Chaos in Market Square

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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…

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.

Finishing an older post

Here are the last of the work-in-progress shots from a painting featured in What do I paint first? and What do I paint second?

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…

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…

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,…