Comic Jam! Exhibit

I've been a bit behind on blogging lately. Last weekend was a great time- here are some pics from the Comic Jam! Exhibit. (Courtesy of River Gallery)

I have two color pieces for the show, plus process sketches on the side.

This show really pushed me to explore one of my story ideas that were originally for a picture book. It was also nice to do a comic story in color, done in Illustrator, with a more muted color palette. Hope to continue with it and eventually have another comic book in the works!

Comic Jam! Exhibit + Kids Read Comics this weekend!

Its going to be a crazy and fun weekend! I'm honored to be part of this Comic Jam! exhibit now showing at the Chelsea River Gallery with 9 other artists, featuring:

• Dave Roman
• Raina Telgemeier
• Matt Feazell
• Kasey Van Hise
• Brandon Dayton
• Kim Holm
• Luis Escobar
• Anne & Jerzy Drozd 
• and yours truly.

The reception is this Saturday, 6/18 from 6-8pm. Thanks to Jerzy Drozd for the invitation. It was the push I needed to work on my comics in my color style, and I have two pieces in the show plus work-in-progress sketches.

What else is happening this weekend? I'm excited to be part of Kids Read Comics, a fun, free event that is happening this Saturday and Sunday, 6/18-19, in Downtown Chelsea, MI.  I'll be at the artist alley and also looking forward to doing some fun quick drawing demos with the awesome illustrator and comic artist Dani Jones. For more info, go here. See you there!

AADL Summer Reading Program

I had the honor to work with my local library, the AADL, to design and illustrate their summer reading games program. I'm a big fan of theirs. Ever since I moved to Ann Arbor 2 years ago, I had attended tons of interesting workshops and forums at the library. Not to mention, I gave my very own talk there. Check it out here.

And when they asked if I could do a Richard Scarry like town with many characters using the library in different ways- of course I'm on board! I initially did people:

And when I found out they were more interested in anthropomorphic animals- even better!

The final in color:

And speaking of libraries and anthropomorphic animals- I'm teaching a workshop! Its called Creating and Drawing Anthropomorphic Animals Characters with Jannie Ho. Its on Saturday, July 16th from 1to 2:30pm, at the Downtown Ann Arbor District Library. Its free for teens and adults to attend, so if you are in the area, hope to see you there.

Its National Donut Day!

I've been MIA but only to have this wonderful holiday to get me back to posting here, haha. Oh the things I learn from Twitter.

I've done this image for fun a while back and its perfect for today. Happy Donut Day!

Animals Crafting

Some fun illos for a local crafty place, Blue House Ann Arbor. Its hard to pass up drawing animals crafting. Nice to play with a more muted color palette to go with the distinctive blue color that they use.

Here's the back of the business card:

Blue House is a wonderful place where crafters can meet up, share their ideas, attend workshops, and more. Its been a great place where I've gotten to know many local and talented artists. And lucky me, I live very close by.

Playtime

A piece for our recent mailer over at Illustration for Kids, with a theme of "Playtime." Its been a while since I voluntarily did human kids for the mailer- anthropomorphic animals are always so much more fun. But I actually enjoyed this one and liked how it turned out.

The Sketchbook Project 2012

The Sketchbook project 2012 is here! After my amazing time with last year's book, its hard not to do it again. The theme I picked is Uncharted Waters, which fits my life so perfectly right now. A great excuse to continue with my comics. Now that this is the second time around, there are a few things I would like to do differently. Also the book is slightly smaller with fewer pages. Supposedly with better paper but its still seems a bit thin to me. Perhaps I can use another type of medium instead of microns.

Looking forward to this and hopefully I can do this with the same amount of energy and dedication as last time.

Kid's Drawings using my How-to Books!

"Octo-Monster"

"Pinball"

I think one of the most satisfying things about being a children's book illustrator is seeing kids interact with my books. I've been mentoring some fine young artists for the Ann Arbor Kid's Art Fair thats coming up in July. So I thought it was fitting that I gave them a copy of my You Can Draw Monsters and Scary Things and You can Draw Zoo Animals.

I was happy to see the step by step instructions worked! Just check out these drawings. Lookin' good!

 

Its been an interesting and also a challenging experience mentoring kids. I don't normally interact with kids on a regular basis in my normal day-to-day illustrator life, even though I do "kids' stuff" all day long. But kids' art are the BEST and I've got a talented bunch. Its an awesome dose of inspiration!

Food Icons

Some "grown-up" work! I illustrated these icons for Diabetic Living Magazine.

Spring Promo

The obsession continues-this time is Springtime ABCs!

What I have so far:
Animal ABCs
Christmas ABCs
Valentine ABCs

MoCCA Artfest Wrap Up

This weekend was the MoCCA Art Fest and it was so much fun, thank you for those of you who dropped by our table to come see me. I shared a table with two talented artists friends, Becky Munich and Doreen M. Marts- they made excellent table mates! We got a light blue table cloth which we thought really stood out with a ladies touch to it. Ha.

