Friday, December 23, 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Squirrely Whirly

  Just finished this assignment for Ranger Rick for their March issue. I tried to capture that March feeling... those blue-grey skies and patches of melting snow.  I exaggerated their tails to the point that they look a bit like bagels, or maybe cinnamon rolls. (Because that's what you want to eat before you go squirrel-spying.)

 I used traditional media for this one; pastel and colored pencils on Ingres charcoal paper.

...and here's a draft of the page. The kids can check off all the crazy things they see squirrels do.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Mom's Best Friend

A piece I just completed for babytalk magazine. Reasons your baby should have a dog: Clean up, smelly diaper alert, tug of war, and helping baby take those first steps, or maybe learning how to waterski... whichever comes first.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

STONER RATS?

   No; they're just chillaxin'. It was a point of discussion for this Ranger Rick magazine article about the effect of music on plants and animals.  One scientific experiment seemed to show that lab rats and some other animals become more relaxed when they listen to music.  My first sketch was meant to show the rats relaxed and grooving; but the editors remarked that "they look like they are stoned and have the munchies".

They thought the vapor coming from the test tube looked like smoke. Not my intention at all; but after another look I can see how they made that association!  I sent the sketch to rehab.
The editors were relieved. Then I decided I wasn't happy with the scale of the test tubes in the background and felt like the eye dropper commanded too much attention so I tweaked it once more and returned the cheese to the lower right corner to balance out the color.
The article didn't say what type of music mellowed them out, but I'm guessing it might be "experimental jazz".
  Graphite and charcoal base; photoshop color.



Tuesday, November 1, 2011

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Playing around with some ideas for Halloween fake tattoos.. they'll probably be ready by next year!


More Halloween imagery can be seen on my dribbble pages!

Friday, October 28, 2011

CHAOS IN THE CAFETERIA

Mice. Screaming, crying kids. Food fights. Just your typical day at school. A few pages from a reader I illustrated for Random House a couple of years ago.  You can purchase it here.  A 48-pager with illustrations on every page.  It was so much fun drawing crazed children.... I must do some more.