Once upon a prickle
Sometimes the seed of a story can take awhile to sprout. Lyn Smith wrote a picture book story in 2008 during a graduate class in The University of Southern Maine’s literacy education program. She titled it “A Prickly Tale” and just a few months ago her sweet book dummy came my way. The story follows a porcupine making it’s journey through the woods, an event witnessed and photographed by her husband, Brian Smith. Lyn and I were matched up in early May by Maine Authors Publishing, and I said a big YES to illustrating the book. While the photos within were informative,...
Read MorePeaks Island Sketchbooks Workshop
For the fourth summer, Judy Labrasca and I led a Peaks Island Sketchbooks Workshop through Maine College of Art’s Continuing Studies Program. This one day workshop is a fun meander of island views and wide open possibilities. Every year is a different group, paper skies, and new friends made. You can read about past ventures here, here, and here. Judy meets the group in Portland and ferries over on Casco Bay Lines. I meet them at the island dock where we share materials and our philosophy: sketchbooks are vessels for adventure! Thanks to The Sketchbook Project, I’ve developed a...
Read MoreBook Makers Meet Up
Here Comes April! Yes, the award-winning author of Here Come the Humpbacks! came east from Indiana, and migrated to my shore last week. What a pleasure to meet April Pulley Sayre for the first time. April’s always on the search for natural wonders and wanted to explore tide pools. I brought her to the best spot at low tide, Picnic Point, where she didn’t waste any time getting her feet wet. I perched nearby, sketching Whitehead Passage. She caught me in a pano shot. We watched a tanker emerge from the distant mist. The steady tanker flow into Portland harbor became ready...
Read MoreTall Tales from ICON9: Day 3 & 4
Welcome to more epic recapping of ICON9, the Illustration Con held in Austin. Last Friday July 8 more awesomeness awaited us in the form of Martha Rich, ICON’s Emcee and quick-change artist. Who needs a Martha Rich paper doll set? I do! Tall Tale or fact? Martha is a Mainer! She grew up in Pennsylvania, the daughter of ministers, and invited us all to exchange the peace, which the mob of 600 gladly did. Anita Kunz made a stellar presentation on why art matters. Whoever thought a cartoon could kill, she asked. With imagery, she showed how art can recruit or resist war, worship gods,...
Read MoreTall Tales from ICON9: Day 1 and 2
ICON9 was one giddy up good time in Austin! My sketch of Daisy’s boot, from a pair she bought the last time we were in Austin, became the opener for zines I brought along. I drew on the flights from Maine, too. Couldn’t believe what I saw out the window! After a hearty welcome from our dear locals, Kathy and Barton, Marty and I checked into the Hilton Austin which was HQ for the hoedown. July 6 began four rootin’ tootin’ days of the best illustration conference on the prairie. I missed the introductions, trying to find coffee to fuel me for the full day ahead of an...
Read MoreWonders at the Weymouth Waterfront Library
Last Tuesday I visited the Weymouth Waterfront Library on the last day of my MECA residency. What a blast! The library sits, literally, at the edge of a salt marsh on the Sissiboo River in Nova Scotia. I visited the day after my arrival to meet their gracious library clerk, Margaret Thibault, who invited me to share my children’s book illustration with two grades in Azure Thurber’s French Immersion classes from the nearby Weymouth Consolidated School. I made a quick flyer from my pastel of the view from the Jenny Family Compound. It was a kick to find that Margaret had posted it...
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