20 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in Illustrations, Published Work
It’s time to share with you the third installment of Denise Swanson’s Devereaux’s Dime Store mystery novel covers: Dead Between the Lines! As always it was a pleasure to work on this book cover with AD Mimi Bark at Penguin Group. This time around the mystery involves gardening, so it was fun working all of the gardening supplies into the background of this image. I will look forward to reading the book when it comes out in March 2014!
16 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in Illustrations
I just finished this illustration inspired by our new town. It’s an interpretation of the view of higgledy-piggledy medieval buildings that you get as you cross the Old Elvet bridge, one of four bridges spanning the River Wear in the city center here in Durham. I love that one of the results of a long history is how buildings get built on to other buildings, and added to and changed, and nothing follows the north-south-east-west grid that I grew up with on the flat plains of Illinois. Of course, the buildings in my drawing are a bit more colorful than the reality here, but what would be the fun of drawing things exactly as they are?
05 Thursday Sep 2013
Posted in Illustrations, Published Work
First, I apologize for my long absence from the blogosphere! For the last several months I’ve been working on two big projects which have kept me from doing much else. One was a big move — to England! My husband landed a two-year post-doc at Durham University in the North East of England, so we sold our condo in Chicago, packed up our belongings, ourselves and our dog Logan, and flew across the Atlantic to start a new chapter of our lives in the UK. It was a big project, but now I’m working from a lovely new studio space on the second floor of our house with a view out the window of rolling hills and sheep.
The other big project I’ve been working on is a line of greeting cards! It’s long been a goal of mine to illustrate greeting cards, stationery, gift wrap and the like, and I’ve finally gotten the chance to work on greeting cards for A Smyth Co., a card wholesaler owned by Amy and John Smyth. I’m so excited to be given the chance to create tons of illustrations of whimsical animals and hand-drawn typography in bright, fun colors. The full line is still being worked on, and the cards won’t be in stores until 2014, but I wanted to give you a taste of them here — I hope you enjoy!
