Taking a crazy leap

Hard to believe that the weekend has slipped away already, but that is the outcome when I get a chance to work in the studio pretty much uninterrupted. It is a luxury that I wish would happen more often, and relish in the next opportunity to dig into a creative mode. As I have been blessed lately with the workings of many books, I have come to find myself even more interested in the nuances of children's books. With that, I have decided to take a crazy leap into the writing side of children's books. I know that you think I may be crazy, but rest assured that I would also be doing the illustrations for these books. I have really come to find that I want my voice to be heard, even though it might be a little rough on the writing side. I am curious as to what other illustrators have to say on this subject. Is the notion of writing and illustrating your own books a calling as well? If so, what was the deciding factor in moving forward with sharing your words as well as your art? Any thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Illustration Friday: "Instinct"

Good thing Owls remember how to fly!
Cause I'd get scared and fall out the sky!

"The Big Draw" and working on finals

Happy Wednesday to everyone. Hard to believe we are more than half way through the week, but I guess that means the weekend is getting closer and closer. Things here in the studio have been going really well lately. Most recently, I have started working on the final illustrations to a new children's book that I haven't talked about too much. The author is Michele Deville and am anxious to show you more as I am able to.

So since I don't have any visuals for that, I will talk about a fun event I am going to be apart of tomorrow at the "The MInneapolis Institute of Arts". It is called "The Big Draw" and will be apart of the Third Thursday event at the museum. What I am going to be doing is teaching a drop in drawing session in the classrooms. The drawing session is going to be for any age and any art level. The best thing is that it is FREE! All you need to do is be willing to throw some lead on the paper and you are set to go. The event runs from 6-9 pm tomorrow at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and would love to see you guys there!

Illustration Friday: "Celebrate"

Even though it had been the longest drought in history, the three little birds still had time to celebrate.

Valentines Day cards

Thanks to a post from fellow blogger "Nina Crittenden" to create illustrations from her sketches of animals, I have come up with my version. Since we are so close to the big Valentines Day, I have taken her outlines and created Valentines Day Cards. As you can see we have a penguin and a seal version. Thanks Nina for the inspiration. If you would like to print these and give them to your friends, just click on the images below with the multi image versions and print. Happy V-Day everyone!

A great weekend of fun!

Hard to believe that the weekend is into Sunday already, but with all the events that went on yesterday, it will be good to get a few things done here in the studio. Yesterdays "Hooked on Books" event in Chaska was a raving success. With all of the activities for kids to do and the space to do it in at the Chaska High School, I bet there were close to 1000 people that attended the festival. Having been there two years ago, I was blown away with how large the event has become and am already looking forward to next years event. I would definitely recommend this fun day of activities for anyone with a family and for you authors and illustrators out there that have published books. One of the highlights though was when a couple of kids were so excited to see me drawing "bugs" on the easel that they were overcome and had to show me what they would have done had they been given the chance. As you can see, I have some stiff competition! They really went all out and the average age of the kids was around 4 or 5. So, now I have a fun piece to hang in the studio to remind me of the fun interaction we had.



Also taking place yesterday was the final celebration party for MCAD's beloved retiring professor Kinki Akagawa. The picture above was taken on Friday night at the opening celebration with Kinji sitting on one of his signature benches. It really was great to see the huge turnout for both Friday and Saturday nights. The Saturday night event was by far the gala though as it was held in the beautiful Mill City Museum and culminated with the auction of many alumni's work in honor of Kinji for a scholarship fund. It was really great seeing all of his former students and colleagues come together to honor such a wonderful person. And I have to say I was a little awestruck at all of the well known artists, some which were pretty famous, and of course the opportunity to meet our former Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale. There's just a certain swagger that some of these people tend to carry when they walk into a room! So with that, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the weekend and look forward to getting some things done!

Illustration Friday: "Time"

Is there any better time than "Dream Time"?

Hooked on Books and Paradigm Shift

Happy Thursday everyone. Hope you have had a productive week so far. I know I have been busy working on a number of Illustrations and am really looking forward to the action packed weekend. The main event that I will be enjoying will be the MCAD Paradigm Shift honoring Kinji Akagawa at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design this Friday through Sunday. There will be many wonderful events that will be going on in celebration of Kinji's retirement. As a member of MCAD's Board of Directors, it has been a real treat in helping prepare and organize this event around one of MCAD's most remarkable professors. His dedication and love of the arts has linked him to many of the last quarter of a century of alumni that were fortunate enough to have had him as a professor. To view all of the events surrounding this weekend, check out the "Honoring Kinji Akagawa".


