I am excited to have some fun greeting cards coming out with Red Cap Cards this season.  This silhouette series makes up five of the 14 designs that will be available soon.  I’ll preview some of the others here next week.

I have a brief interview up on the insights section of the Communication Arts website.  To read the Q and A, just link to http://www.commarts.com/insights/drawing-unicorns-trapper.html !

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This is a new painting I finished called “Portal the First” for Copro Nason Gallery’s Hi-Fructose show this Saturday! The show is full of really great art, and you can preview some of the images HERE.

I just opened the mail to find my copies of this month’s DPI magazine from Taiwan. The cover, above, displays my painting, Red Bird Battalion. It is exciting to see one of my pieces on a cover!  The interview inside has eight pages of my words and images, and the rest of the magazine has some great work in it.  I have seen DPI in the states a few times (including an issue a few years ago featuring a friend of mine, Yoko Tanaka), and each time I’m impressed with the design and interest of the artists, designers, and photographers they cover from all over the world.

This Year’s 3×3 Illustration Directory  (cover, above left) has an excellent selection of illustration from the past year. I’m honored to be a part of this stunning volume of hand-picked illustrations! I have two pieces in the directory, including the piece “Winter’s Sacrifice”, shown above right.

  Gothic art now, a compilation of the best in Gothic Art, just came out and features a few of my illustrations, including Tengu Graveyard, above. It is great to be part of this diverse group of dark and talented folks. Check out the book and some sample spreads here.

  I have cards featuring a few of my pieces at Cardstore.com.  This site is a lot of fun because you can customize the message inside and even add personal photos inside to send a one-of-a-kind greeting. The best part (from someone who can’t seem to buy, write, and send cards out on time) is that there is an option to have your card creation mailed directly to the recipient.  You even get to choose the stamp.  There are all kinds of artists on the site. Check it out here.

I have a full-page image in Spectrum 15, which is now out in stores and online!  Spectrum is an art annual celebrating the best in fantasy art.  My included piece, “Sunday Mourning” was created last year for Copro Nason Gallery as part of my gallery show called “Melancholia”.

My new children’s book, written by Laurel Snyder, is out on shelves. Okay, so it has been out on shelves since October, but my schedule has been too packed for updates.  It is my sincerest resolution to bring you more news and updates this year. I’ll do my best to post something each week, letting you in on what I’m working on as time seems to fly by.Inside the Slidy Diner is a book all kids can enjoy, especially those just a little bit older then the pre-school crowd. Here are a few spreads from the book:

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a great children’s book blog, wrote a little feature on Slidy Diner, which you can link to by clicking here. If you still aren’t convinced you should buy this book, the reviewers had some good things to say:

The Slidy Diner is one big health code violation: the proprietress wears a fly-covered sweater and “smells like rotten grill grease,” the toilet is a cesspool, “someone is usually running with scissors” and the sticky buns are scraped up off the floor. Even the people are ghoulish, with their flattened, oversize heads, blank eyes and doll-like bodies. Snyder, a debut picture book author and PW reviewer, and Zollars (Not in Room 204) serve up a wealth of Grand Guignol detail, beginning with the creepy premise: Edie, the narrator, claims she is held captive at the diner for stealing a lemon drop, and she gives a young patron the insider’s tour of the joint. Most of the best jokes are visual: the poison label stuck onto a countertop; pet food tins stashed amid the staples; a slice of pie garnished as if with eyeballs. The gross-out crowd will eat this up. Ages 5-8. (Oct.)–Publishers Weekly –Publishers Weekly, October, 2008 

and

 In as fine a game of Grossout as ever was, a child squires an anxious-looking friend around a diner in which, she claims, the cuisine runs to Pumpkin Asparagus Pie and Greasily Niblets, the floor is so slick that booths sometimes slide out into the street and the proprietor is decidedly witchy: “Sometimes Ethelmae grins at you, and you can see her tooth.” Zollars’s canted, full-bleed cafe scenes follow suit, with views of diners chowing down on a pig’s head, a trophy-sized cockroach fixed to a platter above the counter and basement restrooms surrounded by a flood crawling with “nefarious wigglepedes.” Still, unlike Merrilee Kutner’s Zombie Nite Cafe (2007), as depicted by Ethan Long, or Jane Breskin Zalben’s Saturday Night at the Beastro (2004), it’s not all bad, for “Inside the Slidy Diner, there are dark, blue secrets. / And silver whispers. / Inside the Slidy Diner there are magic trapdoors. / To birthdays and Saturdays.” Best yet, all “goodbyes have been banned!” Here’s a diner well worth repeated visits - but steer clear of the “chocolate” milk. (Picture book. 6-9) (Kirkus Reviews)

There are lots of things going on here, so I’ll do my best to update you on any happenings!   

I’ll be here. Hope you will too!