Often when it appears one is doing nothing...

actually something extraordinary is being born.

However, you just might not know what it is...

until sometime later.

These are new illustrations using collaged prints.

From a Blue-tiful World

                  

   I still believe in this little guy, and keep playing with ways to make him alive on the page.

                     These are current monotype's hot off my fingers. They portray a character named 

Bo Biddle from a picture book that is determined to be made.

Illustrations

pages from a mock up children's book in process

Still Believin'

                These are prints collaged and played with in Photoshop. They are PIPs (play in process).

    The birds are characters from a book that I put away for a bit but as of yesterday am pulling out again.

Between the pages!

 I wouldn't mind being discovered by a giant lady bug while browsing inside a giant book.

this is an old image that i am playing with again....i wonder what page she is on

 

 

Illustration

Some new illustrations made with my new friend, Photoshop. 

They combine printmaking, drawing, collage, and watercolor. 

If I were in a band

Just playing around here listening to some great music (The Head and The Heart) and wondering if I were in a band what our name would be. I would like to give the word Peghead a positive spin, with this being the name to an imaginary band and its debut cover. Now I am wondering what kind of music they would play. Something with a string instrument thrown in there and some bells and some water glass playing and an untamed voice, voices, that rise pressing into a high underneath dissolving any need for reason.

I invite a New Year

More than a Pondering

This morning while working on some prints I was listening to Milton Glaser give a talk with Creative Mornings.  There was a moment when I just stopped and rewound and pressed played, rewound and pressed played, rewound and pressed played, rewound and pressed played. I am not sure if he is reading this from a book but I love it. When I hear something that I have never heard before expressed before in such a way but in hearing it know that I have felt this experience, I some how feel myself be recognized and in this listening feel deep encouragement.
This is what i hear:
" in the act of creating what turns out to be their best work, the artist often experiences a sense of doubt or confusion. How could it be otherwise?
"CERTAINTY IS THE CLOSING OF THE MIND. 
  TO CREATE THE NEW REQUIRES DOUBT."

illustration

I know winter has barely begun but I must be wanting the magic from spring. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could make things grow with palm power like this sun girl?

                      (this illustration is made from watercolor and line drawings scanned and then collaged in photoshop)

A Pondering

I circled this from an article I read in the New York Times a year or so ago. About a month ago I was thinking about it and couldn't find it, but yesterday it appeared between some laundry.

The article was about an architect and his process. I love this quote, it makes me wonder about creation and if everything we are meant to create actually already exists and if so are we really discovering it. Even though he is referencing the architecture of a house, I think it applies to all life and all art forms.

I ponder this today, tonight, often. What is waiting for me to discover and how shall I reveal it?

Illustration

This is an image in process for a picture book idea I have; something about a Paint Brush Battle.

Who do you think shall win? 

Sketchbooks

Over the years I have attempted to keep one sketchbook devoted to one purpose. I always fail. My sketchbooks are a mix of drawing, writing, (sketching) and random revelation noting. 

Some pages are for scribbling, practicing the act of making, getting my hand to move whether through words, color, or line. Here are a few pages from a few separate sketch notebooks. 

   

illustration

what are these worlds I shuffle between and how do I bridge the two

illustration,playing around in photoshop

so I am playing around and getting the benefits to using photoshop. It may be awhile or never until I am master but I seem to be learning as I go. Here is an image still in process being constructed in photoshop.

illustration

I want shoes like these.

A little book

Here are the beginnings of a mock up book called, The Yellow Trick Road. It is simply about a lizard or crocodile who discovers a yellow path. Once he decides to go on it, some tricky things start happening. He is having so much fun that he doesn't want it to end. With what he has absorbed from the yellow road, he keeps on going, making his very own new road.

hmmmmmmmm.

Tricky!

The Handstand Tail Tip Curler.

The Triple Back Somersault.

The Hang 20 Spiral.

The Golden Splat.

The what?

I think I can take care of that. 

I did. And I went

on making a new road.

keep on following your heart's delight 

Illustration

what is the seeder seeding now?

Illustration

This image sprouted from the one of the strawberry in the canoe posted a few days ago. What you can't see in that scanned picture is that the tiny little girl in the canoe is leaving the Land of Giant Things and there is a giant ladybug standing on the land looking at her leave. After I made that image I asked myself, so how did the giant ladybug and the tiny little girl meet in the Land of Giant Things?
This is the drawing that answered.

New Illustration

Had fun today drawing and playing with this new image. There is a story brewing here.