Also on Saturday morning and early afternoon, I will also be appearing at a great family event in Chaska called "Hooked on Books". Susie and I will be part of the celebration from 11:15 to 1pm at the Chaska High School. The main celebration goes on from 9-1 and is sure to be a fun family outing. If you know of anyone with kids that are looking for a great time, send them over to Hooked on Books!

"The Sick Bug" 2009 Mom's Choice Awards® Gold Medal winner

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all of you football fans out there. I know I briefly mentioned this earlier, but "The Sick Bug" was named a 2009 Mom's Choice Awards® Gold Winner. The "Mom's Choice Awards®"(MCA) is known for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. So with that, when I finally saw a copy of my book with the awards sticker on it I had to post an image! Thanks for everyones support of the book so far and here's hoping for a great 2009 with the book.

Illustration Friday: "Flawed"

We all are a little flawed in some way! That's what makes it so great.

Congrats Christina!

I would like to send a huge congrats to my friend and fellow children's book illustrator "Christina Rodriguez" who had the exciting news that not one but 2 of her books had won medals from the Mom's Choice Awards for 2009. "The Wishing Tree" won a gold medal and "Storm Codes" won a silver. This is even more exciting since my book "The Sick Bug" was also a gold medal winner so we will have to get together and have a toast to the "Mom's Choice Awards 2009"!

In news from the studio, it has been a busy few weeks. I have been putting some final touches on a book project and hope to get that one in the designers hands by the end of the week. I also have been working on getting all of the backgrounds done for a new book project that is close to going to final illustrations. This one is going to be the same texture and technique that "The Sick Bug" had so it should be a lot of paint flinging around soon. Stay tuned for images to come of this new project. As you can see by the picture, there is much work to get done yet!

Storing original illustrations

One of the things that often gets overlooked as an illustrator is what to do with all of the illustrations when they are finished. For the most part, if you are creating images that are one off's and are not tied to other illustrations, you can simply put them in a flat file for safe keeping. But what happens when you do children's books and have 20 or more illustrations tied to the same project and a number of these projects lying around? Well, the simplest way is again to store them in a flat file, but then every time you need to get something out of the file, you might have to adjust, move, or take them out. So, what I have found to be a great way to store them is to build a small storage box so that all of the illustrations from each project can be kept together and safe. With that, you will ensure that all of your artwork will be kept safe for years to come. Now you can surely go out and buy acid free boxes and storage units, but looking at the cost of those, I have decided to make them on my own and save a little money.





Tips to remember:

1. You want to make sure that you are using acid free foam core to build the box. Having acid free with help with eliminating discoloration in the artwork.

2. Create the box 1/2" larger on each side so it is easy to get the artwork back out. The last thing you want is to have to damage the art when getting it back out.

3. Use glassine in between levels of illustrations to ensure maximum protection of art.

4. I also like to put a copy of the book in the box as well. That way if you happen to give out all of your samples, you will at least have the one copy along with the original artwork all together.

5. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT. MAKE SURE YOU STORE IN A DRY AND COOL PLACE. Heat and humidity can damage artwork over a long period, so take care of your art before it is too late.

A new addition to my collection

Image copyright Mark Haglund

Closeup of boats. Copyright Mark Haglund

Happy Sunday everyone. Hope you are all enjoying a warmer weekend than what has been sitting around here for temps lately. It is nice to be finally above zero! Anyways, I am so excited about a new piece that I have added to my collection of fellow artists. At least I will be when I am able to pick it up at the end of Feb, when the show comes down. The piece itself is titled "Boats in Nice, France" by Mark Haglund and is beautifully framed in a copper colored frame. It really brings out the colors of the buildings. I first saw the painting a few weeks ago when I was taking some of my art out of the Elk River Art Gallery and he was starting to hang his show. Its funny how you can tell sometimes right away that you love a piece. For me, I saw it but didn't do anything about it at the time until yesterday when I went over to the gallery to see how the show came together. Well as you can tell by the post, It went well and I ended up getting it. So, if you happen to be in the Elk River area before the end of February, I would say go check out the show at the Elk River Arts gallery and see the great paintings that he and Roxanne Current have up. It is definitely worth a visit. The gallery info is as follows

Elk River Arts Gallery
716 Main Street
Elk River, MN

Show runs through Feb 28
Gallery hours: Thurs-Sat 12-6

Illustration Friday: "Pale"

With this cold, its hard not to be pale!

