Looking Up

Posted by on Sep 1, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

We have sun in Seattle today. Not a cloud in the sky. This is the kind of day that makes Seattleites smile at each other in a goofy, I-love-you-man sort of way. So I pick this day to write about clouds, and not looking at things very carefully. Last year when I was illustrating Dinosaur […]

Read More

A Movable Wall

Posted by on Sep 1, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

I shipped off a book dummy today. It’s a good feeling. The dummy is for the book Boom Boom by Sarvinder Naberhaus that I am illustrating for Beach Lane Books. It’s a pretty minimal text, so there is lots of room for me to develop my own story line for the images. I like to […]

Read More

An Inspiration Grows Up

Posted by on Jun 24, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

Fifteen years ago, I bought a dress for my two-year-old daughter. I thought it was the perfect little toddler dress – a red jumper that had a bit of a bell-shaped swing. I even paid full price for it, counter to my usual shopping philosophy. My daughter however, was not enthusiastic about my taste in […]

Read More

Dino-Score!

Posted by on May 11, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

From Books Around The Table, Dino-Score! This next installment in my dinosaur chronicles is about Fate. Life is full of struggles and disappointments, but sometimes you can’t help but feel the stars are smiling at you. When I was asked by an editor at Scholastic to illustrate Marion Dane Bauer’s manuscript, Dinosaur Thunder, there were […]

Read More

Bowling for Dinosaurs

Posted by on Apr 18, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

From Books Around The Table, Bowling for Dinosaurs A question I often get asked is, Do I use photos to draw from when I illustrate? The answer is Yes and No. I try to draw from my imagination as much as possible, but there are times when a photo captures more details than my imagination […]

Read More

Beauty In Limitations: A Printmaker’s Perspective

Posted by on Mar 18, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

From Books Around the Table, Beauty In Limitations: A Printmaker’s Perspective: Denslow’s Mother Goose, W W Denslow, 1901 I have been thinking about limitations lately. Like illustrations from old picture books before four-color photo-processing became the norm. The ones I’ve accumulated are mostly from the 40s and 60s and they seem have been printed that way […]

Read More

A Portfolio Primer

Posted by on Feb 17, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

From Books Around The Table, A Portfolio Primer A week ago Tuesday I was the main presenter at our regional SCBWI monthly meeting. The purpose of my talk was to prepare illustrator attendees for the upcoming regional conference in April by reviewing a selection of portfolio submissions. This was a public critique session with an audience […]

Read More