Snow in Austin!

It's been so long since I've lived anywhere that gets regular snow that I can't help but get excited when we have even a little. Yesterday I sprang out of bed when my husband said, "Hey, it's snowing!" I threw on some clothes, grabbed the camera, and ran out into the cold to take a good long walk around the neighborhood. For the first hour or two, this snow-storm was pretty steady with those big tissue-paper flakes. After it tapered off we had a sprinkling of flurries throughout the afternoon.





The unusual weather seems so strangely appropriate to me since the painting I'm working on at the moment happens to be a snow scene. I'm grateful for the reference and inspiration (and that I didn't have to drive anywhere in it)!

Pythagoras & the Ratios

I'm very pleased to announce the release of my most recent book, Pythagoras and the Ratios from Charlesbridge Publishing. I posted a couple interior illustrations in a previous post - you can see them here. You can see another interior page if you visit this image viewer at Barnes & Noble and a couple more also at Amazon.com if you use the "Look Inside" feature.

If you have/know any kids learning or struggling with ratios then this is the book for them. Here's a excerpt of a review from the School Library Journal:

"Gr 4–7—This picture-book introduction to ratio and proportion also explains the connection between math and music through a story featuring young Pythagoras and his family......."

".......The story is amusing and offers a glimpse into life in ancient Greece. Acrylic and colored pencil cartoons depict the clothing and lifestyle of the period in a pleasing palette. A historical note and an experiment in which readers are challenged to use Pythagorean ratios to create a musical instrument with six glasses of water in varying amounts are appended.—Barbara Auerbach, PS 217, Brooklyn, NY"