Plane-in-the-sky-cycle

After many many months of procrastinating and looking at the forms for an illustration competition that is going on here in the twin cities, I have finally finished the illustration and it is all framed up and ready to be dropped off tomorrow (the deadline)! It feels good to get it done and am hopeful that it is well received. The good thing is it sounds like they have almost 50 submissions so far so it should be a great show coming up in March at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts. The competition itself was a collaboration between the Minnesota Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Last years competition involved writers coming up with poems and 5 were chosen as winners. Then this years competition was for illustrators to choose a poem they liked and illustrate an image to it. My favorite poem was called "Two-Wheeler" by Jane Thomas Noland. The illustration above is an illustration to that poem. I just hope that I have done it justice. So with that complete and on its way out the door tomorrow you might think that I am looking for something to do, but don't worry, I will be busy with booksignings, more illustration projects and the like in the upcoming weeks. Hopefully I will come back with another original Illustration Friday tomorrow! Take care and stay warm, which is kind of hard when the temp right now is a mere -21! Yikes!

Illustration Friday: "Contained"

This is an illustration from a memoir I illustrated titled On the other side of the Ocean by Ruth Elisabeth Schoch.

The art of Terry Stanley

"Along for the Ride" copyright Terry Stanley

Of all the people that I have been blessed to have met over the years as an artist, there are few that have made such an impact on my work and life as one of my mentors Terry Stanley. Having met her a number of years ago at a fundraiser art event in White Bear Lake, I have come to enjoy our regular chats over the phone. Unfortunately since she lives all the way over in Green Bay, WI, it makes it a little harder to actually get together in person. That's why come the end of next week, it is going to be great to spend time over there, checking out her great new studio space and hopefully doing a little painting as well. The pastel work that she does has wonderful palette's of color and composition. I would definitely recommend checking out her work at either "Red Bubble" or her blog at "Art Lady Confidential".

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wishing each and every one of you a happy and prosperous New Year!

Sneak peak of another book

Can you believe that Christmas is over and we are only three days away from 2009? I sure can't believe it, but I guess I have to accept that it is here. The one good thing about the end of this year is all of the fun things I have to look forward to in 2009 which include at least 2 more book releases and possibly a couple more depending on the final production schedule. I have been extremely blessed as of late and am really excited to share with you the new books that I have worked on recently and the new one that is to come, but know that I can't share too much yet. So with that, here is a sneak peak at a book that is to be released in March. I hope you like. I know it is a different look than my acrylic textural work that I did in "The Sick Bug", but feel it really fits this book. I think you will see why when I am able to share more. Until then, I hope you all have a great rest of 2008 and have some fun plans for the ringing in of the New Year!

"The Sick Bug" gets its first big award

Hello Everyone. I know it has been hard not to mention anything the last week, but since I saw that Susie had mentioned it on "The Sick Bug" website, I thought it was good to go. The official press release isn't going to happen until January when the MCA's announce all of the winners, but here it goes. We just found out last week that "The Sick Bug" has been named a "2009 Gold Medal winner" by the Mom's Choice Awards®. WHOOOOO HOOOOOO! How exciting it is! I can't wait to get those little medallions on the cover of the book. So, for Susie and I, Christmas came early and we are loving every minute of it. Thanks to all of you for the support that you have shown the both of us as we have been out an about promoting and promoting and promoting. It definitely makes all of the hard work worth it.

Anyways, it feels good to get that off my chest and am now anxious for the official press release and to see where it goes from here. Hopefully we will be starting work on "The Sick Bug II" soon as well.

So with that, I will wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Lets hope that holiday cheer will be all around.

Need I say more?

Here is the space I was exhibiting in. I was able to use the whole front section with my paintings, prints and books.



And then here is a shot just before the opening last night. Need I say more?

Holiday Art show at the Elk River Art Gallery

Hello everyone. I know it is short notice here, but thought it is never too late to get the news out there. Starting on this Thursday Dec. 18, I along with a number of other artists are going to be showing works of art at the Elk RIver Arts Gallery for the Holiday show. It has been going on now for a little over a month, but starting Thursday, I will be the featured artist. With that comes a storytime and booksigning from 4-5 pm followed by a reception in the gallery. So if you are still looking for that last minute gift that will blow your recipients away, stop down, say hi and look around. It is sure to be a great time. You can also get a list of the other artists at the Elk River Arts Gallery Website

Here is the info itself and the picture above is just one of the great pieces for sale!

