Panel

Here's one panel from a project I'm working on.
Sorry about the empty word balloon.

Sketch

A pencil sketch.

Colter's Run.

A t-shirt for a crazy scouting event. Colter was a mountain man who was stripped naked by Indian braves and allowed a head start to run for his life. Dude turned out to be pretty fast. 

Sasquatch Field Guide.

I regret not putting some red little flowers around the rocks.

Swine Flu

I guess that's what I get for drawing all those pigs lately.

Invasion of the Bristlebots

Here's a book that I had a hand in illustrating, "Invasion of the Bristlebots."
It was a fun job from KLUTZ.
The artwork I did for this book is nothing like I have done before, I played the role of KLUTZ Scientist Sam, my finished illustrations were actually Sam's notes! Very loose and very, very fun to draw!

Invasion of the BristleBots comes with two mini-robots — basically motorized toothbrush heads. These guys zoom around like caffeinated cockroaches, spinning, skittering, and bouncing off walls. Resistance is futile.

Check out this book and play with the BristleBots! You can find these on Amazon.com and the KLUTZ web site!

A possible postcard to send out.

I usually go with overnightprints.com and order about 250.  It costs around 70 - 80 bucks. Mailing these is around 40 cents, but you just can't beat the flexibility with who see's it.

Wes

William Steig's widow debunks creationist charge

LOL: At how William Steig’s Yellow & Pink has fershtipled the brain of New York Times book editor Gregory Cowles. Steig, late author of Shrek, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, and other children’s classics, would be having a chuckle, no doubt, were he here to read that his story, published in 1984, is interpreted as a creationist’s fable.
In Yellow & Pink, as Cowles describes in his April 14 posting for the Times’ books blog Paper Cuts, two carved figures awaken in a field and start...

Full Article

The Daily Rebel

I was researching the latest paper to run Max Weaver's Grubbs comic strip, the Garhwal Post in India, and ran across the story below.

We've grown pretty lacadaisical about newspapers in the United States, both on the readership end and the publisher side. We all seem to have forgotten what newspapers can deliver that other media can't, and worse, why they should.

In many other parts of the world, newspapers are thriving, and where they are not thriving, their need is recognized. As an example, the Garhwal Post is the only English-language paper in Uttarakhand. This story reminds us that Whoever controls the media can in many ways control the People, because we can only make decisions based on the information we have access to.

Today most American newspapers are owned by a handful of media conglomerates, and studies show a level of distrust in American media that is higher than any time in this country's history. While media conglomerates continue to cause their newspapers to self-destruct, I look forward to new, independent publishers entering the field who aren't afraid to take risks and know what newspapers are all about.

Ted

Garhwal Post Workers Manhandled

DEHRADUN, 1 Oct: As many as 15 youths, reportedly on the way back from the launch party of a newspaper, manhandled employees of Garhwal Post who were pasting promotional banners on Tuesday night. Youths manhandled employees, put a bundle of flex banners on fire, and pulled down some GP hoardings. Manohar, an employee of Garhwal Post, was supervising two other hired employees in the putting up of banners at Behl Chowk on Rajpur Road at around 1:30 a.m. Inebriated youths who were on motorcycles stopped them from doing so and manhandled them before snatching the banners. They youths even threatened the employees that their bicycles would be set on fire if they continued to put up the banners.The youths then asked them where they had put similar banners and proceeded towards Clock Tower. When Garhwal Post people inspected the area, they found that banners and hoardings had been pulled down from many places including the Clock Tower, Gandhi Road and Chakrata Road. A complaint has been lodged with Dalanwala Police in this regard. Senior police officials were also immediately informed.
The youth are believed to be working in a national English Daily launched few days back.

Link

Trailer for "Jackson and Bud's Bumpy Ride."

This is a cute little trailer for the book "Jackson and Bud's Bumpy Ride" written by Liz Koheler-Pentacoff and drawn by yours truly.   It shows a few of my favorite scenes and represents the book quite nicely. Please check it out!

