Dinotopia!

Here's some loot I brought back from Dinotopia. I recently won a contest on Mr. Gurney's blog and this stuff came in the mail yesterday, I was so excited! I've actually heard how good the audio books are supposed to be. Thanks Mr. Gurney! Dinotopia is about the coolest thing ever, everyone should get the books and check out James Gurney's amazing blog.

Feather Brain

This is a book cover I did earlier this year and the book is finally released. It was a great book. It's called Feather Brain and it's by Maureen Bush. It's about small dinosaurs wreaking havok in a young boys life. Really fun stuff. The cover was a bit of a challenge because I had to work around that peculiar design, with the title staright through the middle, the wanted one continuous image. I spent a lot of time just sorting that out. I painted it entirely in gouache.

Sloth Bear in pencil

This is part of a pencil rough for a prviously posted painting. Balloo in the Jungle Book is presumed to be a sloth bear, a root digging bear native ti India. They are so much fun to draw. I drew them over and over.

Thumbelina

A new painting! This is from the Hans Christian Andersen story, Thumbelina. It's more of a detail, because it's a little too big for the scanner. This painting is the first of a series I'm doing to build up my portfolio. I'll be doing seven new pieces to add to existing ones, and in the end I hope to have twelve or thirteen paintings that are a really good representation of my work. Most of the pieces will be from well known stories, like fairy tales and classic children's stories. It took a while to get to this point because I had to look at my work and decide which pieces represented me best, what level of finish I wanted. The problem with paintings like this is that they take longer to complete than some other work I do. some pictures take about four days to finish and this one took more than a week. However, I'm most comfortable with showing what I feel is my best work. I'll be taking a few days before starting the next painting, which is from Jack And The Beanstock, as I'll be working on story boards for Josephine Pebbles and doing a small commisioned piece.

Sketches From Buses

Here are some new sketches from an almost finished sketch book. I went to go see Spiderwick last night and I had a blast, I really recommend it, even just for the cool monsters. But the story is great too.

Valkyrie

Another old picture from a series for art school. I had recently bought a copy of Rackham's illustrated version of Wagner's Ring Cycle and thought his warrior valkyeries were really cool.

Thumbelina

Here is the pencil rough for a new painting I'm working on. I want to get my portfolio up to about twelve pieces and I want to have more well known stories illustrated in my work. I've taken a while to decide in what direction I want my portfolio to take. I had to look at my work and think about what kind of work represented me most. So, I'm working on my portfolio and at the same time working in the Josephine Pebbles story. I'm up to a second draft on the Pebbles story. For my next painting I'llbe doing a scene from Jack And The Beanstock. I'd really like to illustrate more African folk tales. Does anyone know some really great ones?

Ethiopian Folk Tale

Here's a detail scan of an older painting. I really like this one but there is something a little clunky about the tiger and I was thinking about re-doing it. I've never re-done a painting and it might be interesting to revisit an old idea.

Marionettes

The other day on the bus, two little girls performed a marionette show for the passengers. I love these moments. They were sitting at the front and the sun was streaming in. I think it's so important to be open to these moments and to be able to appreciate unexpected magic that peeks through the mundane day. I get so stressed and busy that these moments could slip by unnoticed. For this reason I think we should keep things for fairly simple. I think if it's the job of the fine artist to show what they see in the world, it's the job of the illustrator to show the wonder they see in the world.

Mothball

Here's a new way to blow off some steam. http://www.freearcade.com/MrMothBall.flash/MrMothBall.html
Very hypnotizing.....

Tangle Bones

These are Tangle Bones, a type of goblin from the atlantic shore line. They started off in a comic book I had written and they ended up in Bera the trolls world.I like this drawing. I haven't looked at it in years but I like the way the water is crashing against the rocks.
I went to the comic store yesterday. Every few months I'll buy a superhero comic to see if anything good is coming out. I started to get bored of superheros in the mid 90's when Jim Lee dressed the X-Men up in military clothes. All of the sudden comics were too cool to have something as silly as a superhero in tights. I kept collecting but drifted toward other types of comics and later started buying collections of pre 1950's comic strips like Krazy Kat, Terry And The Pirates and Prince Valiant. I did find something really cool yesterday, Marvel Adventures Avengers issue 9. It's a comic book for kids that's not just a retelling of an episode of some saturday morning cartoon. I really loved this issue, it felt like a comic from when I was a kid.
And, happy belated birthday to Erin Gardner. I hope you had a great day!

Happy Birthday to you!

It's my wife, Julie's birthday today! Happy birthday Julie.This is the card I made for her. Once you start making cards for people it's really hard to stop.

