A friend suggested I post about the materials that I use. Okay. One of the most important lessons I learned while in art school was to use high quality materials. Cheap paper, brushes and paints will do you no good. The materials I use now are the same ones I used as a student. I’ve…

My first visit to the Museum Of Modern Art was memorable, to say the least.  I’m sure I went to museums before that, although I can’t specifically say where. Most of the art I knew, I had seen in books. I often speak about spending time as a kid in the stacks of the Bound…

What’s with the vegetables?  This is one of those things that just is, with no good explanation.  Exhibit A – kindergarten: It got serious early in high school with this, which you’ve seen in an earlier post: I drew the pepper first, because … I don’t know why. The shape? The color? That’s really the…

For The Art of Reading: Forty Illustrators Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of RIF (Reading is Fundamental), each contributor wrote about a book that influenced him or her as a child and created a piece of art to accompany the article. I chose write about 2001: A Space Odyssey – the book and the movie, but…

To begin these posts I am going back to the moment I entered the world of children’s books.  Near the end of my senior year at the Rhode Island School of Design, Trina Schart Hyman came to school to talk about being a children’s book illustrator. She was great – casual, funny and straight talking.…