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.
The Wizard of Oz
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.
Hopefully I’ll have an update on Monday.
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.
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.
The Wizard of Oz
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.
View the larger version here.
Tanglewood Books
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.
The Snow Queen
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!
Rhino Riders 2
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.
This image is a detail. You may view a larger image here, or you may view a much, much larger image here.
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 »
Amish Breakfast
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.
Mouse Patriot
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.
Here’s direct link to the full illustration in my Fantasy Gallery.
The Fox and The Rabbit
I’ve recently come to the realization that I the overwhelming majority of my children’s book illustrations are simple portraits. As an aspiring storybook illustrator this realization was a bit disturbing as illustration is all about storytelling which requires a setting and, most importantly, character interaction. So I have resolved to rework some of my recent work to this end. Here is the first fruit of my labor. So far, so good. I liked my original illustration of the Fox Thief, but I like my revision so much better. The rabbit pictured here is a part of the expanded scene which if printed would is 18 inches wide and about 7 inches tall.
Here is the Full Scene. Of course can also view related images in my Fantasy Gallery.
Trial by Ordeal
It fascinates me to review my web stats and see how visitors are finding my illustrations. In particular I am fascinated by the number of people who find my site searching for images relating to the trial by ordeal. For those not up on their medieval history the trial by ordeal was a test put to the accused to determine their innocence. In some cases the accused was required to reach into boiling water. If their hand burned they were believed to be guilty. If not, then they were believed to be innocent. However, this may sound more barbaric than it truly was.
I recently read an article that suggested that some of these ordeals were contrived to unmask guilt through trickery. For instance, the guilty might flat out refuse the trial knowing that they would be burned while they innocent would suffer the ordeal in the hopes they could prove their innocence and would discover the water to not be quite as hot as it looked. No doubt similar trickery is used regularly in police interrogations, minus the ordeals of course.
As always, you can view this illustration in my Fantasy Gallery. Most illustrations are in that gallery these days.
The Hobbit: Dwalin
Here is the first in what I hope to be a long series of illustrations inspired by The Hobbit. Dwalin was the first of thirteen dwarves to appear on Bilbo’s doorstep. Their arrival at his quiet home would change his life forever, and of course set in motion the events that lead into The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I’m not quite sure if he fits with children’s books or with a more adult collectors genre. Certainly he is for the true LOTR fans out there.
Dwalin can of course be found in my Fantasy Illustration gallery.
Be sure to scroll down when you view the full-size illustration. I have a second version below this one that you might otherwise miss.
Medieval Mouse Archer
No doubt many people would not have know or would not have cared, but my original version of this mouse archer was drawing the arrow in a most impossible way. Only days after I posted this did it dawn on me.
You can find the revised version of this mouse in my Fantasy Illustration gallery.
Mind you, I like to shoot arrows whenever I can, but I just didn’t think it through when I positioned his hands. Now I can rest easy knowing that the little guy his a better chance of hitting his mark. And hopefully I’m not the only one who can picture him in a children’s storybook.
Anyway… about this illustration… lately I’ve been having fun working digitally and this fox is my latest creation. Well, actually the dragon sketch which is the background image of this website is my latest… but anyway?
You will find this fox in my Fantasy Gallery.
Fox Thief in Forest
So when I sat down to draw all I really knew was that I wanted to draw a fox. What he would look like or be doing was, at best, vague in my mind. In the end I was quite pleased. Not only did I like the scene, but also the style. I tried to work a little more loosely than when I use pastel. I’m not very loose with the pastels, to say the least. These digital experiments have been great in that respect because I always know that I can completely rework something without the loss of much time. Not so with pastels.
Don’t get me wrong. I love pastels. Staring over my shoulder even as a type is a pastel portrait that I’m very anxious to get back to. There’s a show in June for which I need to complete it.
Medieval Mouse Archer
With the launch of the newly designed site I have sorted my work into six galleries, including: Fantasy, Fables, Classic Tales, Animals, Portraits and Sketchbook.
Naturally I want to add to each gallery, but the Fantasy gallery is likely to get the most attention. After that maybe Fables as I’ve always liked Aesop’s fables if not simply because the so often feature animals. Anyway, the separate galleries seemed like a good step toward clarity. I like clarity.
