Cover Sketches

Here are a couple of early cover sketches for The Higher Power of Lucky.

Woohoo!

Susan Patron has won the Newbery Medal for The Higher Power of Lucky!!!! You can see more info and a couple of my finished illustrations for this wonderful book here. Or, check out the official press release here.

And now...back to the champagne.

A startling connection

I've recently uncovered the fiendish role that raccoons have played in the history of Freemasonry...

Superman (by way of Fleischer)

You can't beat the design of the 1940's Fleisher Superman cartoons. They tend to influence my Superman doodles heavily. For more of my superhero sketches, click the nifty new blogger tag below...

Pug! On a ball!

Snow day

The Batman

Flying Ace

Babypack

Just an average carrot

Pug!

The Thing That Should Have a Better Name

Here's another entry for my very slowly evolving superhero series. I'm not a big Fantastic Four fan, but for pure doodling fun, it's hard to beat The Thing. But that name lacks the usual Marvel directness. It's as if Stan Lee was late for an appointment that day. "Let's see...Human Torch, check...Invisible Girl, check...and....uh...whatever...The Thing. Oh, and stretchy guy...beats me...how about Mr. Fantastic?" It's not that I think he should be called Rock Man or something, but The Thing just seems too vague and insulting. Mr. Pebbles? The Human Quarry?

The nudge

Washington

One of the picture books I'm working on this year is "Big George" by Anne Rockwell (Harcourt). Anne has done an amazing job of portraying Washington as an actual human being (from childhood to death) without any of the mythic elements one might expect (no false teeth, no cherry tree). Right now I'm in the research and sketching phase, which is one of my favorite stages in illustration. I'll post more about this one later.

Breakfast sketch

Happy New Year