Wes

IF: Fleeting.

And -poof! ......   It was gone. 

Sam and the Firefly - An Analysis

From screenwriter Todd Alcott

P.D. Eastman, Wikipedia says, was a protege of Dr. Seuss. His Go, Dog. Go! is a staple of the beginning-to-read set, and his Are You My Mother? is always welcome around my house. But for my money, Sam and the Firefly is not only Eastman's crowning achievement, it is also a compact, brisk, efficient course in storytelling, a small masterwork of character, plot and dramatic structure, far more accomplished than the much-more-famous, but ultimately-rather-meta The Cat in the Hat, and all achieved with a set of words designed for a 5-year-old to read. . .

Full Article

BILL PEET AT THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

The Bill Peet Storybook Menagerie

August 23, 2008–May 24, 2009

Galleries 15–16

After a 27-year career working as Walt Disney’s principle animator and main “storyman,” Bill Peet devoted himself full-time to writing and illustrating children’s books. Along with sketches and storyboards from his Disney days, this exhibition features original works of art from 14 of Peet’s 34 published books, including Buford the Little Bighorn, The Caboose Who Got Loose, Capyboppy, Chester the Worldly Pig, Cowardly Clyde, Ella, How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head, Kermit the Hermit, Pamela Camel, The Wump World, and the Caldecott Honor Book Bill Peet: An Autobiography.

Bill Peet's Website

Setting Freelance Rates

Everyone’s Talking, but No One’s Saying Anything

From Freelance Parent

There is absolutely TONS of talk on the blogs about how to set your freelance rates. You will probably notice, however, that while everyone talks about how to set your rates, no one tells you what they actually charge. There are a couple of reasons for that, in my opinion:

• If you tell others what you charge, they might undercut your rates and get all your great jobs.
• Other freelancers might make fun of you for not charging enough. (There are a couple of freelancers in the blogosphere who make it their personal mission to go around berating freelancers who don’t charge enough.)
• People might think you’re too big for your britches if they learn that you’re charging three times more than they are.
• Our culture has certain taboos regarding talking about money in more than hypothetical terms.

Tamara and I have attempted to break through some of these obstacles by posting our own freelance income report each month. Of course, we didn’t do that early on when we were happy to make a couple hundred dollars a month, but that’s mostly because we hadn’t thought of it yet. We really want to try to take some of the mystique out of freelancing, so that’s why we made the decision to post those reports. . .

Full Article

The Fear of Success

ARE YOU AFRAID OF SUCCESS? A SURPRISING NUMBER OF TALENTED PEOPLE ARE. TO FIND OUT IF YOU'RE ONE OF THEM, TAKE OUR QUIZ ON PAGE 110. THEN TAKE HEART. THE DREAD OF DOING WELL IS ROOTED DEEP IN THE UNCONSCIOUS, BUT YOU CAN OVERCOME FEAR OF SUCCESS.

By ANNE B. FISHER REPORTER ASSOCIATE JOYCE E. DAVIS

(FORTUNE Magazine) – "An amazing day. Amazing. I don't know how it happened. He had played so great. It was the strangest turn of events I've ever seen. I feel so sad for him." So said Nick Faldo about Greg Norman, while wearing the green jacket that everybody, including Faldo, had assumed was finally going to be Norman's at Augusta this year. The man is a mystery. Far and away the biggest moneymaker in pro golf, he wins and wins and wins--until he gets to a major tournament. At the Masters, he took a six-stroke lead and the next day, in just five holes, handed his six strokes and then some to the guy behind him. He's done this not just once, not twice, but over and over and over again...

What is it about Norman that is so riveting? Maybe we recognize in him something of ourselves. In a world that seems determined to sort out winners from losers, he is that terrible enigma: a gifted loser, a player who clearly can win but, when the stakes are highest, somehow hamstrings himself. It almost looks as if he's doing it on purpose. And yet, how could he?

