Walking In Mykonos--6x6 Gallery

 

I found out about a great gallery from one of my illustrator friends. Charmingwall is located in the village and is exhibiting the 6x6 gallery starting this month. You have the chance to pick up a 6"x6" canvas, paint whatever you like, and they will display it for a month...and up to 3 months on their website.

I thought this was a good way to get my feet wet and start painting again...as you can see I haven't been posting very much. This show will be going on every month for the year, and I plan to enter every month. Above is a rough scan of the painting I will be entering, along with its sketch. Charmingwall will also give me a high quality digital file of my painting which I will post once I get it...somehow this scan isn't picking up all of the textures that I put in :(

Over the summer I went to Greece with friends of mine, and spent part of the trip in Mykonos for 5 days. I loved walking around the town on the small winding streets, the bright blue sky, and all of the beautiful white buildings. What I loved the most was all of the wonderful contrasting colors in the bright sunshine, and the gorgeous flowers and twisting trees that you would see when you turned every corner.

How everything started

This is the first book that I ever made, back in 1983. I still have it, and it's now on the bookshelf in my office. It kind of reminds me how simple everything was when I was in Kindergarten and just starting out. It also reminds me when I get stressed out on the job, that I'm making children's books and things could be a lot worse.

We had a small publishing company in my elementary school, and we were able to go there if we wrote a story. It was a fun place to be...coloring, gluing, and construction paper. I thought the laminating machine was so fancy :)

Emma-Jean Take 2

Here is my second cover! The first Emma-Jean Lazarus book developed into a series, and I was able to work on the 2nd book. This time she falls in love :)

I began working on it this past summer, and finalized the art in Sept 2008. It's not in bookstores yet, but keep an eye out this May because that's when it goes on sale!

My first published illustration...and how it all came together

I currently work as a Designer at Penguin Books in the Young Readers division, and luckily I was assigned to work on this cover. I began working on it in the spring of 2006. The book is very charming and special, and I was having a hard time deciding how it should look. I began wrestling with it, and bringing my comps and layouts to meetings, but the design just wasn't going anywhere. I began to feel connected to the book, and was frustrated that I couldn't find the right photo or illustration to suit the story or the main character. So, I began sketching out my own ideas hoping that something would click.

I was a bit nervous to cross over and try to become the illustrator and designer of this book, but I showed my sketches to my Art Director and Editor at a meeting, and they actually loved them. I worked the sketches into final art, and now I have my first published cover.