PA ONE BOOK GOODIES

I've been working on some fun activities for the PA One Book Guide. Here's a peek at a Zoo Maze and some sticker ideas.

"Start Fishing, Bernard!" a fishing game  with magnets and paperclips, where kids learn what otters eat. Bonus if you know that the rock is something they don't eat but use as a tool to open up shellfish and peel abalone from rocks. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

THANKFULNESS

As Thanksgiving is fast approaching, I have lots to be thankful for, two cute little boys and an amazing wife. I'm also thankful for a holiday that promotes naps. I LOVE naps, so does Bernard and apparently Arianna Huffington loves both. Check this article from New York Magazine. 

So this holiday, after you have hugged your family and are on the sofa, turn off football and indulge in a nap.

LOVE-A-RAMA

This is a piece for Oxford American Magazine. Leon Bass is a Rockabilly performer who had a couple hits in the 60's and is from Alabama. He stopped performing in the 70's and worked a factory job.
In the late 90's producers from Hollywood contacted him about using one of his songs in a movie and with the renewed interest in his work, he began to perform again.
This is one of his more famous tunes.

NEW WORK IN THIS MONTHS PHILLY MAG

What?! Your kid doesn't speak Mandarin?! New piece for the Nov ish of Philly Mag. Check out the article here. First person to correctly guess/translate what this little girls is asking gets a prize...yeah I know, another contest.

HALLOWEEN IN FUZZYTOWN

It's almost Halloween here in Fuzzytown, can't wait for Trick or Treating but even better is the Halloween Parade the night before, and we will be Boogalooing all down the Avenue.

In the spirit of the season, six people will be chosen at random to win a treat!
Email me at zach@zohora.com with the phrase Trick or Treat in the subject line to enter.

WORLD'S FUNKIEST COVERS LP

Just finished a fun project for Cultures of Soul Records a LP and CD cover for a comp called World's Funkiest Covers. Pretty dope selection of covers in a slew of styles. I can't wait to get a copy on wax. Pre-order and listen here.

And a couple of rough sketches and different directions below.

STROLLER SET

This has nothing to do with illustration but I'm posting it anyway. Fake models working for a real magazine. Yep, that's me, Oskar and Teddy bringing up the rear. You can't tell from this angle, but Teddy's pants are full and he's eating Skittles left over from his birthday. And I fudged Oskar's model release because he said he didn't want to be in a magazine. Good parenting in action!
Click on the picture to see it bigger.
Photo by Ryan Donnell in the current issue of Philadelphia Magazine, superb design by J Southerland.

SOMETHING SPECIAL

A couple weeks ago I had tweeted asking for a couple new followers for this blog. In order to entice new people to sign up, I promised something special in the mail. Well, I finally got around to sending those little "something specials" in the mail.

Congratulations and thank you's go to Andy Smith and Chris Silas Neal both awesome illustrators in their own right. Check out their work when you have a chance.

The prizes were; an accordion man painting on a vintage medical book page. (Pictured here) that went to Andy Smith. And a portrait of John Bonham also painted on a vintage medical book page went to Chris.
The one that went with the Led Zeppelin set that I blogged about last month.
(Full disclosure-Chris is a friend and also a drummer who loves John Bonham so that was an easy one)

Hope you guys enjoy your something specials and I'll do it again soon, keep an eye on Twitter.

NOT JUST DUST BUNNIES

I went on a cleaning rampage last night and finally cleaned out the studio supply closet. At the back, behind the shelf and on the floor I found this drawing of a Blue Footed Booby and a picture of me in second grade with a missing tooth. This was my favorite flannel shirt as evidenced by the fact that I wore it to picture day for first, second AND third grade.

GETTIN' THE LED OUT

Click on the picture to see it larger.

When I was 14 I had my first great love affair with Rock and Roll. And it was with Led Zeppelin.
Aside from the occasional Neil Young record or The Who, I listened to Zeppelin exclusively from my freshman year in high school through my junior year or whenever Nirvana's Nevermind came out.

