Simulcast Sketching

Made while watching the ALA awards.

It IS Hot Chocolate Weather, After All

I've added a bunch o' mugs to my Zazzle shop, including four from my recent winter series of drawings. Click on "Mugs" under Product Type to see all of them. I have the Tutubeastie mug with the color handle and I must say it has a nice heft to it.

ALA Awards

Congratulations to all of the award winners! I'm particularly happy about The Graveyard Book of course. Well deserved indeed. And it's wonderful to see honors going to the great Marla Frazee and Melissa Sweet, not to mention Uri Shulevitz who literally wrote the book about illustrating picture books.

Scarlet and Black

Beastie of the Month

A new year, a new monthly feature. If you can think of one, give this fella a name in the comments section.

Ape Escape!

Pub Weekly, Research, and Gen. Washington

Big George paintings in progress as I start to lose the elusive winter sun (December 2007).

There's a nice review of George in the new edition of Publishers Weekly. Anne Rockwell's evocative text inspired me to read more about the life of Washington in preparation for that book. The two books that helped me get a sense of the man most were His Excellency by Joseph L. Ellis and 1776 by David McCullough. I highly recommend both. I also listened to the audio version of 1776 while painting Big George. There's just something about the sound of David McCullough's voice. He could make the phone book captivating.

A Fresh New Year

A Happy New Year to all! I'm looking forward to a new batch of blog sketches (including some new monthly features), adding some more designs to my Zazzle shop, and starting an Etsy space for prints of my work.

Things are pretty exciting on the book front for 09. Illustration-wise, there's a return to Hard Pan with Susan Patron's Lucky Breaks. Later in the year, I'll be moving into author/illustrator territory with the release of two stories in the Medium of Sequential Art (a.k.a. comics, graphic novels, illustrated stories, and an assortment of other labels that no one seems to be able to agree upon).

First is a short story for the new anthology, Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists, and Other Matters Odd and Magical. This is my first foray into the world of YA so expect something a bit darker than Very Hairy Bear. I couldn't be more excited to be part of a collection that includes new work by some of my favorite writers. Click on the link for the lineup. Sideshow is edited by the incomparable Deborah Noyes... if you haven't read her extraordinary new novel The Ghosts of Kerfol, then you oughta.

And this fall my first graphic novel, The Storm in the Barn will be published. This book has been in the works for about five years and the drawing and painting of it took up most of my time in 2008 (hence the paltry blogging). Needless to say, if I could push a Fast Forward button and zip to the fall I would, however, I'll have to bide my time. Look for more blog posts, a new website, and a book trailer for Storm in the months leading up to its release.

Ok, everybody. Onwards and Upwards.