You don't have to be a sports fan to see the parallels between golf and business ... But hold on. Most often, being your own worst enemy is a far more subtle thing...

Full Article

A Cavesquatch

Dusty and smelly. A dry cave dweller mostly.

Untitled

SNL - Save the Funnies

Book by Young Authors

My son has enjoyed reading two books I discovered recently, both written by kids, both Best-Sellers. I ran across both of these by chance, and am now looking actively for other books by young authors. My kids find it encouraging and inspiring and actually, so do I.

Alec Greven wrote How to Talk to Girls when he was nine years old. This book is a result of his research. Initially, Alec self-published and was discovered by a publisher at a book fair. He has written two sequels, How to Talk to Moms, and How to Talk to Dads.

Nancy Yi Fan began writing Swordbird after 9/11 and a dream she had. She was inspired to write a story for a world at war, with a strong message of peace. Swordbill was published when she was twelve years old, with an initial print run of 50,000 copies. It made the New York Times Best-Seller list. She has written a prequel, Sword Quest.

These are both great books and we recommend them. Both are currently on the book shelves at B&N and can be found online as well.

Iron John

Inking

After our math lessons this morning, I had the kids do some inking. This was done by my ten-year-old son with a PITT brush pen, and I was duly impressed. He has a good sense of how to vary the line width and his lines are becoming smoother.

...And another one...

Apple Picking - Color

I decided to paint the Apple Picking drawing (see below).

Raymond and Graham Rule Kansas Schools

Raymond and Graham Rule the School has been selected for the Kansas State Reading Circle’s Recommended Reading List for 2009.

The Kansas National Education Association creates an annual recommended reading list for children in grades K-12. Selected titles are placed on one of five lists: Kansas Titles, Primary, Intermediate, Junior High/Middle School, and Senior High/Young Adult. The lists are distributed and promoted throughout the state of Kansas during the current year.

Apple Picking

Just a quick drawing.

"Where the Wild Things Are"

Click here for a better quality trailer.

Discuss.

A simple how-to in Tshirt Pro-Bono land

Sometimes we, as illustrators, are approached to do a T-shirt for _______. I really enjoy putting together a T, but most of these jobs are not going to make me rich. This is how I put a Tshirt together without spending a week on it. 

I find the right free image (snake bones above) in google and run it through a vector program such as Flash or Streamline.  Then I take a freeware font and shove it through photoshop's liquify tool with low pressure around the edges of the image and also other text. 

Once it's done in black and white I run it through the vector program again. This gives it that "Tshirt" look, plus it's ready for the graphics people. 

I try to design Tshirts for these groups that they might actually like to wear more than once for the event. I do bump into them around town from time to time.

Wes

Saskatchewan Brown (Canada) and an Appalachian wolf-man.

The biggest and then one of the rarest.  Proportions are mostly accurate here.

Eric Carle - Google

Famed children's illustrator Eric Carle designed Google's Google for this year's vernal equinox.

...And another two.

Martin's Redfoot and a Barking Trelp.

Two more sasquatches.

A Molesquatch and a Death Valley Moon-man.

New Elementary School Named for Children's Author

The new southwest elementary school shall henceforth be known as David Harrison Elementary School.

At Tuesday's meeting, the Springfield school board voted to name the school after Harrison, a local businessman, children's book author and literacy advocate.

David Harrison Elementary, at the corner of Weaver Road and Golden Avenue, is scheduled to open in August .

After the vote, the 30 or so people in attendance stood and clapped.

"I have no idea how to thank you enough," Harrison said after the applause died down. "I am just extremely grateful."

The name was one of three finalists presented to the board at the study session two weeks ago. Dogwood Elementary and Kildee Park were the other two.

Ultimately, the board favored David Harrison Elementary.

