Hot & bored

Four bored kids on a hot summer day—the opener from Peter Spit A Seed At Sue.  Thumbnail and tight sketch.

This is the wraparound porch on my old house in Pittsburgh.  And that’s my dog, India snoozing on the left.

School visit dance mix

I’ll be visiting my friends at the Northwestern Lehigh School District next week.  Take a look at their way-cool promo!

An editorial assignment

Occasionally—very occasionally—I get an assignment to create an image for grownups.   These two were for a business magazine; the article was about decision-making.  One was to be of a couple of football players and an umpire flipping a coin, the other would be two lawyers playing rock-paper-scissors.  The client provided a rough layout—

Here’s the sketch of the football players—

This was a black & white assignment, so I rendered it in India ink washes.

Here are the two lawyers, as a sketch—

And inked in—

Why is the sketch always more fun than the finish?

Peter Spit… cover ideas

A bunch of cover ideas for Peter Spit A Seed At Sue.

These are all rough sketches, drawn about the size of a playing card.  One idea was selected, and I drew a tight sketch—

Please add the watermelons!

Art director Jim Hoover creates a comp with sketch and type. Let’s get the other 2 kids in there.

I painted the cover with a watermelon pink background.

This color was thought to be too feminine, so through the magic of digital correction, the background color was changed.  (I didn’t do it.  I don’t know which buttons to push.)

How books get bought

Good article by a bookstore owner about the picturebook-buying process.

The king’s coach

There’s a little throwaway scene in  Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes where Joe is invited to a royal story-telling competition.  For this image I needed to design the royal messenger and the king’s coach.

The story isn’t set in any particular time or place—it just calls for a fairytale look.  That allows me a pretty wide latitude regarding costume and setting.  The messenger I dressed in something 16th century—slashed sleeves and short cape—with a sash to make him look official.  The coach is something I found in Peter Newark’s Crimson Book of Highwaymen—a book about desperadoes who robbed the wealthy travelers of merrie olde England.

Here’s the thumbnail—we’re looking at the left page.

The tight sketch—

Throughout this project I used color to give clues about each character.  Everything having to do with the king got colored purple.

Happy Rabbie Burns Day!

From the Vance & Louise Torbert Collection.

Stella the storyteller

Here’s Stella, from Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes.

Thumbnail sketch for pp 6/7. Stella the storyteller sees her rival, Joe Bright, in the back of her magic story-telling chair.

Tight sketch for page 6.

A close-up of my color map for the book.  These are small color sketches of every spread, all next to each other.  It’s easier to plan the palette, or color choices, for the entire project when I can see it all at once.  The scenes with Joe Bright feature warm yellows; the ones with Stella are cold blues and purples.  Stella tries to foil Joe with 3 different devices—these are acid green, so the reader can identify them easily.

For example:

Here’s the painting for page 6 in progress:

Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes

I just got my catalogue from Upstart Books, and Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes is available!  This is my second title I’ve illustrated for author Jackie Mims Hopkins.  We previously worked on Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians.

Upstart publishes books with school librarians in mind.  Here are some work-in-progress shots from Joe Bright. I’ve already posted wips here and here.

Oh boy, more pirates!

I just found these photos of the decorations we did for Vacation Bible School at Third Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.  The theme was pirates, and since I’m your go-to guy when it comes to pirate stuff, Michelle (our associate pastor) asked me to come up with something.

I sketched images for banners, then gridded them off and transferred the designs onto 12 ft lengths of Kraft paper.  We grabbed every jar of poster paint in the playroom, then 3 of my Sunday school students, Emma, Charlotte and Hannah colored in the areas I’d outlined.

Michelle needed an area for kids to sit, so we bought a cheap rug and I painted a treasure map on it in acrylic paint.  I don’t remember what the tiki hut was for.