This book by the wonderful Esmé Codell, published by Greenwillow will be out in the summer of 2012. For the illustrations I have used a combination of hand-painting and digital collage.
Blog
Writing and illustrating guides for kids
I’ve just completed writing, illustrating and designing 20 guides for elementary school children, on themes including bullying, lying, teasing and moving. Commissioned by Boulden Publishing, these will be sold to school counselors. I wrote each guide from a child’s perspective so these are called “kid-to-kid guides”. I remember being utterly shocked when I encountered girl bullying and cliques in junior high school and thinking, “when I grow up I want to write about this”. But I hadn’t thought about that since. Amazing, the power of intention.
Sharing Time
click image to enlarge
I just finished this illustration for the preschool book, which is now entitled: It’s Time for Preschool.
This one is about Sharing, share cupcakes on your birthday, share instruments to make a marching band. (more…)
Prayer Request for waters in Japan
Today the Japanese scientist famous from the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, Dr. Masaru Emoto, is asking people to pray from noon to one (your local time) to transform the waters surrounding the contaminated nuclear plant.
Here is a photo from Dr. Emoto’s research of water crystals before and after different prayers and intentions. (more…)
Daddy Adventure Day
Daddy Adventure Day
This heartwarming book by Dave Keane is so well-observed and dryly funny, I felt like I was making a little comedy film.
Kirkus’ Review
Editor Review (reviewed on April 1, 2011)
A young boy narrates a special time spent with his dad.
Daddy Adventure Days have some rules: there’s no reading the newspaper or calling work. (more…)
Barb
Here is the watercolorist known on flickr as bblond or Barb. Barb is a pretty woman but her reference photo seemed rather unremarkable, in terms of the lighting, so I did not know how to approach it. Since her features are fairly subtle, her complexion fair and hair blonde, I chose to add definition by drawing with a sepia ink, instead of using the fine pencil I depend on for most of my watercolors. The pen was a bit dry, and I worked on Nujabi hand made texture watercolor paper, so I got a light but distinctive line. I used the same Daniel Smith palette I’ve been enjoying lately.
The paper scans a bit gray, so I did heighten the contrast in this image, so the paper goes white.
I’m happy with the result.
Cédric
A portrait of a flickr artist known as Tazab on flickr, or Cédric, done with a black ink on handmade Nujabi watercolor paper. I’m finding that the texture of the paper is very handy. Here it provides an expressive texture to the line when I work with calligraphic marker.
I have become addicted to making portraits since joining a marvelous flickr group, Julia Kay’s Portrait Party. Begun by artist Julia Kay, artists in this flickr group from all over the world paint each other’s portraits, and support each other quite wonderfully. Perhaps you’d like to join us?