Picture Book Workshop!

Early in the new year I will be teaching a Picture Book Workshop in Santa Fe at Bee Hive Kids' Books. The class will meet on four consecutive Tuesdays, from 6-8pm: January 15th, 22nd, 29th and February 5th. This will give participants a week between each session to complete the homework. Each assignment builds upon the previous session's work, with a goal of creating a complete picture book manuscript and sample illustration by the end of the course.

I will be sharing my experiences working as a professional illustrator, creating picture books by myself and with authors, as well as tips for working in traditional publishing and how to self-publish your own picture books.

I taught a Children's Book Summer Workshop in 2012 at The Center for Cartoon Studies which was so much fun! Ever since, I've wanted to try it again, and now I've finally got the chance. You can sign up for the course over on the Bee Hive Writing Workshops webpage. Space is limited!

2014 Recap: Get Me Out Of Here! Cover and Save Rafe! Map

Okay, as promised, I'm finally going to start posting some of the illustration work that I did last year! I'll alternate these posts with my 100 Watercolors posts, until I run out of stuff.

In 2013 I finished illustrating Middle School: Ultimate Showdown.  Then, a few times in 2014, the art directors of the Middle School series contacted me to do a few random art jobs in "Rafe's" drawing style (which is, of course, drawn by Laura Park who illustrates the Middle School and I Funny series).

The first project was to draw some new Rafes for the cover of the second book in the series, Get Me Out of Here!  I drew half a dozen different variations and this one was used for the current cover, which still incorporates lots of elements from Laura's original cover, plus a new photographic element:

The second project was a promotional map for the sixth book in the series, Save Rafe!  The idea was to convey the entire plot of the book in one giant map.  I guess this folds in thirds and then fits inside the book, though I have never seen it in a copy of the book.  Maybe it only went out to schools or libraries or something?  If anyone has ever seen one of these in real life, please let me know!  I'd be interested to know where you came across it.

Click to see bigger!

Next week I'll be talking about some illustrations that I did for the Slate.com Book Review!

Evil Dead: The Musical Poster

This was another illustration assignment from my Pratt days.  If memory serves, we were supposed to select one of the plays that was currently running in New York and make a poster for it.  I chose Evil Dead: The Musical because I thought it would provide some interesting imagery.  Ironically, I have never seen any of the Evil Dead movies (or the play) because I can't handle horror movies.

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.

Beg Yr Pardon Poster

Back in 2006 I was asked to illustrate a poster for the Beg Yr Pardon concert series in New York City. It was a lot of fun to try and get all of this information onto a single sheet of 8.5" x 11" piece of paper.  Hand lettering all the way!

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.

Weezer Memories Tour VIP Posters

PLEASE NOTE: I do NOT have any extra copies of these posters! And I will ABSOLUTELY NOT give anyone a high-res file so they can print their own! Your best bet is eBay, but hardcore Weezer fans paid $500 (each!) for these posters, so you are probably not going to find them.

There's no way for me to know what the rest of my illustration career will hold, but I DO know that this year I got to draw the two coolest illustrations I will probably ever get to do.  Yes, as the title of this post says, I got to draw two posters for my all-time favorite band, WEEZER.

This summer, I got to go backstage at a Weezer concert in Vermont, which was easily one of the coolest nights of my life (the above link is a 3,000 word summary of the show).  After years of correspondence, I got to finally meet Karl Koch that night, who runs their website, documents and archives all kinds of information about the band, and in general, keeps the Weezer world turning.

Well, a few weeks after the show, I got an email from Karl, asking if I would like to design two posters for Weezer's upcoming "Memories" tour.  The idea for the tour is that Weezer plays two nights in each city, and on the first night they play a bunch of hits and then close by playing the ENTIRE Blue Album from start to finish.  Then the next night they do the same thing but play ALL of Pinkerton.  So NOT ONLY did they want me to do some illustrations for my favorite band, but they wanted me to focus on my two favorite albums of theirs.  This was a dream assignment, if ever there was one.

For the tour, Weezer is partnering with I Love All Access to offer these amazing VIP packages, which (for $500 a ticket!) include a meet and greet with the band, front row seats and some exclusive merchandise, including my posters!  Since most of you probably can't afford those rates, here are some  .JPEGs for you to enjoy instead (click to make bigger).

The deadline for this project was pretty tight, so Karl suggested I start with some other illustrations I had been making for Weezer (more on that later!) and put them in a grid - one illustration for each song.  If you don't know every word to every song on these albums, I'm afraid most of these will go over your head, but I was assuming that people who are paying $500 for a ticket will get the inside jokes!

Initially the posters were in full color, but then Karl suggested I limit the palette, which I did, based on the cover art of each album (I also carefully matched all of the lettering from both albums).  Then as a last step, Karl showed the posters to Rivers for final approval.  Rivers asked us to hide a secret message in the posters, which I did.  Needless to say, it was SUPER cool to have his input!!!

For payment, I received some money, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, tickets to the New York stop of the Memories tour!  Claire and I are heading down to the city on Thursday and this weekend we are going to ROCK OUT, old school Weezer style!