color, color contrasts and associative properties. I shared my favorite books about Monet, Connie Hayes, Wolf Kahn, Fairfield Porter, Matisse, and Alex Katz, all masters of color. I laid out a selection of pastel varieties and papers of various textures, asking them to...
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