sketch bookin’
Ever since doing the Sketchbook Project in 2011, I have a new respect for the sketchbook practice. Before doing that, my sketchbook was a spiral bound scrapbook of sorts, including drawings, clippings, tickets, any bit of ephemera crossing my desk at the time. Thanks to Charlesbridge, I am now working on a non-fiction picture book about John Muir, an avid sketcher of his travels in the wild. He’s considered the father of the National Parks system, visionary author, and founder of the Sierra Club. Muir discovered Yosemite in his youth, and built a sawmill along a stream that kept him...
Read Moremaine streets: past, present, and future
I’m a fan of Find, Portland’s shop for vintage clothing. I included the store in my Sketchbook Project 2013’s Shop Walk. The owner, Laura Ker, also maintains a site for her style spotting, Maine Streets. Not surprising that she’s a former art student, with a keen eye for the everyday style of folks trotting around Portland, Maine. I assigned my junior illustration majors at Maine College of Art the task of choosing a person found on Maine Streets, and illustrating that person as is, and also in the distant past (at least one hundred years ago or more) and in the...
Read Moredrawing loop
Sometimes it’s about noticing the connections. We got a ride back to retrieve our bikes from neighbor, Dick Reed. The weather looked more promising, so we rode to New Gloucester to check out the new Bresca spot and then loop back to Portland to see the Sketchbook Project. When I began my 2013 Sketchbook last October, I drew the bench in front of Bresca with my lovely cohort, Kirsten. Chef/owner Krista Kern Desjarlais has moved her operation to Sabbathday Lake. I knew we’d found it when I spotted the same bench! They weren’t open yet, but we delighted in the location. This...
Read MoreB is for bikes, barnacles, and bears
Pretty soon Marty and I will be married 25 years. How did we get here? I can honestly say the romance began on a motorcycle. Zooming around Marin County hills and feeling like it was Ireland. Fog, eucalyptus, and Dogtown, a heady mix back in 1987. There were many miles of touring California once we got married. Delivering illustration jobs to Fed Ex on Harrison Street in San Francisco made deadlines more fun, as seen here in Marty’s work: Then he surprised me with a gift certificate for a motorcycle safety class. At first I was slighted: you don’t like me as a passenger? Yet...
Read Moreplunge into the new
2013 is off to a brave and busy beginning, full of stories, students, and creatures with white fur. Charlesbridge donated a stack of books for the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s Polar Dip and Dash on the last day of 2012. Sunny but cold, it was a glorious day to sign books about climate change for the top ten kid winners. There was a great crowd, including a polar bear looking a bit out of his element, a fitting metaphor for the whole deal. Wait, what’s the bride doing here? Oh, it’s Beth Dimond, Public Affairs Coordinator for the NRCM, who decided to take the...
Read Moremaking merry
I’m getting back to my Sketchbook Project today. Yes, I really am. I showed this sketch done a month ago to my colleague, Anne Dennison, at Maine College of Art. I’d put her adorable niece into my Sketchbook Project 2013, eating a cookie from Katie Made Bakery. My theme this year is favorite shopfronts around Portland. It gave her the idea to commission me to do a portrait as a gift for her sister. So I did, in pastel. Kyler is one very, very cute girl; hope I have captured even an ounce of that. Thanks, Anne! It was my last “to do” before beginning the whirl of...
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