My goods!

I got to see so many old friends, colleagues, and artists whom I've gotten to known through the internet-in which I finally got to meet in person and they are all so sweet- Kelly Light, Renee Kurilla, and Casey Girard. Had some fun folks right across the aisle like Dave Roman and Ryan Sias. And many more friendly faces. Hello!

And this is why I thought about participating in MoCCA in the first place. I got my comic story, If You Lived Here, printed through Ka-Blam. Things were a little stressful as the books were shipped last minute to the hotel. I didn't get to see these until the morning of the show. But Ka-Blam came through and everything worked out. Whew! It was exciting to see that people browsing through it and I even sold some copies.

Lastly, I made this display sign for my evil robot and super cat buttons. A scoreboard to keep track of the battle. In the beginning, Super Cat was doing well but unfortunately Evil Robot took over. Final score in the end, 20 to 26. Evil Robot wins, for now!

It was truly a wonderful time and the MoCCA crowd is a supportive and friendly group, which gave me all the energy I needed to do more art. Until next year!

I'll be at MoCCA ArtFest this weekend!

 

This weekend I will be at the MoCCA Fest in NYC, sharing at table of awesomeness with Doreen Mulryan Marts and Pinky Buttons! We will be at Table J11.

 Please stop by and say "cluck cluck!" and I will give you a free sticker!

MoCCA Fest is being held at The Lexington Avenue Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th/26th street, from 11-6pm. See you there.

Anagrams

 Anagram spots I recently did for TIME for Kids magazine. Clockwise from upper left: Rats/Star, Pan/Nap, Paws/Swap, Desserts/Stressed.

A New blog: Daredevil Chicken

Just a quick note here about a new blog I started with funny illustrator Scott Nelson as we collaborate on a 32-page picture book about a Daredevil Chicken. How will two illustrators with two different styles come together in a book? Please check it out if you love the picture book making process, creativity, collaborations, and a chicken in between.

Let's Do It!

I have been an admirer of Peaceable Kingdom Press' toys and products for a while now, and they've been on my client wish list. So I was very happy I finally got to work with them last year on this Game Time Activity book, Let's Do It! I received some samples recently and noticed its out on their website.

Some interior spreads:

 

I was especially thrilled with the way the layout and graphics look; I love it when the designer and I are on the same wavelength and the whole book really represents my design aesthetics well. They were also a pleasure to work with!

Let's Do It Game Time! Write & Wipe Activity Book
published by Peaceable Kingdom Press
Ages 3-6
$12.99
Available on Amazon or at Peaceable Kingdom Press

Board Book Cover Concepts

Its always interesting to see how the cover ends up from sketches to the final. For this particular book, What Does Cow Say?,  even the title changed! We started off with Meow Bow-Wow:

And then the other animals were introduced to the cover:

And then the cat and dog wasn't the center stage anymore:

And the final cover. The cow took center stage and the title changed completely. Hey, it happens!

 

As to the reasoning behind the switch, I was told that farm animals were hot sellers. I'm glad my rooster made it on the cover. :-)

What Does Cow Say? written by Joan Holub, illustrated by me, is now out in stores. Published by Cartwheel Books.

KIds Read Comics Extravaganza!

This Saturday, March 12th from 10-8pm, I will be one of the many artists participating in Kids Read Comics Extravaganza! a free event that will be held at the Ann Arbor Art Center. All are welcome and open to the public. 

There will be free activities where you’ll be able to interact with cartoonists as they work, or participate in hands-on workshops where you can make your very own comic.

As part of this event, I'm also excited I will be doing a book signing of my various titles at Vault of Midnight from 1-2pm that day.

Lots of great local cartoonists will be there like Katie Cook, Denver Brubaker, Matt Feazell, Jerzy Drozd, Chad Sell, Joe Foo and more. Hope to see you there!

Drawing Demo

This past Sunday, I did a presentation at the Ann Arbor District Library's Comic Artist Forum. I spoke about my work and my sketchbook project/ comic story, If You Lived Here.

I did a drawing demo of my chicken characters...and here is a video of it! Now I'm on YouTube, ekk! Thanks to Jerzy for shooting the video, there will be another one of me and the whole presentation.

I can hardly watch myself in this video! :-P

Anorak Magazine-My Packed Lunch

Here is a fun illo I did for Anorak Magazine's blog for their My Packed Lunch Series.

4 x 4 Stickers

Stickers!!! My first professionally printed promo stickers. Build-a-Sign kindly offered to print some stickers for me, they are technically bumper stickers but they are a great size at 4" x 4". With the MoCCA Art Fest coming up, I am hoping to give some away to my customers (wink wink), stick them on bags, and I also ended up sticking one on my moleskine sketchbook:

The stickers have a nice gloss coating to them yet thin and durable. I'm going to have alot of great uses for these. Yay!