Chaos in Market Square

From Peter Spit A Seed At Sue, a painting in progress:

I’ve set the scene in Pittsburgh’s Market Square.  If you look closely you’ll see the location photos I shot.  I used them to help me design a setting that would be recognizable from a variety of different vantage points.  The pie-wielding mayor is a caricature of Mrs Dittman, the principal of Allen Road Elementary School while I attended.

Steampunk character design

Rhonda Libbey is a talented friend of mine—she’s pulled my carcass out of more than one scrape by helping me paint illustrations.  Please swing by her blog to see her lovely character sketches for the Doctor Ferretstein Project.

Trouble in the Poconos

I was sure sorry to read about this—it looks like Frank Frazetta’s kid tried to burgle the gallery.

Kids and reading

Illustrator Kelly Light writes a thoughtful essay about encouraging kids to read.  And how do you do that, without making it seem like an obligation?  She has a daughter, so her recommended reading is girl-oriented.  I should get myself together and compile a list of the boy-oriented books that shaped my childhood.

I’m lucky—I come from a family who reads for pleasure.  My dad used to take me along on his trips to the old public library in downtown Syracuse, New York.  This was one of Andy Carnegie’s beautiful libraries—in the 70s, the boneheaded decision was taken to move the books into a mall. The building is still there, but it’s offices now.  I could take you on a tour of that dear old place—from the bust of Marconi on the right as you entered, up the worn marble stairs to the plate-glass floors on the second storey.  The children’s books were on the first floor in the back.  It had tall windows and ceilings, and blue carpet.  That’s where I first read Yertle the Turtle.

Anyway, give Kelly’s post a read.

Crabby Santa character design

Have a hubble bubble Christmas

I just received a book in the mail—a copy of The Year Without a Santa Claus by Phyllis McGinley, with illustrations by Kurt Werth.  The J.B. Lippincott Company published this title in 1956.

This was the poem that inspired the animated TV special from the 1970s.

But what to my wondering eyes should appear—is Santa Claus enjoying a few puffs from his hookah?

Whoa—what heady days the fifties were for kids’ book illustrators! Fat chance something like this would pass muster with an art director nowadays!

Come to think of it, a few years ago I did do a project that called for Santa to smoke a cigar.  I’ll dig around in the attic and unearth those sketches for a future post.

Cute kitties

Here are sketches for a strange little project I did for Silver Editions, a textbook publisher.

Dead man’s chest o’ books

Update: Welcome, Bittersweet Harvest readers!

Now that it’s December, I’m wistfully recalling the first hot weekend of last Spring, the one I used as an excuse to paint outdoors.  I created some surface decoration on this wooden bookcase, to be auctioned off at a charity event for Beginning With Books.

I chose for my theme: pirates—natch.

I enlarged the sketch by drawing a 1″ grid over it, and drawing a 1′ grid on the bookshelf. The sketch was drawn so that one inch equals one foot.

The winning bid was from my pal Charlene Langer, an instructor at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.