Figuring out the right style...

The last step in creating a "dummy" (a mock-up of a book, composed mainly of sketches), is doing one finished piece. It helps give prospective agents and publishers a sense of what the book will look like when all is said and done.

It never hurts to try out a few different styles, color palettes, whatever-- and this is a great stage in the game to do it.

So what do you think? Textural and a little wonky or straight and bold with a more modern look? The one on the left is graphite and the other is ink. Both with digital color. Which one does it for you?

Clouds

What Is Art? -- My Latest Project

I started working on another picture book. While walking through the fantastic sculpture garden at the PepsiCo headquarters in Purchase, NY, my four year-old nephew asked me what one of the sculptures was. It was a totem-pole looking sort of construct, and while at a loss for a simple and accurate description, I said "It's art," to which he replied "What is Art?"

It was such a keenly felt retort that it gave me an idea (and a title) for my newest story. I'm not ready to give it all away, but I will say that it's about a rat, whose name is Rat, and his search to answer the very difficult but important question, What IS art? Something I'm still trying to pin down myself.

He tries to paint a landscape, but this goose gets in his way:

The adventure begins again. Stay tuned-- I'll introduce his mentor, Pigeon, next.

Adam

A Big Day for Me

My first published children's book, Asiago is now on pre-sale through Amazon.com. View it here! It's a really strange and wonderful feeling-- I began working on the book in September 2009, and here we are at year's end in 2011 and it's available on Amazon.

Here's the first drawing I ever did off Asiago, before he was tailored to fit a children's story and he was just a little guy wearing and old-fashioned bathing suit living in my notebook:

And here's where we ended up:

To everyone who's been following along with The Daily Graphite this past year and a half: thanks so much for sticking with me. This project means a lot to me and I look forward to sharing more and more art as we venture into 2012.

-A

The Back of the Book!

Slowly but surely, I'm putting up more and more drawings from my first published book, "Asiago." It will be available this coming spring. Really quite a trip for me; if you go back to some of my first posts, you'll see that I began sketching for it over a year ago. Now I'm eagerly anticipating the finished and printed book to hit shelves.

Tree Fort

Gone To The Dogs

A pen illustration colored digitally: