Scary, but not TOO scary

This is a sketch from an early reader I'm doing called "The Bad Witch." The tricky thing is to make a witch who looks bad, but not too scary for the little guys. My mother ran a preschool/day care center for many years, and I used to work there from time to time. Once, around Halloween, I was playing a game with a 4 year old boy. He sat across the table from me and drew a bunch of pumpkin shapes. Then he told me what kind of jack-o-lantern face to make in each one (silly, sleepy, etc.) Finally, he told me to make a scary face, and I did, but when I turned it around to show him, he about fell off his chair, he was so scared! I felt terrible. Now I'm a little leery of using my scary drawing powers on little kids.

What I'm working on now

This is from a piece of art that I did for Loyola Press. It will wrap around a box filled with activity cards, which I'm also illustrating. Click on it for a larger view. (A lot of text runs across the top, which explains the fuzzy trees.)

Happy Halloween!

Here's Owen's costume this year. We stole the idea from Theatre Zarko, an amazing puppet symbolist theater created by my friend Laura Montenegro and her husband, Michael. There's still time to see their brilliant show, and if you go to the link, you can see the bit that inspired Owen.

Go Bears!

(I'm not really much of a sports fan.)

New Stamps

I just finished some new stamp designs for The Greeting Farm. I'm having fun with these!

Going Digital

I've tried averting my eyes and changing the subject. I've tried covering my ears and singing "LA LA LA LA!" But the time has come to face the truth. I need to learn how to make art on the computer. I have taken baby steps in this direction, but I think it's time to pick up the pace. My agent, Nicole Tugeau, informs me that educational publishers in particular are starting to demand more and more digital art, primarily because they can easily manipulate it in various applications.

So, in an effort to not be completely left behind in the dust, I've signed up for a class on Illustrator CS4 with a real live human being, who will hopefully hold my hand and talk me down when necessary. I also just signed up for a free online course on Photoshop. You can too, if you're one of the first 1,000 people to sign up! And if you do, think of me virtually holding your hand, talking you down when you feel like the woman in the above picture. Wine helps too. (Both kinds.)

Cleaning out the Closet

Now that the kids are back in school, I finally had the time to clean out the closet where I keep my art supplies and old artwork. It's such a great feeling to be (somewhat) organized, and I even found a bunch of art I had long forgotten about. For instance, these b & w images were done about 10 years ago for a little publication for preschool teachers called "Building Blocks." They were lovely people to work with, and I got some great ideas for activities to do with my then pre-school aged sons, including a great recipe for homemade playdough, as I recall!