Ahoy! I painted this for an Inland Northwest Society of Childrens’ Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Conference. The theme was “Plot Your Course.” The guest speakers and presenters were fantastic! I was able to meet many new friends and connect with old ones. Now that the conference is over, I’m making these prints available for purchase at my Etsy shop. Feel free to meander over and purchase one for your favorite little sailor!

It’s been hot in my home town lately. Really hot. But it’s September and cooler weather is just around the corner. I’m looking forward to it.

I just completed a painting from the upcoming book Solar the Polar, by Kim Constantinesco (Editor-In-Chief at Purpose 2 Play) and published by Maclaren-Cochrane Publishing, December, 2017. I really like how it turned out. Here’s the top portion, so I don’t give out any spoilers.

It reminds me that cooler weather is on it’s way. And that makes me happy.

Little Mouse Finds A Friend is at the printer, and they recently sent us something called ozalids to look at. If you’ve never heard of them, ozalids are paper examples of the way things will look once they get printed into a book.

The color on these were, well, gross. BUT, they also sent color proofs, and I’m happy to say that they were gorgeous! So I’m pretty excited to see the finished product in October. I hope you get to see it too! Stay tuned…

I’m so excited for our next book, Little Mouse Finds A Friend, to come out in October. I’m counting the days!

Here is a little glimpse of one of the turning point images, from sketch to finished painting.

From the Little Mouse Family facebook page:

Psst! We’ll let you in on a little project we’ve been working on: a descriptive audio recording! We love audio books, and Jeni has planned to record a read-along version from the moment we decided to publish her story. We want everyone to enjoy the story to it’s fullest, so for our visually impaired friends, Jeni is working on an audio recording with image descriptions. (You should see how excited she is! It’s ridiculous!) Huge thanks to Erin Jepsen and her daughter Abi for the professional consulting, Bartholomew Budwig​ for recording, and Jessica Linn Evans.

There is nothing quite so cheering as receiving a thoughtful handwritten greeting in the mail. Even more fun is a whole manilla envelope full of hand-made thank you notes from third graders. Here’s a sample of the notes I got from the students at Franklin Elementary expressing their thanks for the school visit I did with them at their library time in late spring. I think some of them are future illustrators!

I participated in a live artist event at New Saint Andrews College during the 13th Annual Artwalk in Moscow, Idaho. It was a lovely time with other artists and chatting with folks in the community. The city-wide event included a block party downtown with live music, food stalls, a giant chess board (as well as more traditional sized chess boards), and local art in many of the downtown businesses. The weather even cooperated… sort of. It really a very lovely event that improves in size and scope every year. I was thankful to be a part of it.

Be wise with your time. Instead of being on your smartphone while you wait, do something productive. You never know how much time you have.

While I was waiting for my car to be serviced yesterday, I started sketching a bird from a photo taken by my talented friend Hannah (you can find some of her beautiful photography here). As I say, I started sketching, but as time went on and my car wasn’t finished, I kept refining the sketch. Soon the sketch graduated to the status of ‘drawing.’ By the time I got home I was able to put in about 20 more minutes to finish it up. Then I slapped it in a frame and Shazam! Wall art!

I think I’ll offer it for sale at the Artwalk in my town this weekend. If no one buys it, I like it well enough that I’ll put it on my own wall.

So there you go. Time not wasted.

I’ve got my illustrations framed and ready to display at the 13th annual Artwalk 2017 in Moscow, Idaho. My work will be displayed at New Saint Andrews College, where I’ll be participating in a live artist event. I will be joining other artists at NSA, painting during the opening reception June 16, starting at 5 pm.

Join us!

This Friday, I spent a lovely morning with the approximately 75 third-graders of Franklin Elementary during their library time. The students had already gone through a series of projects and lessons planned and organized by Franklin’s Rock Star Librarian (the principal’s own words, and I agree!) about the genres and production of books. They had created some wonderful book covers for one of their projects. The students had intelligent questions and demonstrated well the book knowledge they acquired.  I told them about my own processes for creating characters and illustrating stories and really enjoyed my time.

Thank you Franklin Elementary for the wonderful visit!