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.

Click here to purchase 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 .

I was working on this Twitter graphic for my site but then I found this great WordPress Widget that handles everything I ever wanted in one shot!  Now I have no use for my little bluebird so I’ll post him!

“Where are the Wild Things?”

I was so thrilled and honored to be invited by Cory Godbey to contribute an illustration to his blog Terrible Yellow Eyes. Terrible Yellow Eyes is a blog that features artwork from many wonderful artists who all have a love for Maurice Sendak’s, Where the Wild Things Are.  If you haven’t checked it out you should!  Not only because I’ve made it there (ha!) but because it has a ton of amazing artwork!

My brain went in all directions when trying to come up with my interpretation for TYE.  There are so many possibilities, but having come into the project several weeks after it had started, a lot of great images have already been made.  I didn’t want to do something that had already been done!  I just love the little boy, Max, who is so mischievous and bold!  And the monsters, while obviously scary, wither under his unyielding gaze!  Well, I’m sure that part of the Wild Rumpus would have been a rousing game of hide and seek and that’s what I was trying to show in ‘Where are the Wild Things?’

Thanks, Mr. Sendak, for such a wonderful book!

I noticed recently that several of the artists that I follow have been creating images based on drawings by the kids at Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty.  CNLT is a blog by 3 kids who draw CONSTANTLY (according to their bio .  Isaac, Grace, and Lily are celebrating their 3rd year of sharing their amazing pictures online!  They posted an invitation asking for anyone interested in re-imagining one of the drawings on the blog.  I found out about this a little late but am going to send in my illustration today.

There were so many fun and creative drawings to choose from but this dancing monster caught my eye.  I guess she entertains the kids at night!  I wonder if she would visit me?!