Project for Strategic Finance

Worked with one of my favorite clients, Mary Zisk, to produce this piece for a story about the recent government crackdown on international corporate bribery.

New project for Penguin

Next in the successful Coffeehouse Mystery Series, "A Brew to Kill" features the exploding food cart/trailer business in NY. Shown here is the color rough and the gradual progression of oil washes to the final image.

SCBWI workshop with Matt Faulkner

Just got back from a great weekend on Mackinac Island for an intense workshop that served as my introduction to the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. There were maybe 90 attendees at this Michigan chapter event, with a small percentage of those being illustrators. Matt Faulkner, children's book author and illustrator was our fearless leader. Matt did a very clear job of explaining the process of producing a series of images for a typical children's picture book PLUS he explained and demoed his method of warm/cool painting. Awesome weekend!
Below is the painting produced for the exercise, my first time using watercolor in 25 years!
The short story was about a little boy who's convinced his piano teacher is from another planet. She's just too NICE. He makes a case to his parents and the police; all the phenomena he observed were explained away and his theory was disproved. But in the end, we find out that Mrs. Bailey really IS an alien. In fact, she is in cahoots with the police chief, who is also an alien.

Last Hurrah

I'm savoring the memories of this past summer before heading into a major commission deadline crunch. These sketches are from a trip to the North Channel in August. Peaceful, relatively unspoiled and incredibly beautiful, the landscape is glacially carved and covered with pines, maples, birches and...wild blueberries! Lovely. Plus we passed right by a mother black bear and her two cubs, swimming across probably a 5-mile wide channel!

And then there was Bali

Beautiful, spiritual, incredibly crowded. The people of Bali were the highlight. There really must be something to the Hindu culture that dominates the country. 93% of Balinese people follow Hinduism. The downside is their population explosion and with it all the traffic plus the inadequate sanitation and sewage treatment. Construction everywhere.

Fire Dance, Uluwatu Temple

Nasty monkeys, Uluwatu Temple

Rice Farmer, Seminyak

507 steps down the gorge to the most beautiful white water rafting trip imaginable.

Small village on bike trip. The decorative hangings are call Penjors and celebrate the Balinese festival of Galungan, "when the Dharma is winning".

Mini musicians, Galungan Festival

Early morning, Bali

Oops.

Friend, Seminyak

Trip Continued..

Sunset, Uluru (Ayers Rock)

Grasshoppers (Katydids?)

Kata Tjuta

Sunrise on the perimeter, Uluru

Just savoring the summer. A few more pictures of the Australia/Bali trip.

Fooling around this summer, Take 2

From Sydney we flew to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. My idyllic image of diving there was shattered by cold temps, 25-30 knots of breeze and 6 foot waves. After an hour and a half trip to the outer reef aboard a large and comfortable dive boat with maybe 12 divers and 25 snorkelers, I would say a third were seasick (not us). The divers definitely had the better trip though. Dressed in double layer wetsuits, we were comfortable and the water below was calm. Highlights included giant clam shells that opened and closed for plankton, tons of fish, sharks, a very friendly sea turtle and a most unusual underwater landscape of coral, unlike anything we've seen in the Caribbean. A tour of the rainforest north of Port Douglas followed the next day. We had lunch at little place inside the rainforest with the best Baramundi (local fish) so far on the trip!

Divemasters gearing up with 6 foot seas

Rocking and rolling. See the pitch?

Cocodrile!

Kingfisher

Feed me!

Kangaroo with an attitude

Cassowary crossing

Fooling around this summer

Our son spent the past semester studying in Australia. In late June, my husband and I met him there, spent time in Sydney and Uluru, did some diving on the Great Barrier Reef and then flew to Bali with Ian for 5 days. It was the trip of a lifetime.

Below: Visit to the Gallery of New South Wales. Check out Australian artist, Tom Roberts who painted in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Amazing draftsman.

Drawing in the Gallery of New South Wales

Tom Roberts, Bailed Up

Tom Roberts, Darbin Creek

Tom Roberts, Breakaway

Picture highlights from Sydney:

Rainbow Lorikeets – urbanized and everywhere

Biggest bats I've ever seen – Botanical Gardens

Tuna, crack-of-dawn tour of the Sydney Fish Market, second largest in the world

Sydney harbor at dusk

Sydney Opera House

Ferries, Sydney Harbor

Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park

Finished Izzy

The finished image has maybe 8-10 layers of thinly applied paint. Dry to the touch.

Picking up where I left off

I admit it. I've been screwing off. Some traveling and some family time have filled up late June and July. Photos and sketchbook images to come but in the meantime, I will finish what I started.
Izzy take 4. The paintings were finished in early June.
Here you see the next layer, Permanent Rose over Chrome Yellow. Next will come various local color applications, followed by Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue before heading to the finish detail.

Permanent Rose over Chrome Yellow

Izzy take three: Beginning the painting

The process involves thinly applied oils, each color added separately, with the color and form building up gradually as the painting progresses.