Back to Brooklyn

Looking forward to Friday night and the ABC gala– where? ... really? Brooklyn USA!!! Well, its nice to have an excuse to dress up & visit my old hometown.
Art from "The Very Little Princess" (Random House / Feb '10)

This was for a collection of lullabies for Sony/BMG music. Art direction by Gina Bello of Bello Design.

for Mumbai

One of my students called me from Mumbai on Thanksgiving to let me know that she and her family were alright. That they were under siege, but ok. She called again this morning to say that it was all over, that the Indian military had prevailed. She said Mumbai will gather up the fragments that remain, not all will be lost.

It seems as though it has been raining everywhere lately, including my porch, so I am posting this image from The Sleeping Porchby Karen Ackerman which I illustrated a while ago. It takes place on a hot, stormy summer night, in a big old house with a very leaky roof.

ICON Roadshow

Under sparkling chandeliers in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan on Wednesday evening gathered a stellar group of illustrators who, in lieu of sleep, had spent the night before polishing up their portfolios and urging their printers to spin out more and more sample cards and giveaways. It was the kick off event to Illustration Conference #5--the Roadshow Salon. And the amazing thing was that, in this age of the internet, so many art buyers flew in from around the country just to meet with 100 illustrators at this 3 hour long event! I actually met - in person- clients I have been working with for years and never met before! There were also clients and friends (fellow illustrators) who I haven't seen in awhile and was able to catch up with, including my table mate, Nicole Schooley, a former SVA student of mine, who was excellent at scoring an icy bottle of Pinot Grigio with 2 glasses just in the nick of time. Thanks to everyone who made the Roadshow happen, to the art directors, editors and art buyers who took the time to come (on the eve of the July 4th weekend) and especially to Mark Heflin and the Roadshow team.

Skateboard Deck Art

Like many of my cohorts in the arts, I am asked to contribute a piece of art, or maybe books or sketches to this or that institution to be auctioned off. This despite the fact that artists are usually the ones most in need of funding themselves. In any case we are a bunch of softies and usually say "YES!" (and then later on ask ourselves "why did I agree to do this?") But sometimes it is also a very creative outlet, such as the Snowflakes for Robert's Snow Auction for Cancer's Cure. And last month, in the middle of a lot of mundane (but paying) jobs, I was asked by Rockland Center for the Arts to decorate a skateboard deck (What?) After finding out that a deck is just the skateboard w/o wheels, I said the usual YES! (And at 2 in the mornng "Why.....") But anyway it was a lot of fun. I didn't plan it very much, just let the paint brush do the work. It will be up for auction, along with 24 other decks, from Nov. 11- Dec. 16, to benefit Rockland Center for the Arts - 27 South Greenbush Road, West Nyack, NY 10994