Marilyn Faison Artist Residency
Many thanks to the Illustration Institute for a week’s artist residency a mere five minute walk from my Peaks Island home. So close, and yet so far away. The dirt road winds up into the woods where tall pines make you forget the summer hubbub that is now Peaks Island. The chance to be in a place apart brings a new awareness for any artist. I found so many objects of affection around the house, and drew some into the little book made in Gregory Christie’s Illustration Institute Workshop. Fallen petals urged me to capture the welcoming bouquet. too. I chose a work space on a second...
Read MoreThis Island Life
For the past two weeks, I’ve been up to my salty eyeballs with all things Illustration, largely thanks to the Illustration Institute’s second season of incredible programming. I’m excited to co-lead a Nature Sketchbooks By the Sea Workshop with author Lyn Smith this Thursday on July 26! Details HERE. On July 10, my MECA colleague, Judy Labrasca, joined me and several kidlit friends for Gregory Christie’s Illustration Institute bookmaking workshop at the Fifth Maine. Gregory is an award-winning illustrator and author with a special interest in book-binding. On the...
Read MoreSome Illustrator!
My illustration orbit has been downright full of goodness and it’s only June. On June 5, MECA’s Illustration Department Chair Mary Anne Lloyd and I brought our art student daughters to see Melissa Sweet and Martha White discuss Melissa’s latest book, Some Writer!, about Martha’s grandfather, E.B. White. It’s always a joy to hear Melissa talk about her research process, and about the bounty of artifacts she was able to work with, thanks to the generosity of Martha White’s family archives. They both talked about what drew E. B. White to Maine as well as...
Read MoreMore more ii
The seeds of the recent residencies at the Illustration Institute’s Marilyn Faison Artist Residency were possibly planted in the spring of 2016, when Maine College of Art Illustration faculty Scott Nash invited Emily Flake and Bob Mankoff to a screening of Very Semi Serious, a fantastic documentary in which they both appear, about New Yorker cartoonists. They were like sit-down comedians on the Portland Museum of Art stage afterwards. Fast forward to this August, when Emily Flake filled the Fifth Maine to capacity, as the setting sun made the audience beautiful. Emily shared a...
Read MorePostcards from the Rock
I have always been a snail mailer. Even when I was growing up at the Red Doors Motel, I cultivated pen pals. Creating post card promotions as an illustrator is one occupational hazard that I enjoy. These are just a handful from many years of mailing out samples. Here’s the scoop behind my most recent postcard, Summer in the Slow Lane. I’ve always hankered for little campers and the time to take road trips. I made a sketch on the ferry one day based on a photo I took a few years ago on the way to Stonington, Maine. Kirsten Cappy happily modeled inside this camper we spied for sale...
Read MoreStory & Craft
This summer my cup runneth over with kidlit elixirs. I was pleased as punch to share in one of Pat Crowley Rockwell’s Story and Craft adventures at the Peaks Island library. She is an esteemed educator, the Assistant Principal at King Middle School, and a passionate advocate of children’s books and reading to kids. She featured A Porcupine’s Promenade by Lyn Smith, how could I not join in? After she read the story, I shared my little pencil dummy and showed one of the original drawings. Kids like to touch the rough sanded paper I use for my pastels. Plus, Pat’s...
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