Growing up in a religious fundamentalist, strict household, I was grounded to my room quite a bit and I spent endless hours drawing with Zep on my Walkman headphones. Of course that was illegal too, as Page had made a deal with **Satan (which was a bonus for me) but the plain fact was, they rocked!
** Jimmy Page lived in alleged Satanist Aleister Crowley's house, whose autobiography I relished, hidden inside my school text books, better to get busted for reading that at school than at home!

In fact, Rock and Roll in general was forbidden, being the devil's tool and all. I spent large portions of my meager paper route money replacing cassette tapes that had been confiscated and thrown out by my mom.
Looking back 20 odd years now, I realized two things, John Paul Jones was probably the coolest thing about that group and despite the overtly sexist, borderline racist tones, they still rock!

ROCK BLOCK

As the winds are picking up and Hurricane Irene is bearing down on us, I finished a little image for our block party announcement. We have a great bunch of folks on our block and the party is lots of fun.
The event acts as a marker for the official end of summer so, its also a bittersweet one.

SMELLS LIKE FALL TODAY

Fall is my favorite time of year, and this one is gearing up to be a good one. A detail of a book project due this Fall. Hope to show more soon.

YOU KNOW WHEN YOU ABSENTMINDEDLY DOODLE WHILE ON THE PHONE

Oskar turned 4 last week, and we are still recovering from his superhero birthday bash. And he got his first tattoo. Guess what it says? I LOVE MOMMY

STOP SNORING BERNARD AT THE SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS

Found out yesterday that not only did Bernard get into the 2011 Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators, he won the Founders Award to boot. Not bad for a little guy who naps and snores all day!

In all seriousness it is an honor to be listed among so many great people including Lane Smith (who received a Silver Medal) who inspired me way back in high school with the True Story of the Three Little Pigs.

POPSICLE BROTHERS

It's so hot this summer, my little guys have developed a 3 to 4 popsicles a day habit. Gonna be a intervention here before school starts.

INSPIRATION

Was in South Philly yesterday and found these little gems at Molly's in the Italian Market.
I only learned about Roger Duvoisin a couple years ago, incredible illustrator! Just a beautiful line and gorgeous composition. I wish these old books had every page in color instead of every other spread.

One of my favorite Richard Scarry books of all time, Rabbit and Friends, I scored two for a $1.25 each!

Another oldie but goodie.




















And last but not least, I've never seen this one before, but its pretty much a perfect book and subtly teaches good manners.

THE BUNKER

I've been slowly carving a little space in our basement for a bunker/man-cave area along with my tools and the random bicycle pump. Yes, I'm afraid I've reached that age where a small staking of territory is necessary and beneficial to the entire household.
Anyway, found some little wood scraps and made a little puzzle/gift for someone. One mans junk is another....

BANG IT'S THE 4TH

Can't believe how fast the summer is going by. Independence Day was great, lots of good food, friends and family. Oskar had his first fireworks experience and discovered the joys of sparklers too.  Picked this cake up at Genuardi's, it was the only one, not sure if it's because they only made one or it was so awesome I luckily got that last one?

YOUR KIDS ARE ANIMALS!

A recent piece in this month's Philadelphia Magazine. Two best friends have kids. One kid is wild the other is not. Because of this, the friendship begins to crumble, a touchy subject is handled deftly via excellent art direction from Jesse Southerland and liberal use of animal stand-ins.

TIN HOUSE TEE

Sneak Peek of a limited edition Tee Shirt for the folks at Tin House. Looking forward to rocking one of these myself later on this summer. Yes Virgina, that is a martini drinking gorilla on top of the house!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

I was making a card for my Dad today, trying to get it done before the mailman stopped by.
Yeah, I know, kinda last minute, but that's the old man's style too.
 I was thinking about a moment in my childhood when I felt completely safe and loved, and it was when my Dad would tuck our feet in on a cold New Hampshire night.
 There was something soothing about having you feet bundled up in your blankets, even though you would move two minutes later and free them.
I find myself tucking Oskar's feet in at night, even when its not that cold.
I have a lot to be thankful as a Dad myself. Two beautiful little boys and an amazing wife. Or maybe its the other way around...

How did I get to be so lucky?

