Tilley in 2013

My entry for this year’s New Yorker Eustace Tilley Contest, titled a Dandy Daddy. I placed Tilley in the nursery.  I transformed the Dandy’s traditional cane into a vacuum, his blue shirt into a baby wrap carrier, and his top hat into a nursery shelf.  Tilley Jr. is playing with the quizzing glass and reaching

Tomie dePaola Award 2013 Entry

This year’s Winter SCBWI contest is in black and white!  The guidelines: Illustrate any excerpt from Tom Sawyer, Little Women or The Yearling.  Whoa, I thought.   But black and white, yeah!  I needed to be forced to get it done or I would never get around to putting some B&W in my portfolio. The first

Blown Covers – Halloween

Trick or Treat! My Blown Covers entry for Halloween.  As a parent shopping for Halloween costumes for little girls, I marvel at how risqué the costumes are.  Little witch or call girl?  Sadly, sometimes you gotta wonder. Winners and gallery are here. Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Blown Covers – Autumn

I’m doing a bit of catch-up.  This was entered for last month’s contest. Autumn makes me think of gloomy skies, corn and pumpkins.  But it also makes me think of decorating with those tacky dollar store scarecrows that (yes, I admit), have adored the front of my home.  That made me think of how funny

Childhood Treasure

First day walking home from school, and the treasures we find! My daughters noticed this little guy, along with a trove of bottlecaps, beads, and broken zipper.  The shark cap and rare blue bead were exciting finds.  Not pictured is the wild artichoke seed that, sadly, fell out of my pocket. My son found a

Blown Covers – Global Warming

These were drawn a whole month ago, but I’m just getting around to posting them.  I guess everything’s a bit slower since Blown Covers changed from a weekly format to monthly… My first idea was the obligatory penguin on ice shot.  And there were so many penguin and polar bear images that there was a

What, an earlier MORE SPAGHETTI, I SAY! ?

This early reader by Rita Golden Gelman has been a favorite in our family.  More Spaghetti, I Say! (1993) is a silly, laugh out-loud story, with superb rhyme and with fun, positively exuberant illustrations. “Play with me, Minnie. Play with me, please. We can stand on our heads. We can hang by our knees.” “Oh, no.

Hot Books

Finally, it’s begun to feel like summer down here in Southern California.  We’ve had such mild weather (global warming hasn’t come our way yet, it seems), I was wondering if we would get any hot days before school started up again.  Now there’s a topic you think there would be a lot of books on

Blown Cover – Cats & Dogs

My submission for this week’s Blown Covers Contest. I struggled with a couple sketches of a kid asking their parents for a dog (in a household of cats) or another pet (in a house with a multitude of animals).  No one else went that route, so in hindsight, maybe I should have gone with it!

Blown Covers – Back to School

My submission for this week. I find it easy to get wistful at watching a youngster just starting out on their school journey.  While the fruit vendor looks on thoughtfully, the child’s whole focus is on the apple in his hands.  As young as the boy is, he already knows that the little apple represents

Blown Covers – Fashion

My submission for this week’s contest: I wanted to show a little girl tempting her high-fashion Barbie with cookies to fatten her up.  I’m now wondering if I should have made the girl more chunky for a cleaner read.  Still,  I had lots of fun making up the image. Big showing this week!  I’m still

Blown Covers – The Beach

The beach — too much sun and icky things in the sand.  That’s what came to my mind when I thought of kids and the beach!  I tried to express some of that over-protective Mommy in me in this image. Footwear, sunscreen, and sunhat — it’s all sensible enough to me, but the kids could care less.  As a joke,

Blown Covers – July 4th

I attempted an urban family scene, but… “Yech!”  That’s what I thought when I looked at my submitted image the morning after.  Too crowded, too many proportional problems…it’s an awful feeling when you’re ashamed of your own work.  But I found that when I covered the central figures with my hand, it was much more appealing. I played with what

Blown Covers – Weddings

Here were my 2 entries for this week’s contest.  I didn’t crack the runners-up list, but I enjoyed myself nevertheless. I played with the Facebook friends logo with this one. ..and with the multitude of choices one is forced to make when planning a wedding.  Here’s my solution to pleasing just about everyone — at least

Blown Cover – Father’s Day

I received Runner-Up #2 at the Blown Cover Contest with this sketch. Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman wrote: I’m grateful for this image. Ella German did a lovely Sendak wild thing gay marriage image last week – she clearly knows how to capture that “aww” moment. Aww, I’m grateful for their comments! Kids who live without a parent

Blown Cover – “The Gays”

I’m thrilled to place in this week’s contest.  I received 1st Runner Up! My Wild Things were beat out by an endearing image of Bert & Ernie.  How cool is that? This was my tribute to Maurice Sendak and to gay marriage. Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman commented the following: The overwhelming outpouring of love after Maurice Sendak’s death makes any remembrance of him poignant. Maurice