Thursday Dec. 18 through Dec. 20
Opening reception for 4-8 pm on the 18th

Elk River Arts Gallery
716 Main Street
Elk River, MN 55330
763-441-4725

Speaking in front of an audience

As a children's book illustrator there are often times that you are required to speak to a group of people, many of times which include kids. Now I know that for many people, the thought of speaking in front of any size group whether they be kids or not can be a scary thing. But there are things and activities that can make things a lot smoother like getting the kids involved through questions and small activities. But if you are someone who would really like to learn how to do these and don't want to learn in front of an audience, I would recommend looking at a workshop that the Minnesota Humanities Center is offering this January and May. It is a class titled "Reading Aloud Basics" and is a class that is devoted to gaining knowledge about the impact of reading aloud to groups of children.

The workshops are offered either on

Saturday, Jan 31, 2009 from 10-noon

or

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 from 6-8 pm

The fee is $35 and they are going to focus on the following:

1. Benefits of reading aloud
2. Tips for reading aloud
3. Book/story related activities
4. Discussion questions with reading aloud

For more information you can visit their website at Minnesota Humanities Center

Illustration Friday: "Similar"

MNSCBWI Winter workshop

Have you ever wondered how or what you should be doing to protect your work as an illustrator or artist. Well, the Minnesota SCBWI is having their winter workshop called "Guarding Your Work: The New Age of Intellectual Property Rights" this coming January in Minneapolis. It is bound to be a great workshop on what you need to be doing to make sure that your rights stay with you. Also, attorney William D. Shultz will be presenting information on the new potential Orphan Works Bill that is trying to be pushed through congress. So if you are in the Minneapolis area on Sat, January 10th, it would be great for you to take in this wonderful workshop.

The info is as follows

"Guarding Your Work: The New Age of Intellectual Property Rights"

January 10th, 2009

12:30-3:30 pm

Merchant and Gould P.C.
3200 IDS Center
80 South 8th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55402

cost is $25 per member/ $35 for nonmember of SCBWI

for questions, contact regionaladvisor@minnesotascbwi.org

Happy belated Thanksgiving

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful time with your family and friends. I know I had a great time up in Wahpeton with my parents, sister and brother in law, and my grandparents. It is always fun to see the family and was surprised at how warm it was for the end of Nov. I think they hit 41 on Friday which is way warmer that they are supposed to be. Usually there is snow up there by now, but I am not complaining :). Anyways, I just wanted to say how Thankful I am of all the great things that I have been blessed with this year and am hoping that things will continue to go the same for the following. As you can see by the picture above, it was worthy of a toast that the next year will be as fruitful as the next. Thanks to my grandpa Delmer for the great shot!



So to continue on that note about thankfulness, I wanted to send Susie a thanks for giving me a shout out on the Kare 11 news this morning. She was featured on there with "The Sick Bug" book and did a great job of mentioning the artwork! You can check out the video from the Kare 11 morning show by clicking here PS, if you are having trouble seeing it, click on the small text below image. So with that I will leave you with a little bit of other news. If you happen to be near Ridgedale mall tomorrow in Minnetonka, be sure to stop by the Barnes and Noble next to Target as Susie and I will be signing books from 10-12pm and say hi. Have a wonderful rest of the weekend and may your holiday seasons be full of fun and friends!

My trip home and a prime placement

Happy weekend everybody. Hope you have been enjoying some fun activities and are being fairly productive. Things here are moving along pretty well. I have been illustrating away on the book that I am getting closer and closer to finishing up. if all goes well, then I should be done a week from Monday barring any setbacks.





So it has also been a pretty crazy few days from a event standpoint as well. Thursday I enjoyed a quick trip back home to Wahpeton, ND and was glad to see so many people that I haven't seen in a while. I even managed to stop and take a couple of photos of the famous worlds largest catfish. Pretty exciting I know. Then Susie and I met up and did a book signing at the MInnetonka Barnes and Noble for the Gatewood book festival on Friday evening. There were a lot of kids there and were able to collaboratively come up with some unique "bug" sketches. All I have to say is kids' imaginations are never lacking! We also noticed that "The Sick Bug" made it to the wall of "prime". It was really great to see the book facing on the wall there (usually it is visible only be the spine) on the side shelves.



