Pub Day for Ana and the Sea Star!
Finally, today is THE DAY!!! My twelfth book is real. Ana and the Sea Star by R. Lynne Roelfs is published! It is a small miracle when ideas manifest into a real book. When I first read the manuscript in July of 2016, it felt authentic, the story of finding a starfish. My photo below is evidence of that time a sea star washed into a Peaks Island tide pool a summer ago, and was gently placed back in the ocean. First I sketched out a rough storyboard, deciding what to show, the flow of the visuals, and varying points of view. I contacted some island neighbors to model for me. The lovely Schuit...
Read MoreLady Day in moonlight
These are just a few of the records I grew up with. My parents were into jazz. I heard Billie Holiday long before I knew her name. Sarah, Billie, and Ella were my mother’s favorites; Duke, Satchmo, and Coltrane were my dad’s. These were the faces on the records, but in fact I went all through elementary grades and high school without having a single person of color in my classes, or in my small world in rural New Hampshire. That changed in art school and beyond, but those soulful voices remain somehow elemental for me. The script for Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill by...
Read MoreWelcome Illustration MECA juniors!
My heart sang to spot this chalk drawing by Illustration MECA grad, Liz Long, greeting all of us returning to the hive at Maine College of Art in late August. The fall semester is in full swing, entering the second month. My class of junior majors brought in the summer sketchbooks I gave them last April. I had given them some prompts, such as making a list of their 7 favorite things to draw, and drawing them by observation, from memory, and in color. We began our introductions by viewing their sketchbooks. Here’s a snapshot of the wonders therein. Meghan McDunnah drew full-lipped...
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 MoreOcean Park
I first visited Ocean Park in 2013 and delighted in the warm community there. Last week I returned to meet new friends and share a bit of my world and working methods. I spoke in Jordan Hall, and was surprised when Daisy, my daughter who inspires much of my work, showed up with her friend Jonathan, who has spent many fond summers at Ocean Park. I included this series of photos to show my process of creating a single illustration for Here Come the Humpbacks! by April Pulley Sayre. First I sketch into the layout provided by the publisher’s designer, in this case Martha Sikkema of...
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