The Golden Triangle Celebrates Sendak

I received a great phone call the other day from an old school friend about doing the cover of the next edition of The Golden Triangle Writer's Circle-- an online literary magazine that features amazing work from writers and poets.

In celebration of Maurice Sendak's intensely prolific career and in commemoration of his recent passing, they requested a piece that had something to do with the man's work. I was ecstatic, nervous, and optimistic. I'm a huge fan of Sendak-- his stories, his lines, his textures-- so this was a project that I decided to take very seriously.

Here are a couple of sketches I submitted for their discussion. They've already made their choice with which will go to paint, but I won't tell you quite yet. Which one yells "Sendak" to you?

Hey, that's kinda neat!

So exciting! Asiago (my vampire protagonist, as you may or may not know) landed the site-stripe on the Amazon Children's home page. I'm so thrilled for that little guy.

Tradition

It's becoming a tradition: whenever I finish a dummy for a new book, I lay out all 32 pages in my hallway and just sort of stare at them for a long time. It's a great feeling to get something like this done, especially when it's so nice out-- I thought I was going to be inside drawing all weekend.

Reference Photos

If you need to draw a character watering flowers, eating a sandwich, cleaning their car, or walking the dog, it usually helps to have a picture or a model to give you the shapes and gestures. I do a lot of drawings of people doing different things, so I'm always taking reference photos of myself.  I thought it'd be funny to compile the most recent in my Photo Booth. Depending on where I am with which project, I usually look very crazy.

Publication!

 

It's something I've been looking forward to for a long time. My first book, my brainchild, "Asiago," is finally on bookshelves. If you've been to The Daily Graphite before, you might know the young vampire pretty well already, but for those of you who don't...

Asiago is a vampire, and like all vampires, he avoids the sun, wood, and garlic. When his friends invite him to the beach, he is excited to go. But after getting a sunburn, a wooden splinter in his foot, and a stomachache from eating clams with garlic sauce, Asiago can't wait to get home. Luckily, his friends come up with a clever solution that makes it possible for Asiago to enjoy the beach. 

I used color pencils to create a vampire appealing enough that children will want to meet him again and again. Library Journal calls it a "funny and fresh introduction to one of the most vulnerable vampires ever depicted for a child audience." (April 2012) I hope that's a good thing haha.

In case your curiosity gets the best of you, you can order the book now on Amazon!

mmmk!

Here's a tee shirt I did for a summer camp in Westchester County. It's a cartoon version of their trail map-- still pretty accurate. I started by doing a light trace of their actual trail map to ensure that all of the lines would fall in the right spot. With the rest, I took some artistic liberties (for instance, there is not a bumblebee the same size as their building).

Fun to know that your work will be worn by a few hundred kids over the course of the summer.