Emerging artist

I wanted to feature the art of an emerging artist who is working hard on a series of dinosaurs/monsters. Here are two examples of his fine work. Good job Thomas!!

Sprinkler

While at my parents' house, I had a chance to sketch something belonging to my mother. She has had this sprinkler since I was little and uses it to sprinkle water onto clothes before ironing them. It is a simple thing, but something about the thick green glass of the old Coke bottle and the dented aluminum cap strikes me as really homey and well used.

Snow!

The date is April 27th and we are getting snow. Luckily, I still have not changed my snow tires. The poor daffodils and tulips are looking kind of sad under their little blankets of snow. I am glad that I didn't put seeds in the garden yet either.

Pond Girl

I thought it was about time to put some drawings up, and watching that Quentin Blake video inspired me to take out my dip pen. I like to use a crowquill nib because it has a little flexibility, but not too much. This helps create all those nice scratchy lines.
My first sketch is of me when I was little. I used to spend as much time as I could at Gibson Pond, (incidentally named for illustrator Charles Dana Gibson- of Gibson Girls, who owned acreage and an elegant, but now crumbling, house up the road at 1200 Hope Street in Bristol) which was about a ten minute walk from my house. I loved to catch frogs, tadpoles, snakes and turtles, which I would bring home to my aquarium. My parents would usually let me keep them for a little while, and then I had to let them go. Things have come full circle and I am now able to go searching for tadpoles with my children, which makes me very happy.
Here's an older pond inspired illustration:

Quentin Blake Video

In cleaning out my email inbox, I came upon a link to this video. Quentin Blake explains his process in creating two of his books, Clown and The Green Ship. He is one of my all time favorite illustrators, having illustrated many of my very favorite books written by Roald Dahl.
http://www.teachers.tv/videos/32976#share

Golden Anniversary

Today is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. They met in Rhode Island all those years ago, and thank goodness they did! Congratulations Mom and Dad!! xoxo

Guilty pleasures

I would say that this is one of Emerson's guilty pleasures, but he's actually not too guilty about his love for our blond dress-up wig. Must remind him of his mother or something.

Jack and Jill

I am working on a fantastic project. It's a little book of the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill. It should be out in September of 2010. This is the cover, and Jack will be holding a little sign in his hands with the title. Here's a sneak peek:

We saw Avatar today, and I was surprised by how much I loved it. It was very entertaining and hardly seemed like 2 hours and forty minutes had passed when we walked out of the theater. From a creative standpoint, the movie was amazing. The colors of the landscape, the characters, the animals. . . I did a little character sketch of my own after we returned.

Yesterday I returned from a three day retreat for Writers and Illustrators called Kindling Words. It was so inspiring to be surrounded by such a creative group of people from all over the country.
Don Weisberg, President of Penguin Group, spoke about the state and future of publishing (both in good shape, he felt). He looks at the advent of electronic media as an opportunity, not a threat, for publishers. We need to learn to work with the changes not against them.
Betsy Partridge, a nonfiction writer, spoke about writing nonfiction and also about just writing. Most interesting to me is how she would find a way into her subject in unexpected places through her research.
Chris Raschka was the presenting illustrator. He spoke about his process and projects, gave us an assignment and we even had an opportunity to workshop with him.
I had a wonderful room of my own at the Inn at Essex, we ate delicious food, and I had our puppy pick up on Sunday, which made leaving a little easier.
Here are some sketches of Emerson that I did while listening to our presenters:

wilderness. . .

We're just waiting for him to receive his second shots and this little boy will be coming home with us. He comes from a local rescue group (all breeds rescue, inc.) and is being fostered by a nice family with his four other brothers and sisters. The kids have been begging for a puppy for years now, and we thought now would be a good time. Our Bernese Mountain Dog is 8 1/2 and she will get some overlap time with the puppy before she's too old and grouchy. We live on a busy road, so we are going to have to use a pen in the backyard. I am trying to prepare, but I know that nothing will really prepare me. I will put up more photos when he comes home. His name is currently Emerson, but that may change.

Illustration Friday: Clumsy

I have made my niece Sara an ornament for Christmas for the past three years. This year I wanted to do something with a milkweed pod. I finished the drying process on low heat in the oven and then created a little felted wool mouse to put inside. I have seen something similar done with walnut shells before, which would certainly be sturdier for little hands.

Happy Holidays! Winter has finally arrived in Vermont inspiring another snowy scene. I am not sure anyone would recognize him, but the fox in the middle is my grandfather- well, what my grandfather would look like if he were a fox. He liked to take my mother and the grandchildren, skating on ponds that he'd find in the woods.

snowflake!

These bookplates should be available before Christmas at Vermont bookstores and gift shops.
Proceeds to benefit Reach Out and Read.

Great news- my f&g has arrived and it looks great, thanks to the designers at Dutton. It looks like this book is scheduled for Spring 2010- just in time for Father's Day.
Keep an eye out for it!

Good news! It looks like my new books will be coming out next year. The first is entitled: How about a Kiss for Me? by Todd Tarpley. I can't wait for this one.
The second will be out in time for the snow in Winter 2010, entitled, Ten in a Sled, by Kim Norman.
Here's a sneak preview of each of them:

My art appears today on a Publisher's Weekly Blog written by booksellers Josie Leavitt and Elizabeth Bluemle of our local bookstore the Flying Pig. http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/660000266.html

Yikes, I can't remember when I last put something up! I finished a little educational job recently that I can share. Other than that, it has been a quiet summer with lots of time with the kids and work on the magazine. I did actually finish my book "How About a Kiss for Me?" recently, and hopefully it will be out next spring/summer. More to come on that subject.

Here's a fun idea for cupcakes. We took regular cupcakes and iced the top with plain white frosting. I used a pastry bag to pipe frosting on in a mound for the nose. Once the frosting was done, I put on the ears. The ears were 1/4 of a marshmallow placed right on the frosting. I then cut junior mints in half to make a nice fat nose to put on the mound of frosting in the middle. Two chocolate chips made eyes. Presto. . . polar bears!

this middle bear is my favorite

but they all have a little bit of personality

baptisia and geranium
when our chickens lie in the garden they look like they are dying
have you ever seen anything as ridiculous as this Auracana chicken with a silly hairdo?
irises
the clematis did survive despite my rough transplant. . .
see?

a pretty close up of a tulip in our yard
and more tulips and some dandilions

tulips grow in the middle of our yard where there once was a garden

I was playing with a drawing that I did for Edie's science enrichment. I wish I could do more in photoshop. . .

In getting this piece ready for a show, I played with pastels to give some depth to the background. Pastels are lovely, but highly toxic and very messy on a small piece like this. I wonder about pastel pencils. I will post the before and after pieces.

Happy Spring and happy Mother's Day! My mother loves to garden. When I was little she had a big vegetable garden and grew everything from beets to brussell sprouts and cabbage to cucumbers. Now that I have a yard of my own, I have my own vegetable garden, and I have her to thank for a lot of what I know about growing things.

Here's what's been keeping me busy these days. Another creative endeavor. . . learning InDesign.
You can find out more about this business forecasting magazine I design and the international institute of forecasters at: www.forecasters.org/foresight.