Finally I was so proud that I actually spent some time and found the floor again in the studio. It hadn't been cleaned in a while and was looking pretty crazy so I thought I would take a picture before it was gone again.

Classes, books, and a short trip

After looking at the calendar today, I have realized that I am confused as to where the last three weeks have gone! I know it has been busy with teaching, book signings, and working on a book project, but usually it doesn't disappear as fast as it has been. Maybe it is because we are getting so close to the holidays. Do you guys feel this way as well? At least I don't have to stare at the walls and wish time away i guess, even though having that every once in a while would be nice.

As I had mentioned earlier, I have been enjoying lots of fun activities lately and the Children's Book class that I was teaching at the Elk River Arts Alliance was one of those. Over the last 7 weeks the class worked on things ranging from understanding what the different elements and parts of a book were, how to put together a dummy book, concepting, character development, and working towards finished illustrations. We also talked about portfolios, marketing and looking for the right place to show your work. I know this was a lot of information for a short 5 class session, but was thoroughly impressed with everyones progress. One of my favorite things to see as a teacher is the progression of a student and everyone really did a great job. Hopefully, they will continue to pursue their efforts now that class is over. So with that, now I am left with work in my studio as I am getting down to the last week and a half on the current book project. At first I was starting to wonder what I would do with myself after it was done, but was pleasantly surprised with another great book project that is now starting up. I am really hoping that I will be able to share with you guys the progress of this new book as I am working on it, but will have to wait and see if I can get the permission to do so.

Finally, I am getting ready to head back home tomorrow to North Dakota to do a book signing at Hairetage Hallmark. It will be a short trip as I have to be back in the cities Friday morning, but it will be a lot of fun seeing some of my old friends and relatives tomorrow. Hopefully the extreme cold won't stop them from coming.

Not being afraid to fail

One of the wonderful things that the Minneapolis College of Art and Design offers to alumni, students and the general public is the opportunity to sit in on lectures from some of the best in the arts industry. I was fortunate to have been at last Thursday's lecture with Scott Baker( MCAD '78) who is the founder of Baker Associates and is one of the heavyweights in the design and branding industry. Lets just say that everyone of you has products that he has designed in your house, everything from the famous brands as Cheerios, Oreo's, Ritz Crakers, Caribou coffee products, Marie Callendar, Total, and hundreds of other products. He has amassed an amazing portfolio of some of the most recognizable and memorable images in the branding game today and I found it very intriguing to listen to his thoughts and insights in the industry. Even though it is not an area that I am going to work in, it is still the creative process that drives his work. He actually started out as a well know illustrator and then worked his way into the marketing and branding industry.

One of the things that he made sure that he repeated a number of times to the students and the fresh in the market grads was the notion that you cannot be afraid to fail. The notion that great art comes without failure is one that is false. He said that he encourages his employees to not be afraid of failure and to embrace things when they don't work out. Without taking those chances, you cannot grow as an artist. It is something that I have found to be very helpful and was taught that very thing with some of my MCAD professors. It is nice to know that even the most successful people still embrace failure as a great thing. So with that, I encourage you all to not worry about when something doesn't work out, use it as a learning experience and let it go. You will be a better artist because of it.

In other news, things have been going great with "The Sick Bug". We just had a booksigning at the Minnetonka Barnes and Noble last night and enjoyed the evening a lot. The strangest thing was when a little boy in the audience was so eager to meet me and was almost bouncing off his chair. So before Susie and I got started with reading the book and doing a little illustration, we made sure we let him tell us his pressing news. And the best thing of all was that his name was "Sean McCann" He was so excited that he had the same name as the person who had illustrated a book. It was pretty cool since I usually don't run into too many people with the same name as me. SO that definitely made the event! Now it is looking at a ton of booksignings all over the midwest and such over the next month and a half. Hopefully they will be as memorable as the one last night!

