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 MoreSide x Side Slides into Summer
Working with Side x Side, Portland’s coup in the name of arts integration, has been truly satisfying, as well as a juggle. This spring I visited three schools, East End, Reiche, and Ocean Avenue Elementary, where our Land Forms project had a happy culmination. I attended last week’s Summer Arts Institute at the Portland Museum of Art along with a hearty crowd of teachers on their first day of summer vacation. Now that’s dedication! Mark Bessire, Director of the PMA, welcomed us and our coffee into the auditorium. He introduced Mayor Ethan Strimling, who supports the arts,...
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...
Read MoreBaie Sainte-Marie Artist Residency
I am fresh back from a divine two weeks, thanks to Maine College of Art’s Baie Ste Marie Residency. As an adjunct professor at MECA since 2003, I was unaware of the deep renewal a residency can offer until I lucked into three nights at the Pace House a few years ago. Since then, I’ve had my eye on this opportunity in Nova Scotia, a beloved place of family ties and epic light. Thanks to the Jenny family, the house overlooking St. Mary’s Bay in New Edinburgh has provided inspiration for MECA alumni, faculty, and staff since 2009. Our journey began by driving from Portland,...
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