Sunset and Christmas trees

Our sunset was amazing last night! Talk about art!! But then who can compete with God's paintbrush?!


This one's a bit dark but I was trying to get the Christmas trees in the windows. I should have left the porch light off.

Changes

There are often changes from original sketches to the final painting stage in a book. I thought it would be fun to show the original sketch along with the final cover to show the changes on Kate's Surprise's cover.

To grandmother's house we go...

Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go...I always loved that song and it always reminds me of Thanksgiving so HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!

Small world

This past weekend my husband, Brad and I went to the Missouri SCBWI conference where he was asked to speak on a "First Books Panel". He and I did a book together called My Brother and I. It was his first book and my favorite project thus far, for obvious reasons.

The keynote speaker was Cheryl Klein, an editor at Arthur Levine Books(an imprint of Scholastic). An interesting side note...Cheryl graduated from the same high school as our daughter, about eight years prior. Her home town is where we've lived these past 18 years. Is it a small world or what? I have often had this silly perception of NY editors as these unapproachable people who only wear black. Well, I was wrong. Cheryl was very sweet and approachable and she was wearing brown.

Dancing elephants and birthdays

I really enjoy doing black and white illustrations with washes. They're quick and you get to see instant results without having to think so much about color!

Here's a couple from an educational job I did a couple years ago.

Brrrr!

The temperature is supposed to be down in the twenties tonight. Brrrr!

This cold weather made me think of the art I did last year for Kate's Surprise, a Rookie Reader. Here's the cover and a couple inside pages. Kate's brother is stuck indoors because he's sick. Poor little guy can only dream of sledding while his sister Kate gets to go out and play in the snow. Kate tries to cheer him up with a surprise.

Robert's Snow

I can't believe it's already November!! With November comes Robert's Snow. If you haven't heard of it, please go check it out. It's a wonderful story and for a wonderful cause. I can't wait to join in on bidding at the auctions, the first starting Nov. 19th.

I didn't get the opportunity to create a snowflake this year. Somehow I regretfully missed the deadline to get involved in the 2007 fund raiser but I did have the privilege the two prior times. I thought I'd go ahead and show my past years snowflakes. The polar bear was done in acrylics and the skating bears were watercolor. I also show the back of the skating bears snowflake where I used salt to mimic an icy look.