Harrison served on the school board from 1982-88, acting as vice president and president during his tenure. But he is perhaps best known for his children's books and promotion of reading.

He has written more than 70 books, including fiction, non fiction and poetry.

Harrison also initiated the Reading Roundup, a local fundraising campaign to stock district libraries with books.

Link

Lead raises questions about children's books

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Could a vintage, dog-eared copy of "The Cat in the Hat" or "Where the Wild Things Are" be hazardous to your children?

Probably not, according to the nation's premier medical sleuths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But a new federal law banning more than minute levels of lead in most products intended for children 12 or younger — and a federal agency's interpretation of the law — prompted at least two libraries last month to pull children's books printed before 1986 from their shelves.

Lead poisoning has been linked to irreversible learning disabilities and behavioral problems, and lead was present in printer's ink until a growing body of regulations banned it in 1986. The federal law, which took effect Feb. 10, was passed last summer after a string of recalls of toys.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has interpreted the law to include books but has neither concluded that older books could be hazardous to children nor made any recommendations to libraries about quarantining such tomes, agency chief of staff Joe Martyak said Tuesday.

Still, the agency's interpretation itself has been labeled alarmist by some librarians.

"We're talking about tens of millions of copies of children's books that are perfectly safe. I wish a reasonable, rational person would just say, `This is stupid. What are we doing?'" said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association's Washington office.

A CPSC spokesman told The Associated Press in a recent interview that until more testing is done, the nation's more than 116,000 public and school libraries should take steps to ensure that children are kept away from books printed before 1986.

After the spokesman's comments appeared Tuesday in an AP story, Martyak said the spokesman "misspoke" about the agency's stance on older books and younger children.
"We're not urging libraries to take them off the shelves," Martyak said. "It's true the CPSC is investigating whether the ink contains unsafe levels of lead in children's books printed before 1986."

Jay Dempsey, a health communications specialist at the CDC, said lead-based ink in children's books poses little danger.

"If that child were to actually start mouthing the book — as some children put everything in their mouths — that's where the concern would be," Dempsey said. "But on a scale of one to 10, this is like a 0.5 level of concern."

The publishing and printing industries set up a Web site for book publishers last December to post the results of studies measuring the lead in books and their components, such as ink and paper. Those results show lead levels that were often undetectable and consistently below not only the new federal threshold, but the more stringent limit that goes into effect in August 2011.
Those findings were cited in a letter from the Association of American Publishers to the CPSC.

The American Library Association said it has no estimate of how many children's books printed before 1986 are in circulation. But typically, libraries don't have many, because youngsters are hard on books, librarians said.

"Frankly, most of our books have been well-used and well-appreciated," said Rhoda Goldberg, director of the Harris County Public Library system in Houston. "They don't last 24 years."

Full Article

Steve Ditko Original Art

Back in the Seventies, Marvel Comics grudgingly agreed to return original art to its artists. At least one cartoonist didn't seem to care much, and reportedly used the returned art as cutting boards. Said cartoonist was the enigmatic Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. His original art is extremely elusive, so if you happen to have a few grand lying around, you may be interested in this eBay auction.

Collecting Original Picture Book Art

The power of children's picture books hasn't escaped Carol Wolfenbarger.

More than 30 years later, the Columbus resident readily recalls the effect that such illustrations had on the fourth- and fifth-graders she taught during the 1970s.

"The kids would use the books as models for their own art," she said. "They would be so inspired."

The teacher was likewise inspired, buying her first piece of original art from a children's book during the 1980s -- and initiating a collection that has grown to 60 pieces of original art, plus limited-edition prints and papers.

"If you're not involved with children's books, you might overlook this beautiful field," said Wolfenbarger, who, at 66, is no longer a classroom teacher.

"I just so admire the work, and I think it's equal to any fine art."

Read the Full article and then watch the amazing Slide show!

House Recognizes Mars Rovers

H. Res. 67

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,
March 11, 2009.

