2016 Holiday Card and Gurnimoji Stickers

Santa and his buddies.

I was playing around with making small, expressive faces to use as stickers, or emojis. My goal was to depict particular expressions with a bit more detail than we generally see. I also wanted to depict a variety of ethnicities, but to use the color creatively, so the color would be more about the lighting, rather than the skin tone. The project brought to mind an idea I had a few years back that I never developed. My idea was to create a series of "Santas", as he would appear in other cultures. I started to play with that idea, but I then I had second thoughts about imposing an icon of Christianity onto cultures that might not be. So, I altered my approach, and decided to depict Santa with a collection of other jolly old souls, from different cultures. With festive facial hair, and colorful accessories.

"Gurnimojis"

I am curious how small I can make
these and still have them "readable".

Homage to vintage Sci-fi

A recent assignment for my University of Hartford MFA in Illustration program was to create an illustration in the style of a genre from a different era. I chose to create a science fiction cover from the 1950's. Director C. F. Payne stipulated that even though we were creating art from another era, he wanted us to communicate a contemporary idea for a contemporary usage. I chose to play with the idea of genetic engineering.
The illustration is for a (non-existing) story in which a mad scientist makes a fortune selling boutique genetically engineered pets, like miniature dinosaurs, created by altering parakeet DNA, and fluffy monkey-head boas that function as fashion accessories. He uses his fortune to pursue his somewhat more nefarious genetic experiments.
Initially I wanted to make the illustration an "Amazing Stories" cover, but I did not like the way the type covered so much of the illustration, so I chose the lesser known "If" magazine, so I had more room for the illustration. The illustration style pays homage to the master campy science fiction illustrator Frank Kelly Freas.

An original IF cover.

My young friend posing.

Great acting job!

My friend Tim posing as the scientist.

Elftown Detective

Here is an illustration, and some sketches, from a graphic novel I am working on.

School Visits to the Neshaminy School District schools that I attended as a child.

Pre-Game Hoopla!

In a few weeks my new graphic novel Fuzzy Baseball will official go on sale. Click here for the article that appeared in my home town paper, The Brattleboro Reformer:

Brattleboro Reformer article

By my best estimate, it was 2001 when I first brought a 32 page baseball picture book concept to my writers' group (lead by local authors Jessie Haas and Michael J Daley) for a critique. Based on feedback from the group, I expanded it into a 48 page "reader" (an early chapter book), and titled it The Fuzzies' Big Inning. I started submitting for publication. As a published author and illustrator (the picture book Dinosaur Train) I am generally able to get my proposals past the screeners and into the hands of the editors.

After a few rejections I converted it into a 48 page graphic novel entitled Fuzzy Baseball. I put in the time to sketch out all 48 pages, and I submitted it to agents and editors who specialized in the emerging market of graphic novel/ picture book hybrids. The rejection letters became more encouraging, but they were rejection letters nonetheless. Then, I expanded it into a 56 page graphic novel and got more rejections.  It sat on the shelf for a few years until I revisited it, and boiled it down to a 32 page picture book entitled Full Count. Still, there were no takers.

During this time I was making a living by illustrating chapter books (The A to Z Mysteries series, among others). An offshoot of this career is traveling the country, giving school presentations about my work as an illustrator, and an author (barely). In school libraries I kept seeing the graphic novel section expanding. It seemed to me that the majority of them seemed very similar, either in the anime style of Japanese Manga, or dark and post apocalyptical, or humorous in a very specific, retro-hip stylized manner. I thought there must be room for something that was funny, (but not retro hip) and action packed (but not violent), about BASEBALL, The American Pastime. What reluctant reader would not want to pick it up? Why couldn't I find someone to publish it?

I try to stay informed about what different publishers are looking for. I learned about a small company, called Papercutz, that was specializing in graphic novels for young readers. I sent them the 48 page* graphic novel version of Fuzzy Baseball, and almost immediately they said "yes".

A School Visit to Vietnam

On a small riverboat in the Mekong Delta.

Last January I had the honor of being invited to speak at the Saigon Pearl International School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was my first time to Vietnam, and only my second time to Asia. In most of the other international schools I have visited abroad, most of the student body is made up of non-native population. At Saigon Pearl, most of the talented, enthusiastic students were Vietnamese. The staff was welcoming and energetic, and obviously very inspiring to their students.

A young artist at Saigon Peral.

Ho Chi Minh City was bustling and bursting with vitality. Tet (Lunar New Year) decorations were everywhere, with cartoon monkeys ready to usher in the new year. There was way more scooter traffic than car traffic. I paid a local to spend an hour zooming me around city on the back of his, weaving in around the hundreds of other scooters. It was the most exciting ride of my life!

Scooting around Ho Chi Minh City.

I was able to spend a day touring the Mekong Delta. This is a fascinating region were people live on houseboats, and there are floating markets were locals sell their produce. Evidently there are more roads in the area now, so trucks deliver most of the goods, greatly reducing the number of boats used for commerce. I also learned how the local agriculture sustains the residents, with a variety of fruit that is harvested from the forest, and the wide expanses of rice patties.

Happy New Year!

Growing up in the late 60's, Vietnam loomed large in my consciousness. As a young child, walking in the woods near my childhood home in Pennsylvania, I would hear occasional gunshots echoing through the trees. I was unaware that there was a firing range not too far away. I thought it was the Vietnam war raging in the distance. I am grateful for the opportunity to get to encounter this rich culture and spend time with these wonderful people.

The courtyard at Saigon Pearl School

A boat on the Mekong Delta.

A temple in Ho Chi Minh City

Lyle Lovett MFA assignment

I am currently enrolled in The University of Hartford's MFA program in Illustration. One of our first assignments was to create a magazine cover from the 70's, 80's or 90's, of a celebrity of the time, in the style of an illustrator from the time. I tried to emulate the style of the masterful illustrator C.F. Payne. Payne has a very specific way of working, but there are ways in which his final effect is similar to my own oil technique. Although I work as a caricature artist, I seldom get a caricature as an illustration assignment.

This is my "pretend" Rolling Stone cover from the 1990's.