Dreams.

Today Cincinnati Reds pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Goodyear, Arizona, so I owe the internet a baseball illustration. It's tradition, after all! But I will be honest, I was stuck for a while. What baseball art could possibly meet the moment, when my government is being dismantled with gleeful hostility, in order to extract the highest possible harm to the most vulnerable people?

Then I remembered that we lost the great James Earl Jones last year, and inspiration struck. Baseball brings me joy. Art brings me joy. Stories bring me joy. We need joy right now.

Also! Never forget that  Field of Dreams is a movie about book banning. Be like Annie and fight for the right to read.

[Memory lane:  2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024]

50 Precious Words: Prickly

 

Author Vivian Kirkfield holds a contest each year called "50 Precious Words." It does what it says on the label-- challenges writers (especially us picture book folk who are always chasing after profound brevity!) to write a complete story using no more than 50 words. 

You can view all of this year's entries here.  I've thrown my hat in the ring for the first time this year. Mine is below, with a bonus illustration to spice things up. 

 

(By the way, I used *EXACTLY* 50 words, thankyouverymuch.)

---
UPDATED: You guuuuuuys! I won an honorable mention! In the highly coveted and obviously most important of all Nature/Environment category! I drink from the keg of glory!!!

Earth Day 2020: Flora & Fauna

Happy 50th anniversary, Earth Day!

I'm late, I'm late, but I'll still celebrate!

It's that time of year again... baseball's back, and with it, my annual illustration in honor of pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training camp. Unfortunately, my go-to online resource led me astray, so I missed my favorite team's actual official "Pitchers and Catchers Report Day" this morning.

Nevertheless, a tradition is a tradition, and I did have a piece underway, which I can now proudly present! Happy 2020, sports fans. Play indoors as winter wraps up, sure, but try not to break any cacti.

[Memory lane:  2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019]

It's been a while!

I don't post here much anymore, but I'm still making art! Some catching up...

I did a few pieces in response to illustrator Lily Williams's #KidLitSummers illustration prompt. I drew some childhood summer memories, like running through the sprinkler:

And listening to baseball on the radio:

(And then I bought an iPad and an Apple pencil and did some experimenting in ProCreate to update this one in color!)

And soft serve ice cream, mmm: 

I was commissioned to illustrate a postcard for a Kickstarter campaign for a short film about baseball legend Jackie Mitchell: 

And had some fun with idioms:

This piece will be featured in my local SCBWI chapter's 2020 calendar:

And I channeled my inner Maurice Sendak for a family project:

Whew! That's a wrap on summer and fall 2019!

Still Life with Cactus and Grapefruit (or Spring Training 2018)

Happy Pitchers and Catchers Report Day 2018! This year, I went with the first fully formed idea that popped into my brain. Sometimes (especially when one is in the middle of a difficult baseball-themed picture book dummy) it's nice to not think too hard about scenes and movement and characters, and just play around with color and shape and mark-making and wink-wink whimsy 

So go forth, young pitchers and grizzled catchers (and vice versa.) Get thee to the Cactus League of Arizona and the Grapefruit League of Florida. Bring on the baseball, universe. In so many ways, I'm ready for spring.

[Memory lane:  2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017]

On Deck

Pitchers and catchers for my favorite baseball team report today to Goodyear, Arizona (in the, ahem, CACTUS League) which has long been regarded by the most devoted fans, and by this blog, as a celebrated holiday. It's been a long, dark winter, but finally spring is on the horizon... and also possibly (hopefully maybe someday eventually) a brighter future. It won't be a particularly good year for my guys, wins and losses-wise, but if there's baseball being played, I'm there. Let's go. Batter up.

[Memory lane:  2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015]

Fine art print of this illustration is available right on over here.

Victory is hers.

Fine art print available.

A river to forge, a serpent to slay.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Finished up that cover illustration for this classic young adult novel.  And just for fun, I slapped on title and author to make it look official.

Work and play

After wrapping up a few big projects recently, my "studio" (okay, FINE, the corner of my room with the art desk in it) was sorely in need of both cleaning and cleaning up.  (Seriously, you would not believe the places pastel pencil shavings can end up.)  When I went to organize/neatly stack my chalk pastels, a few tiny leftover bits found themselves homeless:

As a last hurrah, I took them out for a spin on another of the mini pastel boards I bought a few years back.  Voila!

As an illustrator, I tend to pay such close attention to the process of drawing.  I like to think I've learned to loosen up a little bit in my work lately, but even still it's essential to make sure I have a strong composition in place as a guide, so I know pretty well what I'm going to be doing when I finally get around to laying down color.  It's liberating once in a while to skip right to the "painting" part, no planning at all beforehand, just diving right in with pastel.

