Reindeer

A sketch I squeezed in during baby's nap time.  I'm not sure why a reindeer - just something that popped into my head. I'd like to finish it up, possibly in ink...

Eagle Pin

While I'm still largely on baby hiatus and will be for a while, I received some more samples of products I worked on.  I was asked to create a steampunk styled eagle for the Allen Eagles Destination Imagination team. Here's the pin and a couple additional unused sketches:

Magazine Merit Honor!

I was so happy to hear the news recently that my painting "Northern Lights" for Spider magazine received the SCBWI Magazine Merit Honor (1st runner-up)!!

Holiday Luminary

Some time ago I completed a couple of series of designs for a holiday luminary box, one for Christmas and one for Halloween.  I received a product sample earlier this year, but hadn't had gotten around to posting about it until now.  Here's the box with a Halloween insert:

The Halloween design in the raw:

 What's neat about these luminary boxes is that they are not only lit from the front, but also project an image out the back onto a nearby wall.  They come with interchangeable inserts as well.  Here are two versions lit up.  There are some better pictures of this on the product website - http://www.haute-decor.com/Projection%20Luminary.html

 It's always fun to see the final form of the various products that I've worked on.

Kidsbook Friends Artist Interview

Here's a link to the interview I did for Kidsbook Friends.

Princess Madison Feature

My Princess Madison trilogy just appeared in a feature on the Kidsbook Friends blog!  Check out the write-up:

http://kidsbookfriends.com/2015/05/13/princess-madison-trilogy-a-perfectly-imperfect-princess/

Golden Legacy

I have the good fortune of living  reasonably close to the Irving Arts Center which has hosted some really wonderful children's book art exhibits.  Several months ago we saw an assortment of Ed Young originals and this past weekend we went to see their current exhibit of original, mostly older, Golden Books covers.

I grew up with a number of Eloise Wilkins books.  I've always loved her sweet depictions of childhood and was so happy to see three of her originals:

 One of my all-time favorite illustrators, Trina Schart Hyman, had an original I'd never seen before on display:

 I love the retro look of some of these paintings.  You can see the heavy influence of these older works on so many of the current new wave of retro-styled artists popping up these days.

 I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to see such great works first-hand.  It's worth stopping by if you're in the neighborhood.

Cracked Christmas Reindeer Ornament

As promised, here's another one of the products I had the pleasure of working on.  I think the concept behind this is pretty self-explanatory.  In case it's hard to tell from the photo, the reindeer's scarf doubles as a hook/noose!  Poor stressed-out reindeer.

Available on Amazon.

Christmas in February

I know it's a little bit late for Christmas, but I just received my illustrator's copies of an Advent calendar I worked on a while back.  The theme for the calendar is "Christmas Around the World," so I had a chance to learn about all the interesting Christmas traditions from several different countries around the world.

 Here's the interior illustration without windows - it might be a little easier to make out some of the details in the art:

It looks like it's available here on Amazon.

I also got some other samples, along with the Advent calendars, of products I worked on in the recent past, but haven't had a chance to photograph them yet.  So, more soon to come...