(Inside A Black Apple)

Dream Animals Book Sets & Prints!

Well, just in the nick of time for the holidays, I've got the Dream Animals book sets in the shop! It includes a print (of your choosing), a postcard set, bookmark, and a signed book.

I'm also really excited to add that there is a selection of artwork from the book available as well, in a new section aptly titled Books & Book Artwork.

I've heard many reports about people wishing they could hang & frame the illustrations (and my publisher & I suspected this might be the case) so we decided to make some available as prints!

It was really (really) hard to choose, but I'm so excited to have the four Dream travelers above and the Circus, Fairy & Kitchen dream below all available in print-form.



And a Happy Thanksgiving to all of you here in the U.S.!

After enough pie is consumed, I'll be spending my holiday weekend working hard trying to finish up the last bits of artwork companion book for Dream Animals (Day Dreamers, coming next year!)

So thankful to be working to make imaginary things real, so thankful for everything good.

Beligerent Little Bears & Things in Other Places

  

It is finally getting to where the air is cold enough to sting your toes & bite your nose, so I keep thinking of this, one of my all-time favorite oldie cartoons, Jack Frost from Ub Iwerks. It concerns mostly a stubborn little bear who refuses to hibernate (I can't fully relate to this, because even when I was a little bear, I loved to hibernate.)

I wrote a few things/did interviews that are elsewhere this week. If you have any interest in the picture book I wrote when I was seven or what I was into in college or how my books have come about, maybe you'd like to read them?

 Talking with Apartment Therapy about making books, my favorite illustrators, etc.

&

Thoughts on my habit of making Pictures, then Words

I've got several exciting additions to the shop coming next week (the Dream Animals print suite & book set, among other things!) 'til then,

Happy Friday!

Dream Animals at Seven Impossible Things

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast is one of the very best children's book blogs in this wide world, and Dream Animals was recently featured there with some previously unseen sketch-to-finals (like my bear boy's dream up there.)

Julie, who runs Seven Imp, has a wonderful & voracious eye and writes really smart, thoughtful posts that emphasize art and illustration. The fact that it is reliably an art-party over there (and her thoughtful & thorough way of approaching illustrated books) makes it probably my favorite picture book place online. Besides, it's one of the only places I've ever come across a write-up on the work of my favorite Japanese illustrator, Komako Sakai.

If you hop over there, I can't be responsible for the rabbit hole you'll almost undoubtably fall down! There's so much to read & so much to see.

This Saturday, Green Bean Books!

This Saturday, at one of the sweetest bookshops in the land, I'll be reading & signing & making mischief (and, of course, have a treat or two in tow.) My Oddfellow's reading there last year was one of my favorite things about 2012, so I'm excited to be there again.

And we'll be drawing our own Dream Animals...I can't wait to see what creatures are chosen!

If you live in or around Portland, we'd love to see you!

Sea Prints!

The Deep Green Sea prints are now available in the shop!

For all the times you've worried about the lack of sea monsters & mermaids in your house.

Farewell to the Sea

The Deep Green Sea       20"x16"     Acrylic on wood

A Sail & An Anchor     Both 11"x14"     Acrylic on wood

(Painting L)  Black Swan     8"x10"   Acrylic on wood

(Painting R)  Why the Sea is Salt    11"x14"    Acrylic on wood


At the end of this last weekend, The Deep Green Sea came down. I took a few pictures when we visited a little bit back one afternoon with some out-of-town friends, and I kept meaning to post them. It gives you at least a little bit of an idea of what the show was like up on the walls.

I also realized there were still kind of a lot of images I still hadn't posted here (including the title painting) so those are mixed in here.

Soon lots of the images will be in the shop as prints (of course!) and there will be a postcard set, etc.

I already miss the company of all these mermaids & sea monsters!