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!