Illustration Friday: "Wise"

Getting back at the portraiture

So, after staring at the painting that I had started a while back of my brother and his wife, I have decided to finish it finally. I know the image that you see above is not at that stage yet, but it will get there over the course of the next three weeks and am excited to get it done and out the door for them to enjoy down in Arizona. It is also fun to get back into the oil paints after working in acrylics and watercolors with all of the illustration work lately. As for the picture itself, it started with a much darker background, similar to what you would usually see in a traditional portraiture, but wanted to play off of the pink/peach color of my brothers tie in the picture so I decided to go with a more green tone to it. I think that it will really come together once I get a few more layers put on. For the faces, I am currently working on the structure and am anxious to start putting the details and highlights in to really bring the faces to a more finished look. So stay tuned to see how this comes together.

Renewed Resolution

I know that I am not the best person to speak of sticking to resolutions when the New Year rings in, but I have to say that I am so happy to be apart of the MNSCBWI's Mentorship program this year. Last night was a perfect reason why it is so great to hook up with aspiring artists, and to work together towards goals that will help not only the mentoree but also the mentor. For me, that person happens to be Betsy LePlatt. She is an artist that has wonderful sense of composition, use of color, and great character development. What seemed to be a simple hour long meeting, was actually one that lasted a little over two hours. It is amazing how energized one can get when you are with like minded friends. Not only am I looking forward to the progress that Betsy will be making over the course of the next year, but I am anxious to see how much of that enthusiasm rubs off on me as well. To have goals laid out and an idea of where one wants to go, it is never to late or early to think of those resolutions that we must have. Why must we wait till the first of the year? Isn't is bound to fail if we already know that it's "just" a New Years Resolution. Why not have a years worth of resolutions that are actually doable. For me, I know that I am going to work on solidifying my presence so that when I contact publishers, they will have a better idea of what I am about, what I can do, and how I can work to make their projects great. Another area that I need to keep working on is the organizational aspect of my studio. How easy is it to just lay things over there instead of putting them away. I know it is a studio, but when I spend half an hour looking for "that roll of tape" or the tube of paint I set down somewhere then it is time to reorganize it. If only all my studio items could be called to find them! So I hope that even though we are two months away from the new year, why not take that extra hour we are giving this weekend and come up with some new and energizing goals that will help us reach where we are going!

Illustration Friday: "Repair"

Coloring Page Tuesday and my trip to Green Bay

Yes it is true, coloring page Tuesday is here again. This one is from an oldie, but still fun nonetheless. It is a coloring page from "Why the Owl has Big Ears." I hope you enjoy.






So you might be asking what has Shawn been up to the last week since the last post. Well, I was on a great trip over to Green Bay, Wisconsin (and I did get some shots of Lambeau as I was driving bye). I was teaching a workshop over at the Richeson School of Art in Kimberly which is a suburb of Green Bay. The workshop focused on illustration as an art form and what were the different areas in which one could work as an Illustrator. As usual, the students were wonderful and had a great time experimenting with everything from collage work to the more traditional mediums. The time just flew by as we only had three full days to work together, but we made the most of it and am anxious to keep in touch with the students on their after class journey. While over there, I was also happy to head over to Conkey's Bookstore in Appleton and did a book signing of "The Sick Bug" with Susie. We had a great time, but were a little disappointed that it rained most of the evening so traffic was a bit deterred by that. And of course while I was there I managed to find a couple of really cool items. It just so happened to be that the previous weeks author that came in was none other than Jon Scieszka. Before he had left he autographed a couple of books and I managed to snatch them up. They were "The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales" and "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs". I know I am going to treasure them forever. I just wish I could have met him, but that will be another time.

Coloring Page Tuesday and Postcards galore!

Hard to believe, but Tuesday is upon us again and its time for another coloring page to download and enjoy! Ok, I have two of them here for you to enjoy.





In other news, I was excited to see my postcards show up today that I will be using as my fall marketing blitz. I know I don't send out my postcards as often as I should, but with the additional postcards that the Children's Book Illustrators Guild (CBIG) sends out, it makes for about 4-5 postcards a year. As for printing companies that I use, it usually is between VistaPrint and Overnight Printing. I have found that both offer great prices on postcards and the reproduction quality is great as well. These postcards that you see were done from Overnight Printing and have a nice glossy color front and a satin back. I tried the glossy on both sides last time and found it to be diffucult to not smear the ink on the glossy back, so I am back to the trusty satin look. Overall the cost of these were really reasonable. The expensive part is going to be getting all of the postage for them. So, when I get back from my trip to Green Bay on Thursday, I will be working on addressing and mailing all of these bad boys. Good thing the stamps are self adhesive and not the licking style!!!!!