Lots of fun stuff happened yesterday, I won a story writing contest at James Gurney's blog(http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/02/tomorrow-strange-tree.html) . He had done a drawing of a strangely twisted tree and we had to come with explanations of how it got that way.Here's my explanation : The tree is a doorway. It is made by rabbits, who have secret tree sculpting knowledge. It leads to a world called Lagomorphia. There are doorways to Lagomorphia all over the world, along rabbit trails. The main feature of Lagomorphia is The Great Borough Market. Rabbits from all over the world congregate here and trade different types of grasses. You will find the Eastern Cotton tail, Sumatran Striped Rabbits, Volcano Rabbits and every other type of rabbit. In order to be activated the doorway requires a key : a live rabbits paw pressed on a certain knot.

Pebbles

Here's the third and last drawing I did for the pirate story, this one is my favorite. I finished a rough script for Josephine Pebbles last night, which was a surprise because I planning to do nothing yesterday. I wrote it fairly quickly and it need lots of revision but it's one of the few stories I've written with a beginning, middle and end and the conclusion makes sense. The theme came to me quickly too, usually I feel like I'm sifting through my words looking for what it means.
I got to see rough version of my next book, The Terrible, Horrible Stinky Pirate and it looks great. The publisher hired a design firm Co&Co, that does amazing work. The fonts are actually funny. The launch date is May 22nd.

Between Things

I did this one during art school. I could never settle on anything when I was in school, I was always in state of change in my art work, constantly between styles and medium. I was never commited to a particular project for long. This is still a problem for me. I was just complaining to Frank Gardner that I often feel in a state of indecision, I want to be working on one thing but I get distracted by other offers and ideas. Should I get an agent? Should I use less gouache and more water colour? Or should I just switch to pencil as a primary medium? Should I be building up my portfolio or working on a new book? For me the problem is with priorities and sticking with a decision once I've made it.

Cloud Sailing

Here's another pencil rough from the story I wrote. I'm now considering redoing it as a picture book illustrated by pencil drawings, more finished than this one. I've started re-writing it. The working title is Josephine Pebbles and it centers on a girl who is extremely bored until she has an adventure on a coin operated, rat crewed flying pirate ship. In the new version the ship is held aloft by a balloon, which is easier to draw than all those sails. It might be a lot of fun to do.

On an unrelated note, actress Ellen Paige from Juno was in front of me in line at the organic food market this morning. It's my wife's birthday party today so I was stocking up. I made a point of not staring but I kept thinking " Wow! You're going to be at the Oscars!"It sort of shook up my image of living at the end of the Earth.

Green Witch

Here's a very old piece. I don't remember what this one was all about, I think I remember what I was reading and that I had swamps in mind. Anyway, I received a rejection letter yesterday. It was a bit of a surprise as it's been a while since I've sent any work out. On another note, I'm re-reading Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. It's a surprising book. Very strange and funny, not as scary as I remember, Alice is so polite through out that it's hard to be frightened for her.

Tree Climbing

Here is a pencil rough for a children's book I wrote. I was never very happy with the story and other projects came along. I do like the drawings that are left from this project though.

Field Fairy

The fields and farm land of Nova Scotia is teeming with strange creatures as well as the waters (see below). This guy lives in the Valley, scaring dogs and eating cabbage.

Monsters!

My friend Steve Vernon invited me out to a lecture last night. The lecture was a history of sea monster sightings in Nova Scotia by zoologist Andrew Hebda. It was really cool. Did you know the first international news story about sea monsters comes from here? My favorite parts were the monster with a horses head in Cranberry lake and the merman that pestered some of the explorer Champlain's boats in the 1600's. The bottom map is a record of sea and lake monster sightings in the province.

Rough Egg

Here is my rough drawing for she put away the egg. I figure out everything in thyis stage, transfering the lines to water colour paper and keeping the drawing pinned above my drawing table for reference. I've thought a lot about how much drawing should be done before I start a painting and how much should be left to chance, and I've decided my best paintings have a strong under drawing. I need to do these roughs because it's at this stage that things fall into place and the composition starts to make sense.

Returning With Style ( Style And Stylization )

Recently I was at the Henry House, which is a local pub. After I finished my steak and kidney pie I drew a face on the chalk board they use for keeping score in dart games. It was only a few lines, extremely simple. No one saw me draw it but everyone recognized as my drawing. Every one thought it was really interesting that you could recognize the hand in a drawing even if there is only a few lines. It made me think of what Uri Schulevitz said about drawing being like hand writing, unique to that person.

Later, Tara Larson Chang recommended I read Maggie Stiefvater's blog ( http://greywarenart.blogspot.com/) , Where she was having an extended discussion about style and her theory of style. For the sake of economy I'll pare down her idea to this, style is achieved through combining different elements of your art work into one unified style. There is a lot more to it than that, so I suggest you read it for yourself. This prompted me to return to my own posts on style from last October; Illustration and Style and Another Note On Style. Here I asked whether one should consciously persue a style. The majority of you who commented felt that style is something that occurs without conscious effort, there were a few exceptions. In any case, the comments were a lot more interesting than my post...

