Uncle...

Faeries are bad news.

Mystery Monk

Exclamatory Beastie

Philly Book Fest

If you're anywhere near the Philadelphia area this Saturday, swing on down to the first Philadelphia Book Festival! I'll be doing some sort of presentation and then signing books at 1:30 pm. Also scheduled are Jerry and Gloria Pinkney, E.B. Lewis, Ginger from Gilligan's Island (?), and Patti Smith. Okay, Patti Smith doesn't have a kids' book, but c'mon...it's Patti Smith! Also check out the cool poster designed by Caldecott Winner and fellow Philadelphian, David Wiesner.

More from the Ireland Sketchbook

Na Seacht d'Teampall (Seven Churches), Inishmore.

Ireland Sketchbook

Sheep in Connemara.

Pub regular, Inishmore, Aran Islands.

Happy April 7th!

Characters

Go read Mark Kennedy's posts about sketchbooks at the always excellent Temple of Seven Golden Camels blog. Makes you wanna draw.

Cubicle Guy

Ed

Mr. Potato Head, circa 1900

Grendel

Ink and gouache on a scrap o' cardboard.

A Most Curious Development

Pumpkin Orange Verithin

From the Washington Sketchbook

More preliminary sketches for "Big George" by Anne Rockwell.

Moleskine a la Le Pen

Red Knit Hat

Bowler

A little sketch to try out my new brown Le Pen. I was happy to discover that the ink turns all purpley when wet.

Runaway Pillow

The Endless

If you have any interest in comics and graphic novels, you really oughta read Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Maybe a couple of times. I just read "Endless Nights" which is a collection of stories about his main characters, The Endless, accompanied by knock-out artwork. Written years after he finished the Sandman series proper, Gaiman revisits these characters with his writing skills sharpened to pointy perfection. So with hat off to Neil, here are this morning's breakfast sketches: Dream, Delirium, and Death.

Here is the Claw!

To continue with my superhero series, here's a sketch of the great Lobster Johnson, one of my favorite characters from Mike Mignola's extra-brilliant "Hellboy" graphic novels.

A Pug's Favorite Day

One Keene Owl

Here's my contribution to the Festival Owl Project of Keene State College, home of the annual Children's Literature Festival. Thanks to the Blue Rose Girls for posting about the call for owls.

Podcast!

A pretty extensive interview with me can now be heard at the Thousand Times No podcast!

Illustration Friday: Sprout

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

Post #100!

Well, this wraps up my first year of blogging on a nice round number (is it round? is it an integer?). I did manage my goal of doing something new for each of the 52 weeks of Illustration Friday. (Whew)

Next year I plan to change the blog a bit. There'll be fewer IF drawings but more sketches from my upcoming book projects, such as these three drawings. These were part of a four page mini-comic "trailer" that I created in order to present my graphic novel idea to interested publishers. More on the graphic novel and other books in the coming year.

Thanks to everyone who stopped to have a look at the site...especially the folks who left such nice comments.

Illustration Friday: Phoenix

Phoenix from the match...

Red

Merry Christmas!