All the images are available as giclee prints on my etsy site.
Teamwork is everything in my business of creating picture books. The author/illustrator team, the author/editor team, the illustrator/art director team, all of the above, plus the marketing team, bookstores, librarians, teachers, parents, grandparents–ALL of us are on the same team–to get good books into the hands of children.
So imagine my pleasure when I was asked by Robert Howe, Tunbridge Fair’s postermeister, to join his team and design the official poster for 2018. The theme is Celebrating Working Teams.
Of course the word Team can mean something different at the fair, but I still took it as a good omen.
The 1st time I went to the Tunbridge World’s Fair was with my parents, back in the early 1970s. We camped at a friend’s farm in nearby Chelsea and drove over to the fair, always held the 1st weekend after Labor Day. In those days there were still girlie shows at this and other Vermont Country fairs.
The Tunbridge World’s Fair was, and still is, a genuine agricultural experience, set in a lovely, narrow river valley.
There are horses, cattle and sheep, pigs, chickens, goats and rabbits proudly on display. There is a midway with rides and game booths, and all the greasy, sweet fair food you could want.
Nowadays, I go to draw the animals and the people.
So it was no surprise that the poster I chose to design featured both.
I was lucky to be given excellent reference photos by two fair photographers: Nancy Cassidy and Mark Dixon. Drawing from elements of these and my own research material, I created a rough sketch.
Photo by Nancy Cassidy
photo by Nancy Cassidy
photo by Mark Dixon
Once I had a B&W linoleum print, I painted it with gouache, layered a little painted carousel onto the girl’s tee, and added text in Photoshop.
I began by trying to match this old-timey font, found in the background of a photo, as my poster display type, but it didn’t enhance the finished artwork so I switched to Linolschrift for the finish.
The last adjustment was to eliminate the “gap tooth” on the little girl. The consensus was that it made her look a little too young.
I’m pleased with the finished product. I hope 2018 fair goers are too!
2. a person or thing that brings bad luck.
3. Geology. a pillar of rock, usually of fantastic shape, left by erosion.
If you picked #3 you may have visited the strangely wonderful Bryce Canyon National Park, Home of the HooDoos…not to mention-the mysterious eye in the sky! (hint, upper left)
Read this and then like Page Through the Parks on Facebook to be entered in the Rafflecopter giveaway.
It is one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of the World”
It’s about 270 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and a mile deep, Its walls contain rock layers that reveal a timeline of Earth’s history.
To make the illustrations for In The Canyon as good they could be, I had to explore the Grand Canyon. I took my intrepid sister, a wildlife veterinarian, for company and and in we went!
Dr. Peregrine Wolff and a friendly Big Horn Sheep-commonly found In the Grand Canyon.
Approaching Castle Crag on the South Kaibab Trail.
from RIM to RIVER…
Joking around at Ooh Ah Point on the South Kaibab Trail.
and back!
The main character of In the Canyon, written by Liz Garton Scanlon, speaks in the 1st person voice. She begins her narration like this:
“Here’s a map, some boots, a pack, a walking stick, a sandy track.”
I always enjoy working with a model and I found a lovely girl in San Francisco named Willa.
I spent a few hours with Willa taking pictures, and then used those to draw from while illustrating the book.
She gazes at the reader from the jacket, inviting you to join her In the Canyon.
As soon as you dip below the rim of the canyon you enter a vast, deep bowl that has no direct route to the bottom. The trails are constantly zig zagging down the steep walls. Occasionally you can spy the river, way down deep.
My sister Peri, seen from a few switchbacks above, with many more to go. The Colorado river, bright green, is crossed by 2 bridges. One is visible here.
If it is a cool spring morning on the rim, it is full, hot summer at river level. Along the way are blooming cacti and yucca, birds, lizards and curious squirrels.
I can’t get enough shots of the blossoming Beavertails.
a finished linoleum block and gouache illustration.
“Here’s a footstep, dusty red, another one and more ahead.”
To do this rim to river to rim hike one must be very fit and prepared for a lot of heat and exertion.
Some people choose to travel by mule. Mules are chosen from Tennessee and Missouri. They are used for pack supplies to Phantom Ranch and pack mail out of the canyon and later promoted to trail mules.