Reading through my posts last October I realized I had put forth no concrete theory on what style means. So, for the sake of clarity I'll tentatively put forward a definition of style by contrasting it to my definition of stylization. The dictionary succinctly defines style as a "manner of doing something". Here's what I think:

Style is your approach to the fundamentals of art, the way you draw a line, the shapes and forms you tend toward, your tendencies with values.

Stylization on the other hand is the way you approach the literal, figurative elements. If you draw the same type of nose over and over again, the same distortions of perspective, the choice to use local colours etc...

This is possibly a naive attempt on my part to defend my own prejudices about art, or it could be more objective than that. I'm not sure. What do you think about my theory?

Waiting

This is a very old picture. I like the compostion. And I still think the helmet is kind of cool.

Stars On Maps

Here are some more sketches from my current sketch book. Some one told me that kids like realistic looking characters in their books. Realistic meaning in proportion. That they don't usually like distortions of anatomy. Any thoughts?

Scribbly Boys

Elements Of Illustration

Rhine Maiden

Here's another piece from a long time ago. It's from a series on Scandanavian mythology I did for school. I was always experimenting back then. Looking at this old stuff critically, I think I would abandon an idea before I fully saw it through. I also didn't do much planning back then. I had a pretty good understanding of anatomy but would stretch it all out of proportion, it's only now that my sense of anatomy is becoming more conservative. I don't believe my approach to colour has changed much, I still have a pretty haphazard way with colour. The composition is interesting to me because it's pretty kinetic, my work from that time was stiff.

Art History

Here's a silly older pen and ink picture. At one point I only worked in pen and ink.

So, I've been toiling away on a new series of paintings and I have a bunch of cool ideas. I'm mostly doing pictures from well known, classic stories and a few things that I've pulled out of the air. I'm working toward a set number of pictures, other wise I would keep going and going.

Decisions And Other Nearly Impossible Feats

I've spent much of the last week mulling over the whole question of what agency to go with. I talked to several agents, a bunch of talented artists and other contacts in the children's book business. They all had great advice, and they all contradicted one another. My wife and I made a list of pros and cons of going with one agency over another, but the cons could be seen as pros and the pros cons. In the end I decided to wait before getting an agent. I had a long conversation with an agent who was extremely honest and generous with his thoughts. Talking to him I realized my work isn't where I want it, I don't want to push my work internationally until I know what I'm pushing. I've decided to spend some time developing a set of sample pictures that fully represent how I want to be known. I spent yesterday sketching and making lists of new paintings. So now I have a plan. I'm going to spend some time building up my portfolio and then look for an agent. Thanks to everyone who gave their thoughts on this. I hope I've made the right decision, it was more of a gut decision than anything.

The above pictures are a couple of dinosaur sketches I did for a project over the summer.

Shelf Guardian

Here's another miniature goblin picture.

Grimm Details

Her's a detail from "She Put Away The Egg...." The initial post was pretty fuzzy.

Stones For Dinner

Here's another older piece. It's very small and I had been planning a whole series of miniature goblin paintngs. But I didn't have time and only did two.

Sketches

It's been a stressful week. I don't seem to get stressed by work, but I do get stressed from thinking about things. This past week has been all about talking to and thinking about agencies. It's a hard decision. Something that's really great about talking to agencies is the advice that they give. I'm amazed how generous people are with their time, and very grateful. One bit of criticism is that I need to draw more kids. That's true, I'm attempting to create a world of children and for children and I've been populating it with people who are a bit too old.

I've also learned other things about my work that I knew but needed someone to tell me and I'll get into that another time. The top image is the new Fabriano sketch book I bought. Sometimes when I've had a big realization about my work I like to get a new sketch book and feel as though I'm starting fresh.

Driving Rain

I woke up this morning to the sound of cold, driving rain peltling the windows. I'm shuffling around the house with a warm coffee and it seems extra warm and cozy in here today. Benny the dog (who is afraid of weather) is a nervous wreck while Esther the cat looks bemused. I've decided to add another form of procrastination to my life and I joined Facebook. Please look me up.

"Originality Of Vision"

A little while ago, there was a discussion here about being original and whether it's important or not. I've always been suspicious of the motivation toward originality. I've often understood the idea of originality to be opposed to the idea of tradition. I really like the idea of tradition. But I now concede the importance of originality. It's what I look for in work and it inspires me. I also don't think it's at all difficult to reconcile originality and tradition. The other day I read this quote by Maurice Sendak " Originality of vision is paramount. Someone says something commonplace in a very original way..." I like this idea of originality and Sendak most certainly comes from a tradition of illustrators. So I feel a bit of freedom now to persue an original vision, to see things in a new and fresh way but also feel connected to the past.