Dearly beloved

I've done several wedding illustrations over the last few years, but this one's my favorite.  In part because I just love the concept (which came from the couple and the groom's mother) and because the act of drawing it was pure enjoyment, with almost no struggle.  But mostly this is my favorite because the wedding in question was my brother's and sister-in-law's.  And it was glorious.

The illustration was used on programs and name cards for table assignments:

photo credit: KC Photography

Congratulations to Pete and Becca!  Thanks for letting me contribute to your special day!

(Also-- yes, if you're keeping track, I just described my own mother as "the groom's mother." It's all in the interest of building suspense, my pretties.)

Illustration Friday: TREE

The Illustration Friday topic this week is "tree."  This is great, because I love trees AND I love drawing trees.  I'm actually currently working on a new illustration that is 100% tree, but I can't share it yet.  So in lieu of that, I present an arboreal retrospective:

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

February 2008

November 2008

March 2010

May 2010

November 2010

August 2011

January 2012 (but really 2004 or so)

Illustration Friday: LOST

Wowza, it's been a long time since I created and posted any new artwork.  Lucky for me, when I went to Illustration Friday to look for some warm-up ideas, I found a word with immediate inspiration.  Lost was my favorite TV show when it was on, and it involves some iconic imagery that lent itself pretty easily to an illustration.

Considering I haven't drawn anything in so long, I was surprised at how quickly this one came together--just about 2-3 hours from idea to finished artwork, not counting a lunch break and a little book reading.  Here's hoping that bodes well for continued creative output!!

Cherry blossoms

 

On Friday I left work a few minutes early and headed down to the Tidal Basin to check out the peak bloom cherry blossoms on a beautiful, blue skies kind of day.  DC is at its loveliest in the spring, even when spring comes early.

  

[Dear Illustration Friday visitors:  you're probably wondering what the "swamp" connection is. Legend has it that our nation's capital was built on a swamp.  Not quite true, but there were wetlands involved, and it gets awfully humid in the summer.]

Testing out pastel colors!

A Glimpse (or Klimt!) into the Past

My cousin Emma is almost exactly ten years younger than me and is now studying art at my alma mater (what up, University of Dayton!)  Ten years isn't all that long in the world of higher education, and so in a lot of ways, Emma is following in my artistic footsteps:  taking the same classes, often with the same instructors, and even sometimes doing the same projects.  Today, she was treated to these two preliminary paintings I did way back in my Painting I class my junior year of college:

The project, if I remember correctly, was to do a self-portrait in the style of a master portraitist from art history.  My choice:  Gustav Klimt.  In preparation, we created these two paintings:  a representation of one of our chosen artist's portraits, and a detail of our own portraits.  

Talk about a blast from the past!  I hadn't thought about these paintings in years.  I'm heading home to Cincinnati to visit my parents in a few weeks and now want to dig up and photograph the final painting I did for this project, a full-body portrait with lots of bright, smeary, patterny colors and only the face and hands in precise detail.  I also want to start doing more bright, smeary, patterny colors in my pastel drawings sometime soon.

Thanks to Emma for sharing this.  

Energy Hog Art - finished!

Final art for the Energy Hog coloring book project for the Alliance to Save Energy.  Can't wait to see these images in the final product!  (Which will include their text on how kids can save energy.  The captions here are my own short explanations.)  I've very much enjoyed working on this project and hope kids enjoy coloring them and learning about practical ways to save energy and live a little more sustainably and earth-friendly.

Energy Hogs are things that take more energy than they need.

You can find them all over the house...

Keep the refrigerator door closed whenever possible.

Turn off the water while you brush your teeth.

Turn off the light switch when you leave a room.

Turn off electronics like video games, TVs, and computers when you're not using them.

CFL light bulbs save energy--so they're not Energy Hogs!

If you find the Energy Hogs in your own house, you can save energy, too!

Illustration Friday: GROUNDED

One morning she found an unusually large turnip... When she pulled it up she was surprised to find that it left a hole
through which she could look down upon the green earth.

For this week's topic, I decided to dig into my old work a bit.  These two pieces were created back in college to illustrate the folk tale "The Girl Who Climbed to the Sky."  The story tells of a girl named Sapana who is kidnapped by a porcupine man, forced to marry him, and kept captive in his kingdom in the sky--so she's grounded but actually far above the ground itself. With a little digging, a little ingenuity and the help of a few bird friends, Sapana makes it back home safely. 

She hung there for a long time, swinging back and forth above the trees..."Come and help me," she called to Buzzard. The bird glided under her feet several times, and Sapana told him all that had happened to her.