Swerve online

The Swerve article titled It's A Small World is here:
http://swervecalgary.com/2011/03/11/it’s-a-small-world/


I like how the color of the cover's text matches Red Wagon. And also the way the type fits around the little bee at the bottom.

Swerve

There is a great article written by Marcello Di Cintio coming out in tomorrow's Calgary Herald/Swerve magazine. It is about writing and illustrating Children's Books in Calgary, it features 4 local writers and illustrators including myself. Plus I illustrated the cover and several interior spots. This is the initial drawing for one of the illustrations, see it in color in the magazine tomorrow if you are in Calgary.

THE LOUD BOOK!

Well, I guess I shouldn't keep quiet about this.


Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast has a lovely big preview with lot's of images from The Loud Book ,which is coming out next month. Here is the link:
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2088

Lumberjack Dude

In Vancouver it seemed to me that the look for cool dudes was a Lumberjack English Gentleman sort of thing.


I don't know what that means but it's how I would describe it.
Casual but well dressed with skinny jeans, suit jacket, nice belt, optional canadian toque, sneakers or boots, and Ewan McGregor hairdo.

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A short but sweet review for RED WAGON in the Chicago Tribune HERE

Vancouver

I was in Vancouver on business, which really means drawing at coffee shops! My favorite area was around Main Street which had two shops I loved drawing at, Gene and Our Town. We went to Our Town a couple of times, one night they had trivia night which was fun to observe - I got a question right! Prado on Commercial Drive was great too, lot's of light and designy. In Gastown I enjoyed the super long table at Salty Tongue Cafe. Urban Fare is a grocery for fresh veggies or breads or something for a quick bite to eat, I wish we had one in Calgary.





The breakfast was good!

At last, Red Wagon arrived at the market!

Whew! Today is the official release day of Red Wagon in the USA (Feb 22 in Canada).


I am most comfortable drawing small scenes with just a few characters, so one of the challenges of Red Wagon was that all the pages are double page spreads with lots of critters and such. As the last few posts may have suggested, I solved this by often drawing the pages in pieces, sometimes in different sketchbooks and putting them together in photoshop later. This gives me lots of flexibility to change the composition and characters. I needed that for this picture as I had to make more than one attempt at it to get it right. Thankfully I had a great art director, Cecilia Yung, who helped me bring this picture to life.