Making Things:

New felties in progress.

found some old zoo studies:

Flapjack Designs

Some old art from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack,
(the first three guys were cut from the show):

I call this fellow Taco Hat:

mmmm....candy fish:

Hannah Feltie

I made a feltie of Hannah the Horse- here she is:

 

 

Also, Hannah is excited to hear that the Year of the Horse is now in it's second printing!  Hurray!

Rhinoceros

Old-Timey

From a narrative life drawing session at Nick:  I used the time to try out a Blackwing pencil I'd picked up recently.  I've heard alot about them but never used one before.  Graphite pencils in general have never been my favorite to draw with mostly because I dislike the shiny glare they tend to leave behind-but the Blackwing was nice and I enjoyed the smoothness (it seemed smoother than the tombow), that removable eraser is pretty nifty too.

Recent Studies:

Giddy-Up

So far the Year of the Horse is off to a good start, here's some more early character drawings:

Hannah Has Arrived!

 Happy New Year!  I can't believe 2013 is over already.  

To kick things off The Year of the Horse is now available and Hannah the spunky foal is eager for adventure in 2014.   I had alot of fun illustrating this book- it didn't hurt that it stars one of my favorite animals ; )  I especially enjoyed drawing Hannah.  I'm currently working on a feltie of her which will hopefully be finished in time to accompany me to the reading events I'll be doing in the next few weeks.   Below are some early character studies of Hannah the horse and her pal Tom.  And please head over to the Immedium website for more info on the book (click the cover above) and for a list of upcoming book events click here.  Thanks and I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

Hannah's best friend Tom (early studies).

I gave him a jockey red cap to carry on the equestrian theme: 

Coming Soon!

It's that time of year again, a new adventure in the Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series is about to be released which I once again had the privilege to illustrate.  2014 is the Year of the Horse and here's a peek at the main characters, (I knew all those hours spent sketching at the equestrian center would come in handy some day).
......More to come soon!

Two of my Favorite Things....

(Lemurs and Unicorns)
I felted these a while ago --finally getting around to posting them.

This unicorn is loosly based off "The Unicorn in Captivity" tapestry which is one of my favorite pieces of art.  I dyed the wool with tea to make it more off-white and the horn and hooves are made out of sculpey.

In other news, I'm trying to update my website......I wish I knew what I was doing....

Scribble Scrabble

Really want to get back to playing with my markers more-there's just something about drawing on real paper.....

Sketch page from this week's life drawing session at Nick,
she was a good model:

Random sketch stuff:









Red jacket boy
at the mall.

Hat Girl, from another 

life drawing session:

 meh...

A smudged old foxy drawing I never posted:

BTW, my publisher has a new pdf catalog-click to check out all the cool books:

Remember to Breathe

Seems I forget about this blog more and more-sorry to anyone who actually still visits.  Currently I'm in the thick of illustrating the next Zodiac book, Year of the Horse which is taking up much of my nights and also designing loads of props at my day job at Nickelodeon.  Definitely grateful for these opportunities but it can be tough finding a calm balance between life and work sometimes.  It's important to remember to take breaks and I felt the urge to update this blog but was struggling with finding something post-able so here's a bunch of random doodles.  Just sketching for myself seems elusive lately but I am really trying to get a doodle out whenever possible.  I often feel self-conscious about sharing some of this stuff online since alot of it doesn't really feel too "blog worthy" and is mostly just unrefined scribble scrabble (most of which is hidden away in a shoebox).  But I think doodling is like breathing-you shouldn't have to think about it too much but it's important to keep doing it...... 

 

Dogs have been on my mind lately

(I'm hoping to adopt one in the near future)

Annoyed Bobcat-think I drew this a year ago-I always forget to date my pages:

Unicorns are therapeutic, even weird ones with whiskers-
I need to draw more of them:

Rosie the donkey from the equestrian center where I was doing "research" for Year of the Horse:

Research! :

A marker zebra drawn while watching a nature show on the equines:

Live peoples drawn somewheres:

Until my next break....Doodle-on!