Food Groups

I did a partial series educating kids on the food groups for Picture Window Books: the Vegetable, Dairy, and Grain groups while another artist did the others. They turned out really well so I'm including a couple spreads for each book, also I put the links to purchase them along the side with my other books

The Incredible Vegetable Group:

Interiors:





The Amazing Milk Group:

Interiors:





The Great Grain Group:

Interiors:

Spooky Boo!

Here is a new book that I finished awhile back thats just been released from Scholastic - Spooky Boo! Its an interactive book with mirrors, flaps, and other fun parts as you follow a ghost through a haunted house. I had a lot of fun working on this as I had a big chunk of freedom on characters and overall design in it, with only the flaps that I had to work in.

Cover:


Interior 1:
This one had a door that opens to reveal characters inside, I included the door open and closed



This one has a mirror attachment:


THis one had a sticky patch on the piece of gum stuck in the werewolves hair


The final page is a party with the viewer being included, there is a mirror attachment on the green monster in the middle

There are a couple more pages inside, but you'll have to buy the book to see :)

A Little Kindness

Here are some illustrations I did for Pockets magazine, a Christian magazine for kids. Its a subscription magazine that has activities, short stories, and games. I did a couple illustrations for a short story called "A Little Kindness" which deals with teaching kids respect for their elders and have a loving heart for others. I really enjoyed doing this and hope to do more in the future.

Cover (I didn't do this but wanted to include it) for the July issue:


My illustrations for the story:

Welcome to the Jungle

Wow, forgot to post this awhile back - this was my self promo ad that I did for Directory of Illustration back in january. I was happy with how it turned out, didn't have much time to work on it due to other freelance projects. I'd like to do more in this style as it has a smoother render and texturing than some of my other projects.

Summer Has Arrived!

It seems like winter here in Cleveland lasted a lot longer this year along with months of nonstop rain. I'm definitely looking forward to getting out and enjoying the summer. I've started to modify my technique and started to soften the character faces - I felt that the large cartoon eyes I was using was too jarring. Enjoy the summer!

Easter Bunny's Basket

Here is a new book that Illustrated for Scholastic that was just released. It is a small board book that is a "Lift a Flap Adventure" trying to find objects to make a basket for the Easter Bunny. It was a cute concept that I had fun doing. The flaps became a challenge because they couldn't overlap the flaps on the previous or next page - otherwise there would be a hole from one page to the next. After the technical side was figure out the art became rather easy. I'm including the page as it would appear and then a second image of the same page so you can see whats under the flaps and the dicuts. I'm showing 3 of 5 of the interior spreads - Enjoy :)

Cover:


Spread 1:

Spread 1 - Flap art:


Spread 2:

Spread 2 - Flap art:


Spread 3:

Spread 3 - Flap art:

Tiger Talk

The past couple months have been extremely busy - I've completed 3 new books, suffered through a bad case of bronchitis, and turned 30. I'm hoping to start updating the blog here a little more from now on. I did want to share this, back at Christmas I was interviewed by my hometown newspaper about my early start and career in art. Its was nice to sit and talk about it for awhile and to to see my first art teacher Suzie whom I hadn't seen since I left for college about 10 years ago (wow, time flies!) Anyway, I was interviewed by Lisa Sims, a principle in the school district - I think she did a great job writing the piece, so here you go for all those people out there who want to know more about me :)

Corey Parker

A friend, Corey Parker, whom sat in the cubicle next to me at American Greetings for the 2 and a half years I worked there, recently passed away on December 30th after a short fight with cancer, he was only 34. While its been some time since I've seen him, he was, for lack of a better word, just a really nice guy and a wonderful, dedicated artist. My thoughts and prayers go out to his friends and family. You can view some of his work here.

Merry Christmas!

Things are getting a little busy around here so I thought I'd go ahead and post this - hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

National Geographic: Rocks & Minerals

I'm excited that this book has finally been released, it took about 8-9 months of work from start to finish and I think it was well worth it, I'm really happy with how it turned out. NGS was really open with my ideas and most of them made it to the final product. They pretty much said "lets see what you can do" when I first got the script, I was allowed to really come up with my own page layouts and go from there. Of course they changed some things in the sketch stage, but for the most part these are mostly my concepts and layouts - which makes this extremely satisfying, not just some cookie-cutter "just do this" attitude, it was a real creative process for me. Here is about half the books interior spreads...

Interior Title Page:

Interior Spreads:

Happy Halloween!

This is a faux book cover that I worked on, I've been working on a story to go along with it but I'm not sure if I'll take it to final or not. For now this is just a concept piece.

Halloween Cards

Here's a set of cards I did that came just came out at Walmart. These were A LOT of work as the technique called for a colored pencil kinda look. I was drawing grass for days (literally) - but they turned out nicely and it was good to see the detail actually print on the card.



Here's some detail shots: