Friday, February 17, 2012

And the award goes to...


Tonight was the 43rd annual NAACP image awards presentation. One of the books that I illustrated, Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band was nominated in the Outstanding Literary Work- Children category. Our book wasn’t chosen but it was pretty cool to be considered for such an award. Kwame Alexander, the author of the story attended the L.A. event. Soon after the airing, the winner’s list was published. The Rooster stood proudly on the nomination list but wasn’t selected, this time. Regardless of tonight’s results, he’s still a winner! (…and Kwame looked great in his black tux!) 


... back to the drawing board!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Looking for a new pet? …how about a dinosaur??



My newest book is out this month and it’s a beauty!  The production quality is top notch… a really thick cover, slightly embossed title on the dust jacket and a music cd, embedded on the inside of the back cover…nice!

Dinosaur Pet by Neil Sedaka and Marc Sedaka, published by Imagine! (an imprint of Charlesbridge) just hit the shelves and the song is already a tune that I can’t get out of my head.  What a fun project and Neil Sedaka is such a gifted singer/ songwriter… not to mention his talented son, Marc, who also has a very impressive writing resume’.  What a great team!

The artwork was created with acrylic paint on a textured surface.  I gessoed the board before I painted the images.  Then, after laying in the areas of color, I painted (dry brush technique) over the image and gesso brushstrokes to get the texture that you see in the final art.


A few art notes: Some interesting props have been recognized in the art.  The red piano, seen in the book is very similar to one that was featured on the cover of Neil Sedaka's 1977 album, A Song. The black and white zebra chair (above) is extremely similar to the one that is on his web site banner.  Coincidence?… maybe, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

I was told that Mr. Sedaka liked intense color so I pumped up the chroma. This is the most saturated color book that I’ve done, thus far.


So, it’s February and a great month to think about picking up a dinosaur pet.  Well, at least the book.

For more info about the book, visit:

To see more images from the book, visit:

...back to the drawing board!
I love, I love, I love my dinosaur pet.  Yeah, sweet dinosaur pet. (There I go, again!)