Illustration Friday - Wide

One way Harry the Octopus found friends was to draw them in with his tropical island. Before you land yourself upon a nice acquaintance, take a wider view and see what's underneath!

I am working on another piece for "Wide", but I thought this one might fit as well. So here is a teaser.

Spring cleaning surprise!

A piece I did for the SCBWI illustrator contest (for which I won Honorable Mention last time!). Here is the idea:

"In a spring cleaning frenzy, the star of your story finally reaches the last closet. It hasn't been opened in a long, long time, and when the door is thrown wide...
WHAT'S INSIDE?"

...and of course what's inside my closet? ANIMALS!! (and free bananas) I can't decide on a title, it's between-

"Surprise closet clean-up"
"Want a banana?"
"Secret closet creatures"

So we'll see how I do in the contest, there could be lots of really cool entries for this one! Good topic!

Primitive escape!

A piece I did for my portfolio that I thought could work for Illustration Friday. There isn't a story behind this yet, but I'm working on a companion piece so it's developing slowly... For now, here is the "primitive" escape!

Also, I won honorable mention in the SCBWI (Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators) illustration contest titled "Finish Line" this month. See the winners (my last blog post is my entry) here.

A Heavy Scene

Someone is about to feel the weight of this race's unconventional winner.

Leap!

Here is my leaper for Illustration Friday. A leap over a fellow leaper, during the leap year!

New work and interview

Just for fun, one of two bird paintings I did recently.



If anyone out there has not heard of Etsy, you need to get yourself over to Etsy.com and check out some hand made stuff. Etsy is a community of people with individual stores selling hand made items such as jewelry, prints, art, clothing, knitted items, and so on. TONS of really cool stuff!

My store is the Woody Mart. I'm selling prints, original paintings, magnets, and cards. Recently I was interviewed by the talented Melanie about my art and my Etsy store. You can read the interview here at her blog. Here is my little Etsy "Woody Mart" ad.

Etsy Buy Handmade WoodyMart

Also, here is a new painting for last weeks painting-a-week (I know I haven't posted every weeks paintings, but I'm still on track!). It's a sort of "pre" idea painting for a picture book I'm working on about the moon. Enjoy!

Tiger painting

New for this week, it's the tiger! This would make a nice blanket. It is painted with acrylic and caran d'ache over a moroccan pattern. It was actually painted to fit into a mat that I created to look like old stone with a sort of Thai pattern opening. Sounds confusing, I know, but I'll take a picture of it all, if/when I get it framed.

I am happy to report that I have kept on task with the painting a week, 6 weeks in. So I should have plenty of original art to sell at the summer art fairs and such. Also, don't forget to check out my Etsy store, the WoodyMart to see the new paintings for sale as well as prints and cards.