Whereas the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity successfully landed on Mars on January 3, 2004, and January 24, 2004, respectively, on missions to search for evidence indicating that Mars once held conditions hospitable to life;

Whereas NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), managed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), designed and built the Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity;

Whereas Cornell University led the development of advanced scientific instruments carried by the 2 Rovers, and continues to play a leading role in the operation of the 2 Rovers and the processing and analysis of the images and other data sent back to Earth;

Whereas the Rovers relayed over a quarter million images taken from the surface of Mars;

Whereas studies conducted by the Rovers have indicated that early Mars was characterized by impacts, explosive volcanoes, and subsurface water;

Whereas each Rover has discovered geological evidence of ancient Martian environments where habitable conditions may have existed;

Whereas the Rovers have explored over 21 kilometers of Martian terrain, climbed Martian hills, descended deep into large craters, survived dust storms, and endured 3 cold, dark Martian winters; and

Whereas Spirit and Opportunity will have passed 5 years of successful operation on the surface of Mars on January 3, 2009, and January 24, 2009, respectively, far exceeding the original 90-Martian day mission requirement by a factor of 20, and are continuing their missions of surface exploration and scientific discovery: Now therefore be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) commends the engineers, scientists, and technicians of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Cornell University for their successful execution and continued operation of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity; and

(2) recognizes the success and significant scientific contributions of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers.

Hank Ketcham

Saturday was Hank Ketcham's birthday and oddly enough, on Saturday, I received a wonderful gift from a most awesome friend.
A Hank Ketcham gag cartoon now hangs in my studio.

Hank Ketcham is one of my cartooning heroes, his linework is just beautiful!

This cartoon must be pre-Dennis the Menace, my guess is it's from the mid-1940's.

Click on the image above to get a better view of the details.

Red Boojum Howler

From. Louisiana, of course.

Kootenai Forest Man

Another sasquatch. This one's from north Montana. I imagine he eats bird eggs with that reach.

-Wes

Charcoal brush Smudge

For what it's worth:

I have found the Smudge tool in Photoshop 8> to be a useful tool for blending harsh lines of color. The trick is to use a brush other than the default.

I've posted a screen shot of the brush I use for the Smudge tool. You can see how, with some adjusting of the brush size and intensity, quick and dirty lines can be blended to achieve a more natural result. Then additional detail can be added.






















With the basic color definitions below, the same tool gives a less harsh blend of the colors.

Thought for Today

Do it for yourself. Nobody cares.


From gapingvoid's "Ignore Everybody."

Supes

Eye

When I don't know what to draw, I often start sketching an eye. This was in Photoshop.

Two Sasquatches.

A running Yobe and a Half-squatch.

Check this out....

GE Augmented Reality.

You need a webcam and a printer and a computer.

If you don't want to do it, you can check out this video of how it works:

Elephant

Baker Bear

Happy 105th Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

March 2nd is Dr. Seuss' 105th Birthday!

On Monday, Google changed its nameplate to honor Dr. Seuss:


Happy Birthday to the greatest children's book author ever!

The genius children's book author/illustrator, Berkeley Breathed, was quoted in a Cincinnati Enquirer interview saying:

“To tell you the truth, we don’t own any Dr. Seuss. I had them all when I was five. But I challenge today’s parents to tell me their children love Dr. Seuss. I can’t find any children who do.”

Really? Kids don't like "The Cat in the Hat," "Too Many Daves," "The Butter Battle Book," "The Lorax," "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," "Hop on Pop," etc.

What an ignorant thing to say.

Personally, I love "The Lorax" and "Too Many Daves."

Links:
Seussville

Highlights High Five Magazine

Here's a cover I illustrated for the March issue of Highlights High Five Magazine.

Go buy a copy.

-stacy.

IF: Breezy

Pig! Once again this is watercolor on strathmore imperial 500 hot press with touches of colored and graphite pencil. The wolf just kept getting loonier as I went along.