Wednesday, February 29, 2012

School Visit

Just thought I would give a shout out to Canyon Vista Elementary, and say "thanks for having me!"  Two weeks ago, while on a trip to sunny southern California, I was privileged to do an assembly here. The students were great. They had insightful questions and welcomed me with lots of smiles. We talked about what they like to draw and how to use your imagination. It's alway a blast to visit young students and feed off their enthusiasm. I love doing these visits. I just need to figure out how to incorporate my ukulele playing somehow. :)




Thursday, February 23, 2012

Why is "gross" so fun?

Why is creating weird and gross characters so fun? I've often commented that the my least favorite thing to paint is teen girls ( though, I love creating images so much, I still like painting them ) because everything on them has to be so perfect. I mean, if a teen girl's nose is a little off it shouts ERROR!! But, on a gross-monster-zombie-weird-guy, if the nose is out-of-wack it is the coolest thing!  And in 20 minutes you can create something like this. Gross is fun, it's just plain and simple. :)

Thursday, February 09, 2012

The Land of Stories

Thought I would post a cover that I recently did for a new series. It's called The Land of Stories, by Chris Colfer.  He is the actor in the popular show Glee. Unfortunately I've not seen the show( sorry Chris! ), but I've loved working on the artwork for this book.  Aside from the cover, I've done 25 interior black and white illos and am currently working on a super cool fold out map. The story introduces a great new twist on all of our favorite characters from storybook tales like Cinderella and Snow White.

Hope you like it!

Later!

Friday, February 03, 2012

Finding a Character

Over the last few months (in between work) I've been searching for a character that I could create a series of stories around. And I think I've finally found one . . . He is not any particular animal, but just a fun fuzzy, uh. . . creature.  His name is still up in the air, but these are a couple I'm toying with:

Hal-o. (That's Hal with an o added to the end.)
Bazooki. (I heard this on the radio and thought it was fun to say.)
Wynn (It sounds a little British to me, but hey maybe he's European)
Cory (A little too ordinary . . . but it could still work.)

If you have any ideas, let me know what you think!

Later!