I’ve really enjoyed being part of a local Run Camp this winter. We are training for a half marathon in April and it’s been fun! Our camp captain is a lot of fun and has deemed our group the Plaidiators with our team color being plaid! Of course. This pic is my contribution to team spirit. I think we’ll be talking team shirts this weekend… I hope so!

I tend to neglect this blog when things get busy… so if you don’t see any posts for a while that should be a good thing!

I do have a few things to post to get things up to date and back on track. I’m starting with a cover image I created for a 4th grade history reader. The book this was made for is filled with stories from history about kids who grew up to become well-known historical figures. The boy in the boat is a young Leif Ericcson on a quest to discover the New World! I also created several interior images for this book so I’ll post those soon as well.

I have been doing flannelgraphs for one of my clients and I really enjoy it!  It really takes me back to the days I had to sit in a circle with other kids and listen to a Bible lesson illustrated with fuzzy backed characters.  Below you’ll find some characters from the Prodigal son story and also a tree .

A short time ago I sat down to figure out what to do for a Christmas card. After numerous drawings of Santa dancing I finally decided to nix the whole thing and go with A Christmas Carol! Merry Christmas!

I had the pleasure of working on the design and illustration for a self-published childrens book a few months ago. Stephanie Wuthnow approached me with her idea for a story that would teach kids about music. The book is called A Musical Mouse in a Rhythmical House and is about a mouse who discovers rhythm with the help of her uncle, a cat, Mrs. Beckman and two children! I thought it sounded like a great idea so we set about creating the book together. You can buy the book from the her website but here are a few of my favorite illustrations from the book.

Awesome!

I had the opportunity to make this little cartoon regarding the proposed health care bill. Sounds like it’s a doosy .

Lucy's Beard

A recent post on my brother-in-law’s Facebook page said…

Tonight before bed, Lucy said, “Daddy, can you take off your beard so I can try it on?”

It made me laugh out loud!  I could almost see the scene taking place so here is how I imagined it.  I wonder how long it would be before she’d decide it wasn’t any fun anymore .

The morning after doing my version of large and graceful showed me just how much it lacked ‘grace’.  I think the previous post says large and distinguished more than anything else!  Oh well… and what is the deal with all the bulls?  ha!  Anyway, here is another shot at the bull in a china shop idea… this time a little more graceful.  Below are some more pages of sketches where I play with the theme.

Large and Graceful

Hey! I’m back! I haven’t had a lot to post in the past few days but tonight I decided to check out the Chiu-Stream at Schoolism.com.  One of my favorite artists, Peter DeSeve was being interviewed by Bobby Chiu and, although it ran from 11-12pm, I couldn’t miss it.  The hour long interview was pretty great and while you listen they have a drawing challenge going on.  Tonight was pretty intense!  Peter DeSeve chose the topic and we were all playing for an original sketch by Peter!  The pressure is pretty high when you are working against the clock and you know there are so many other people competing against you as well.  The topic was to create a character that was both large and graceful… visions of ballet dancing elephants ran through my head but I finally settled on a Bull in a China shop…

Another illustration based on Where the Wild Things Are.  I hope you like it!

I also updated the image from the previous post. Just added stripes to the monster and altered Max a little because he bugged me .