What Makes a Book Tick?
I’m so excited What Makes an Opossum Tick? by Lyn Smith is now published!! She and I will be guests of the Graves Library’s Pasco Lecture Series next Sunday, March 3 at 2 PM. Hope you can join us! We’ll also be celebrating our book at the Peaks Island Library on Saturday, April 6 at 10 AM. After illustrating Lyn’s first book, A Porcupine’s Promenade, I knew she had another story up her sleeve. I blogged about it HERE after I delivered the illustrations last September. Now that it’s out, here’s more details of my process. The illustrations began...
Read MoreValentine’s a poppin’
I’m tickled to be part of the Illustration MECA Valentine Pop Up shop at Maine College of Art’s Artist @ Work! Being a total fiend for paper, greetings, red/pink, and LOVE, I was ready with my house of cards. It opened this past First Friday on a bitter cold night. Yet Portland’s still HOT. Senior illustration major Elinor Cania, effervescent as ever, greeted valentine shoppers with hearts galore. I drew her last year when she modeled jewelry in the MECA Fashion Show. Eli specializes in spectacular hand-lettering, with a dash of wit. Here’s one of her cards: The...
Read MoreBeing Earnest
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple,” once said the legendary Oscar Wilde, a Dublin-born writer of poems, novels, and plays. When I began illustrating The Importance of Being Earnest for Portland Stage’s production, I was eager to tackle the Victorian era fashion. Aspects of dress, etiquette, and courtship were at the center of all my visual ideas. In my first sketch, I included a portrait of Wilde, as if he is serving up his witty farce like a confection. In others, I tried variations of figures, flowers, and romance. I couldn’t resist using a parasol as a...
Read MoreArt Expedition
I followed my daughter, Daisy, last week to another World Languages Art Expedition Kick-off at King Middle School in Portland. I first participated as a visiting artist in 2009 when she was a sixth-grader there. It was like old times heading to the bus from the 7:15 ferry. The language arts project asks 8th grade students studying Spanish or French to choose a Spanish or French artist to research and then create written and visual work based on that artist. In 2011, Daisy did this animation inspired by the art of Marc Boutavant. She’s now a senior sculpture major at Maryland Institute...
Read MoreA Christmas Carol redux
The holidays are all about traditions, making new and recreating old. I think this is the third run for my poster illustration for Portland Stage’s A Christmas Carol. I’ve blogged about it before HERE. Yet every production brings a new look and feel, and this year’s telling of the Charles Dicken’s classic hits every high note. Back in 2014, my early sketches involved Victorian ornaments with bits of narrative against a backdrop of smoking chimneys from Dicken’s London. I proceeded to color. But simple was best; ornaments were lost as the backdrop became the...
Read MoreTis the Season
Did those early snowstorms jump start your holiday spirits? They did mine! I kept thinking about that time I tapped my inner deer… and worked out an illustration for this year’s holiday card. This Deer Spirit is a cross between Ba from Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen and a sister in Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen. On a starry solstice night, our wild selves shine on, with some cut paper snowflakes for good measure. Shortly after I sent off my image file to be printed, we gathered for an intimate Thanksgiving here on Peaks, where the temps hovered around 4...
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