Illustrations for an article by John Hodgman in the January 1, 2012 issue of the Boston Globe.  The article “What probably won’t happen in January 2012″ is Hodgman’s  hilarious predictions for the first month of this year. 

I’m a huge fan of Mr. H. so it was quite a thrill to create images to go with his prophetic visions of the near future. His  prediction for January, 1 was 100 percent accurate.

The turnaround on these was a day and a half so it was a ” straight to final” assignment. What a great way to start the new year.

Just received these in the mail. They are copies of the just released games Spidmonsters and Bizaroid published by the French toy company, Djeco.

For the game Spidmonster I was asked to design  10 monsters.  I created 20 so the client could choose which characters they liked the best.  Here are sketches of a few of the monsters that didn’t make the cut.

Their products are always nicely designed and fun to look at. The illustrations were finished over a year ago so it is nice to finally see the finished products.

New cover art for Music Express Magazine.  Very little art direction on this one. The client let me create  a scene around the theme, Just Chillin’.  Gotta love it when art directors trust you will come up with something fun and unexpected.

These two oozy dudes are my contribution to the “Hanging with the Dead” letterpress print set published by Cloudy Collection.  The set includes seven 5X7 inch two color prints, each of the prints is  by a different artist. It is limited  run of 50 sets (which will go quick). You can pick up a set here.   All the prints from volumes I,II,III are in the Cloudy Collection art show at Pink Hobo Gallery in Minneapolis.

I Created this set of cut and fold blocks for the fall issue of Ranger Rick’s “Just for Fun” magazine. “Just for Fun” is a quarterly magazine featuring just puzzles, games and activities.

You can mix or match heads and bodies on the blocks to create all sorts of werido beasties. Sadly the fall issue is the final issue of the magazine. Good bye Fun.

A feature and spots for the August issue of Orange Coast Magazine.

First, I have a newly designed website. Lots of new work in the illustration and licensing portfolios. This piece is from a series of images to promote reading. Each image features an adorable little bug reading different types of media.

Working on multiple book projects at the moment.  I just finished up this wonderful book by J.Patrick Lewis (the new Children’s Poet Laureate).  The title is “Edgar Allan Poe’s Pie” J.P. has cleverly woven math puzzlers into his hilarious, kid friendly parodies of classic  poems. Edward Lear, Walt Whitman, and of course Edgar Allan Poe, are some of the parodied poets in this unique book. I think teachers and librarians are going to go bonkers over this one.

This is the final illustration for the poem,”John Ciardi’s Shark Dentist” inspired by “About the teeth of sharks” by John Ciardi.

The last spread in the book has little bio’s for each of the featured poets. I was asked to create postage stamp size poet portraits to go along with each bio. I’m not a portrait, or  caricature guy, so I wasn’t quite sure how they would turn out. They turned out pretty good. Can you guess the poets?

Maybe I am a caricature guy.

My children’s e-book “Scruffy Kitty ” is now available for the HP TouchPad. The new app has coloring pages for your kitty loving kiddies.

You can get it here.

Recently I had the pleasure to collaborate with the California School Library Association to create a piece to be used in their California Campaign for Strong School Libraries.  “The campaign is designed to raise awareness about the importance of strong school libraries for our children. It seeks to inform and impact school administrators, legislators, parents, students, educators, and anyone who could advocate the importance of your child’s access to a library staffed by a credentialed teacher librarian, clerical staff and a budget to support important resources for reading, research and creative projects.”

CSLA has set up a cafepress store where you can purchase merchandise emblazoned with the artwork by participating children’s book artists. Proceeds benefit the California School Library Foundation.

You can find out more or donate here California School Library Association. They have also set up a resource page, California Campaign for Strong School Libraries, where you can find more information. You can also see whether your library meets or exceeds the new Model School Library Standards.

Artists include: Sarajo Frieden, Tom Lichtenheld, David Shannon, as well as many others.

One of my favorite parts of the presentations is doing collaborative drawings with the kids.  We start with basic shapes and just let our imaginations go nuts. It is always a surprise what we come up with.  This is one of the characters we created.

We then came up with a basic story lines to go with the character. Librarians, teachers, parents: I have created a how to draw Space Pig page and comic sheet for you to use in the classroom, library or at home. You can download it for personal use here.

Big thanks to all the attendees, and to the Contra Costa Reading Association for putting on such a wonderful and inspiring event.  Here are some super cool pictures the young creatives drew while on break.

Julia came up with a pencil robot.

Isabella busted out this dual portrait.

Manuel unleashed this vicious beast.