MISTER JANUARY

Even though we are half way through 2011 I still feel like it just started. But 2012 is coming, as evidenced by the fact that I just finished a piece for the NPR calendar for 2012.
The assignment was pretty wide open and I sent these two sketches.

To my delight, they chose the burnt eggs one. This is sort of based on my personal NPR "driveway moment". In the morning I make eggs sometimes for Teddy and Oskar. While I'm sipping my first coffee I'll tune into NPR and I've burned a lot of eggs because I was so engrossed. This happens a lot. And it doesn't help that I don't eat eggs myself (yuck!) and I only learned how to cook them properly a couple years ago.

For various reasons we decided to make the gorillas into bears and I came up with this.

They thought the smoke was a bit heavy so I added a little texture to it.

And lastly, it was decided that the bear could look like he is enjoying himself a little more, so I added extra enjoyment.

They chose it for January which seems fitting. I was super psyched to work with everyone at NPR, everyone I had contact with had a great sense of humor and good suggestions to turn this into a fun piece. 

And with all the flack that NPR has been getting from the Republicans, I was extra happy to contribute to their fund raising efforts.

For the record, ALL the funding that NPR receives from the Government would pay for 44 seconds of the Iraq war. But I digress....

Nilsson & Ameila

I was in New York a couple weeks ago and I am super pumped to announce that a new book deal was struck with Nancy Conescu over at Penguin Books. Meet Nilsson and Ameila!
Nilsson is a sweet, well meaning gorilla with a propensity for gorilla sized fits.
Amelia is a little girl with the panache to help Nilsson control his more wild animal-like urges.
Or is it the other way around?
Find out in Summer 2013!

BOOK REPORT

This is Luke, he's in the third grade, rides crazy scooter/skateboard hybrids and lives on our block.
He also has great taste in books.
He made this awesome diorama based on Stop Snoring, Bernard!
Seeing it took me back to making those projects in school, the shoebox diorama! So much fun!
Actually, its kind of what I do now come to think of it. Lucky me!

READING AT MOOMAH THURSDAY MAY 19TH

Super excited about doing this reading at Moomah. They invited me to sit in their animation class for 6-9 year olds. In addition to reading the book I'll be giving a demo on how to draw Bernard. The kids are then going to take their drawings and make stop action animations with them. If you are in New York check it out!

CUPCAKES AND CAB RIDES

Had a great time signing books at Books of Wonder on Saturday. Special thanks to Peter and the staff, who were gracious hosts. Oskar had a great time passing out stickers to every person who came in the store.

Had the pleasure of meeting legendary kids book illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon.

We also were blown away by Matthew Reinhart and his incredible pop-up books.
We snagged a super hero one and got it signed before we left.
To top it all off we got to hang with some good friends and Oskar had his first New York street hot dog, Mr Softie and a carousel ride in Bryant Park.

Asked what was his favorite part of the day?

The cab rides.

BOOKSIGNING THIS SATURDAY AT BOOKS OF WONDER

First off, thanks to everyone who came out on Friday and made the reading at Character Development a success and lots of fun.  This coming Saturday I've been invited by the amazing book store Books of Wonder in Manhattan to participate in Pop-ups and Picture Books. A bookreading, signing, and Q&A from 12-2. Come down and say hello and check out the work by two time Caldecott winners Leo & Diane Dillon,  Amazing pop-up books by Matthew Reinhart and collage by Javaka Steptoe.

I'm especially excited to be bringing my son Oskar along, his first return to his birthplace and our first Father/Son adventure to New York.

100 Euro Show in Amsterdam

I just sent off these little paintings to be included in the 100 € SHOW (the site currently has the old show info up) at Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam. 50% of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.
A great space and a great cause, I only wish I could  jump on a plane to go to Amsterdam next month for the opening, but alas, I will eagerly await someone's Flickr set or Facebook set of the show.

These two are titled:

A Textbook case of Gorilla Hand
and
Oh Yeah?! You and what Army?!

These other two are titled:

Puddle Jumpers
and
Wolfie preps for an Apology

All of them are little paint studies on pages ripped from an old medical book. You can follow the developing content for the show here.

BOOKSIGNING THIS FRIDAY IN THE NARB

Booksigning this Friday and some pics of the window installation. Hope to see you there.