Unfortunately, I am no longer illustrating a children’s book for Tanglewood Press. The break was a somewhat unexpected and can only be ascribed, I suppose, to a difference of artistic vision. We parted ways after I had completed and submitted the final art for the cover. I was quite happy with the work, but the publisher felt it was not quite what they needed. Of course I am now anxious to see the book published and on the shelves just so I might see what sort of imagery they were shooting for.
Here I’ve posted what little I feel I can rightly reveal of the cover art work that I completed for Tanglewood Press. Yes, I know, it doesn’t show much, but to reveal anymore would not be quite fair to the author, I think.
And I must say that Tanglewood did pay me for my work and were very prompted in doing so. I can’t complain about that.
There were two blessings from this experience. The first is a new way of working which I am anxious to employ again. The second is that my schedule is now free to take up a new project which has come my way. But I will have more to say about that as things develop.
Here is another short, but very captivating, video on N.C. Wyeth. It’s been ages since I last visited the Wyeth museum – I guess that’s the Brandywine Museum? Like I said, it’s been ages.
Tomorrow, Saturday September 11th, my Wizard of Oz poster will be auctioned at the Zachary Hebda Foundation gala. To say the least I’m excited and anxious to know how much money the poster will raise for cancer research. To recap, the Zachary Hebda Foundation is dedicated to the research and cure of childhood cancer. See their site HebdaFoundation.org.
A short but insightful video featuring Jerry Pinkney speaking about his wordless picture book, The Lion and The Mouse, a fable of Aesop. In particular I appreciated his comments on how he determined the book would be wordless only after he had completed the thumbnail sketches. I would of course assumed he had set out to create such a book from the start.
My first class at MICA met last night. So far so good. The students were great at the very least for patiently awaiting my very long monologue to end. Oddly enough Labor Day wipes out next week’s class and so we won’t meet again for two weeks. Over those two weeks I’ve got them illustrating Aesop’s fable, The Fox and The Grapes. In the meantime I’ve got more sketches to do myself. I think I’ll go work on that now.
Here’s a preview of what I’m sure is another awesome DVD by Massive Black. Greg Manchess has been illustrating for nearly 30 years, I think. He’s primarily been a fantasy and sci-fi illustrator. Anyway, I wish the preview was longer.
It may be quite some time before I am able to post any new illustrations here on my site. For the next four months I will be busy teaching at MICA, working on contract at ADG Creative and creating illustrations for Tanglewood Press. I suppose I might create a thing or two as I teach Intro to Illustration, but the work I do for Tanglewood won’t be seen by the outside world until it is published in 2012. Of course if the movie is correct nothing will be published in 2012. And the work I create for ADG won’t be posted here, but instead I will be posting that on Cloverfish.com as it will all be web oriented – at least I think so.
Anyway, in the meantime I plan to post videos that encourage creativity and instruct in the art of illustration. So pretty soon I should have a good resource for myself if not for any visitors to the site.
Apart from the fact that Gary Kelley is an amazing illustrator, he also loves to use pastel – so do I. This video is a preview for the full-length video which I purchased and downloaded yesterday from Massive Black. It’s a two-part video and each part is over 45 minutes long. The two parts together cost $30. To say the least it was well worth the money.
When I was in college you could only hope and pray for such an opportunity. Even then you might only get a glimpse of the guy over the shoulders of people much taller than you. Watching this video was like hanging out with Mr. Kelley as he offers his personal commentary on each step of his process. Massive Black is a great resource for all sorts of demos like this.
This next one is a full-length interview. The intro is pretty cheesy as it was created for a local news show in Iowa, but the rest is great.
ADG | Creative commissioned this poster as a part of a fund raiser for the Zachary Hebda Foundation which was established to increase awareness and research to cure childhood cancer. Zachary Hebda died of leukemia in 1999 - I believe he was six years old. The poster features the characters from the Wizard of Oz, because Zach was very fond of the movie. You may notice that the yellow brick road forms a Z – for Zach.
Last week I agreed to illustrate a children’s book for Tanglewood Press and yesterday morning I signed and mailed the contract, so now it’s official!
Perhaps the most well known book in Tanglewood’s catalog is The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn. It’s always nice to know I’ll be in good company. Of course I can’t say much about the book I will be illustrating except that it will likely be published in fall 2012. However, I can say that upon my first reading of it I liked the story very much. I didn’t have to convince myself of that. Visually speaking, it is just the sort of story that I would like to illustrate. It will be a 32-page picture book – so there’s a lot of work to do between now and then. And while I’ve lately been experimenting digitally, I think it best if I use traditional pastel.
In other news, this past weekend I completed a Wizard of Oz poster for a charity. This morning I dropped it off and they were very pleased indeed. I will try to post it here on the site by the end of this week.
I happy to announce that Mieradome, written by my friend Kate O’Hegarty, has finally been published! You may recall that Kate commissioned me to create character portraits for the official Mieradome website. I do not believe the book is illustrated, apart from the cover of course.
You may order the book through AuthorHouse.com. Kate is keeping me posted on other sellers as she works out those deals. Please don’t overlook the Free Preview featured on AuthorHouse!
Ever since my first Rhino Riders illustration I have been meaning to do more. Of course now I’m rendering my storybook illustrations digitally. This one… well, I have mixed feelings. I was really excited about the line drawing, but the coloring, not so much. Maybe it’s too vibrant. I have leanings toward muted and monchromatic palettes sometimes. Well anyway, it’s done for now. Time to move on.
Today I have begun to the refining of a sketch for a new children’s book illustration. Mind you, Rhino Riders is not a book series. It’s simply what I’ve named what will eventually become a series of … continue reading »
Recently I’ve been making an effort to create a post for each illustration I’ve created. For some crazy reason I want my work to not only be archived in my galleries but also as posts. Don’t ask. Anyway, it came to mind that as I continue to post these older works they are gradually burying my newer work about which I’ve already posted. Most people probably wouldn’t care so much, but … continue reading »
Today I completed the very tedious process of creating a new gallery for my editorial illustration. Not fun. It’s not so much the creation of the gallery but it’s the addition of all the images. Each image must be resized – and sometimes cropped, and each image must have a corresponding thumbnail image. Then each image must be represented on the gallery page and properly linked to its individual page displaying the full-sized image. And finally, all the images need to be imported into the WordPress media gallery for good measure. sigh.
So glad it’s over. Anyway, you can view all these illustrations in the Editorial Gallery.
On Monday I dropped off my portrait of Jenn at the Howard County Center for the Arts. It is a non-juried exhibit and the entries are taken first-come, first-accepted basis. The show opens tomorrow at 10AM. Here are the directions:
I drew this little guy months and months ago. Who knows what distracted me from finishing. This afternoon I finally took some time to put a nice shine on his shoes and brush out his coat. And as with everything I hope to find the time to draw more of these mice. As far as children’s books go, I should probably draw these fellows in action.
Unfortunately, I am no longer illustrating a children’s book for Tanglewood Press. The break was a somewhat unexpected and can only be ascribed, I suppose, to a difference of artistic vision. We parted ways after I had completed and submitted the final art for the cover. I was quite happy with the work, but the publisher felt it was not quite what they needed. Of course I am now anxious to see the book published and on the shelves just so I might see what sort of imagery they were shooting for. 