I used a photo of a family, gathered under an overhang, as inspiration for this illustration.
“Now here’s a tiny slice of shade, a yummy lunch, some lemonade. And a lizard, still as sand, his head all speckled, body tan.”
Finally, we’re at river level, where the deep shade around Phantom Ranch is most welcoming. Time to recharge and load up on water and salty snacks for the hike back out. Peri and I made it back to the rim by nightfall, a 16 mile roundtrip.
But the child in In the Canyon is luckier. She gets to spend the night, camping by the river.
“Here’s the dark and here’s the shine, and here’s the moon—it’s like it’s mine. To tuck inside me way down deep, Grand and wild, mine to keep.”
I’ll come back to the Canyon someday, no doubt with enough overconfidence to descend to the bottom and back in one day as I did with Peri.
After all, I have what it takes: “a map, some boots, a pack, a walking stick, a sandy track.”
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for practice, for fun, for history and remembrance, to be in the moment–all good reasons.
Add one more.
To be part of a pop-up, temporary community of kindred spirits during a very dark, very chilly month.
I may not be present and accounted for on every day this month. but I will try to do SkaDaMo 2014 with as much verve as possible.
My first weekend of November was spent in Florence, MA with dear RISD friends: Barb and Maureen. We spent happy hours in Maureen’s kitchen, which sports an impressive pot and pan collection.
Barb enjoys her coffee black.
Maureen grows her own thyme.
I look forward to the rest of this month.
#SkaDaMo
Big storms sweep in from the west and huge tides bring in piles of tangled kelp and other beach debris.
The impossibly tangled piles buzz with Kelp Flies.
The Kelp’s gas bladders keep the long stem or stipes, floating upright in the water.
Northern California beaches are not known for shells but there are dense mussel beds and those shells are easy to find. This sketch includes a scrap of Abalone shell, fish spine bones and crab claws.
I love collecting this sort of beach debris for my Beach Portraits.
And then there are the Harbor Seals, who haul themselves up to nap on the sunny rocks.
And sometimes there are the husbands, who nap anywhere they like.
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I made him this card, back when we had a German Shepherd named Thumper, and before I fell in love with Border Collies.
The European tradition he grew up with is for children to put out their shoes on the night of December 5th and for St Nicholas to leave a small gift in them overnight.
As children my sister and I did not put our own shoes out, but we would put a gift into one of our daddy’s big shoes.
He loved candy, so it was easy to please him. KitKat Bars were his favorites.
But my sister and I believed in Santa Claus: the belly, the beard, the boots and the red hat.
In 1986, I visited China. In a street stall in Beijing I bought a red satin hat trimmed with sequins and rabbit fur. It looked just like Santa’s hat, only exotic.
Here is how it appeared in a postcard I painted while still in China.
Nowadays I keep it safely stored for most of the year, but bring it out at Christmastime and wear it pretty much non-stop for a few weeks, especially to paint in.
Today a bronze bust of Klaus as a child is wearing the hat.
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Thanks.
I’ve been figuring out ways to draw and paint snow, in all its shapes and forms, my entire life.
There are lots of kinds of snow.
The 1st snows of autumn, that slowly cover the still-green grass, frost bitten plants, and leaf strewn ground.
December snows, that slowly fill up the woods~until we trudge through it to find a perfect Christmas tree,
Or February snow, deep and light enough to race a sled through,
Or use as a smooth, white, picnic blanket for the birds.
I’ve painted snow as the natural habitat for Polar Bears,
And gray wolves.
And painted it in totally unexpected places, like a usually sunny day in Jamaica!
I’ve sat in my car and drawn a snowy scene from life.
And I ended my new book, Baby Bear Counts One, with 10, big snowflakes, falling slowly enough for a surprised bear cub to count them.
But turn the page and watch as the snow picks up, swirling in curtains across the mouth of the den,
And finally, the flakes are falling so fast that there are…
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I am walking the trail, noticing the birds, the cactus with the raspberry bloom, the towering agave, the light, the scents, the dust.
I am trying to dream myself into the canyon from top to bottom to make my viewer feel like they are there too.
The sketch is pencil, the color is slopped on in Photoshop.
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