Blown Cover Contest – Graduation

I tried a little more of a cartoonish style with this attempt at the New Yorker Blown Cover Contest.  This is my first time drawing people this way and I’ll be the first to admit it’s not quite “there” yet.  I need to rework the faces of those two older gents right now — I can’t look at them without

My Blown Cover – Books

Here’s my second try at the New Yorker Blown Cover Contest.  This weeks theme was Books. Books have saved this mother from many public tantrums and are an endless form of comfort to me and my kids.  So I played out a scene in a doctor’s office, where reading a book has helped many a child forget they’ve just been painfully poked. All entries

My Blown Cover – Love in the Big City

I’ve been following Francoise Mouly’s new blog Blown Cover : New Yorker covers you were never meant to see.  Each Monday she throws out a topic and invites sketches on the theme.  Friday she picks the winner and comments on those she liked. I played along this week.  The topic was Love in the Big City. Here’s my sketch, which is

I Won!

I’m one of five “1st Place Winners”!  Grand prize went to the ultra-cute mushrooms getting hair cuts. This was my entry for They Draw & Cook’s Kraft recipe contest.  Get the full scoop on the judging  here.  Wow, amazing to win, amazing to be featured.  I’m all smiles.    

New Contest + Misc. Catch Up

Lately my blog posts have seem limited to drawings I’ve done for contests.  So before I share my latest contest entry, I’ll catch you all up to what else I’ve been doing.  And one of these days soon, I’d like to get back to my library book/vintage book of the week/month posts.  I really miss doing those. So… I

20 Picture Books to Love About Love

I thought I would have this list up in time for Valentine’s Day.  But craft goodies for the kids’ Valentine’s Day sharing, along with baking distractions, prevented me from finishing. First, to get Valentine’s Day themed books out of the way.  Last year’s post highlighted a couple of my favorites. I’m adding the following mini book by Kevin Henkes to

New Yorker Cover Book Bag Contest 2012

It’s that wonderful time of year when we get to see Rea Irvin’s Eustace Tilley …turned into a dandy of another kind. Here’s my entry, titled Eustace Bloch-Bauer I. I was inspired by this Gustav Klimt painting of Austrian socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer.    It took Klimt 3 years to complete this portrait.  There’s lots of pretty patterns and

Vintage Chicken Little + Chicken Licken News

Recently found this gem of a golden book from 1960, illustrated by none other than Richard Scarry.  The story is by Vivienne Benstead.  Foxy Loxy promises to show the birds the way to the castle.  As he walks with each one in turn, he eats them!  Here you need to imagine a picture of Foxy Loxy walking behind little chicken

I Have Fun with Research & Chicken Licken Goes Multi-Cultural

This is my entry for the Tomie dePaola Illustrator Award, sponsored by SCBWI.  The winner will be announced January 2nd.  This year Mr. dePaola chose text from Chicken Licken, and it’s a mouthful with no less than 6 speaking characters. So they went along and went along until they met Turkey Lurkey. “Good morning, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Daddles, Cocky Locky, Henny Penny,

Updated Christmas Picture Book List: Now We’re Up to 11

I’ve acquired a few books to add to my favorite Christmas book list. I was pleased to find two illustrated by Barbara Cooney, who I adore.  Both are these are text-heavy picture books, and pleasantly so!  Although they take place in very different locals, both center around a young girl and have a super happy ending that leaves you in tears.  The stories themselves

Mini Coloring Book

This 12-page coloring book (5.5″ x 4.25″) features 12 children’s book characters. I made 27 of these for my son’s 1st grade class for his birthday treat.  I was pleased to see that the students didn’t seem to mind that they didn’t get blue, frosted cupcakes — they left the classroom all in smiles, flipping through the book and saying, “I

6 Great Thanksgiving Day Picture Books

Here’s some books from our collection that we’ve been enjoying. 1. Cranberry Thanksgiving (1971) by Wende and Harry Devlin. “Ah, it’s a Cranberry book!”  That’s what we say after we see the Devlins’ holiday-themed books that we’ve grown fond of.  They’re all slightly comical and sweet.  In this book, someone is after Grandmother’s secret cranberry bread recipe.  Grandmother suspects Mr.

10 Halloween Books (Or Stories On a Spooky Theme)

Since we are now organized enough to have a shelf devoted to holiday books (and feel compelled to brag about it — the organization, not the holiday-themed collection) and said shelf is sagging under the weight of many Halloween books, I thought I’d take out a few to share. 1. First up, The Ghost’s Dinner (1994) by Jacques Duquennoy.  Henry the ghost invites all his friends

Vintage Book Find of the Month: SONGS FOR THE NURSERY SCHOOL

I haven’t done one of these posts in a while.  It hasn’t been from the lack of collecting, as there are plenty piles of new books on the floor to trip on.  I’m simply trying to focus more time on story creation and drawing.  But I must share this one.  I  picked up this cheerful cover last