Founders Workshop In Nov - PA

Now I'm really looking forward to November. I'll be attending the Art of Picture Books Founders workshop in November, at the Highlights Foundation in Honesdale, PA. Here is more info on the workshop. I think there are still openings so try to go yourself.

http://www.highlightsfoundation.org/pages/current/FWsched_artofPictureBooks_08.html

Just look at some of the topics that will be covered:

• the children's market
• picturing the narrative and writing with pictures
• the role of the visual in fiction and nonfiction
• intertextuality, or how written and visual texts relate
• beyond interpretation, or relating your pictures to an author’s words
• book design, pagination, and storyboarding
• composition and the narrative
• picture sequencing and the drama of the turning page
• character development
• the elements of art as expressive tools
• building the picture
• the unique qualities of creating art for a children’s audience
• dummy preparation
• preparing the final art for production
• finding a market
• contracts and career goals

I don't know a single illustrator that would not be tickled to learn more about any one of these topics let alone all of them.

Hope to see you there.

Coqui Faces out at Borders

Just got great news. Marisa's book signing last Saturday at the Borders at Whitehall Mall, PA, was a great success. They sold 83 books that day. The General Manager was extremely happy and just informed Marisa that "There's a Coqui in my Shoe!" is right now being displayed in their children's section. How exciting is that?

Marisa took some photos at the event and I will post them as soon as I get them.

Salt and Soap Spread 3

Here's another spread from the Salt and Soap book. Only three more spreads and the book is done. Can't wait to see it in print.

Greame Base - My Hero

Seeing that I grew up in Australia I came accross the work or Graeme Base many years ago. He is one of the first illustrators that really spoke to me. Not to me directly, but his work per se. I love looking at each of his images. The longer you look at them the more you discover. You can literally get lost in the spreads of his books. All I could think of was how wonderful it would be to illustrate books like that one day.

The other thing I really like about him was that he was a local artist. I lived in the Melbourne area and went to Box Hill College of Tafe for a year for Art & Design (way back when...) and he had attended Box Hill High School. Granted it was a lot earlier than when I was there, but I still felt a connection to him and his work.

Here is the cover for his book "The Eleventh Hour " and a link to his official gallery site to look at some of his artwork.

http://www.graemebase.com/Home.cfm

I stumbled across the following essay that talks about his work and carreer in more detail.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,0_1000002108,00.html

Coqui Sings - Article

Check out this link.

http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-coqui.6576545sep09,0,3086000.story?page=2

This is the article that appeared today in the Morning Call Newspaper in Pennsylvania. What a neat write up about the book. I like the photo of Marisa holding the book open. They also used the photo of the three of us at Chi Chi Rodrigues golf resort, El LEgado.

Thank you Morning Call.

AZ Illustrator Meeting - Tuesday, Oct 14th - 7:00 pm

Hello AZ Illustrators,

Are you ready for our next Illustrator meeting? Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 14th, at 7:00 pm in the evening. We’ll be meeting at a new location that we talked about at our last meeting. We’ll meet at the Barnes & Noble at the Tempe Marketplace. It is located in Tempe where the 202 and the 101 meet off Rio Salado. We’ll be meeting in the café. Here is more info about the location as well as directions on how to get there:

http://storelocator.barnesandnoble.com/storedetail.do;jsessionid=18F9DD089372E8294E9BDB99CB3796D6?store=2243

Seeing that this meeting will be about a week and a half after the Pat Cummings workshop, it’ll be great to see the development of those sketches. Bring along any work you would like to show, etc. It’ll be great to see everyone again. Let’s share ideas and get together with fellow artists. We always have a great time so I hope you can make it.

Drop me a line if you are able to make it so that I know how many people to expect.

Hope to see you there.

PA Book Signing and article in the Morning Call

I just found out that The Morning Call, which is a daily newspaper in the Allentown, PA area, will be printing a feature length article on "There's a Coqui in My Shoe!" It will be printed in the Lifestyle section and will appear in the Tuesday, Sept 9th Issue. Anyone in the Allentown, PA area can take a peek.

Also, Marisa de Jesus Paolicelli, the author of "There's a Coqui in My Shoe!" will have a book signing comming up to celebrate Latino Heritage Month. Feel free to stop by and say hi. Here's the info

Book Signing at Borders
Whitehall Mall, PA
Saturday September 13th, 2008
From 1:00pm to 3:00 pm

Salt and Soap Spread 2

Here's another spread from the Salt & Soap book. I don't know why, but I really like this one.

Salt & Soap Spread

Here's one of the spreads that I completed for the Salt and Soap Project. Still working on the finals of the remaining spreads. Almost there...

Center for Biological Diversity talks about Coqui book!

I just received word that "There's a Coqui in My Shoe" was featured in the Activist Spotlight on the Center for Biological Diversity website. That a peek at:

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/action/spotlight/index.html

It talks about the book and mentions the concern the book brings to light about the endangered coqui species. It's definitely worth the read.

El Yunque National Raiforest Newsletter

Check this out:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/el_yunque/about/cnf_newsletter/eynf_newsletter_summer_2008.pdf

The El Yunque National Raiforest Newsletter on page 2 has a little write up about the book signing we had at El Portal in July. Neat, eh?