New Children's Book Portfolio

In preparation for NY15SCBWI, I've built a new website for all my children's book projects. If you see me this weekend, please say hi and grab one of my origami pirate bookmarks. :)

Art Challenge Day 5 - Picture Book

"Let's Go, Daddy!" Day 1

"Let's Go, Daddy!" Day 2

"Let's Go, Daddy!" Day 3

"Let's Go, Daddy!" Day 4

Early sketches for "Let's Go, Daddy!" 

It's Day 5 of the 5-day Art Challenge! I was nominated by Gary Fabbri​ to start this challenge, where each participant shares 3 drawings/paintings each day for 5 days and also nominates a fellow artist each day to do the same. I invited my awesome friends Jason Hart​, Stephen Macquignon​, Peggy Collins​, and Lidija Paradinovic​ to share their amazing artwork. Today I'll nominate Jeremy Tankard​, because my son and I love reading Jeremy's books and we can't wait to get our hands on his newest title "Melvis and Elvis"!

Day 5:

This last art post features a picture book collaboration with my 2 year old son. He loves his books more than wagons, trucks, and even trains. So I've dusted off the old watercolours and we're going to share a new page daily for the entire month of February. Please feel free to follow along. :)

Art Challenge Day 4 - Node Rugs

It's Day 4 of the 5-day Art Challenge! I was nominated by Gary Fabbri to start this challenge, where each participant shares 3 drawings/paintings each day for 5 days and also nominates a fellow artist each day to do the same. I've invited Jason Hart, Stephen Macquignon, and Peggy Collins to share their awesome work. Today I'll nominate Lidija Paradinovic whose incredible talent is only matched by her giving nature. Lidija is always working something incredibly cool and I can't wait to see what she can share.

Day 4:
Last summer I was invited to exhibit in a picture book show in Spain with Oliver Jeffers, Chris Haughton, Crowther Catherine, Sunkyung Cho, and Yann Brien. I still think I may have dreamt the whole thing, but then these fair trade Node rugs showed up at my door... Read more about it here.

Art Challenge Day 3 - Zodiac Signs

It's Day 3 of the 5-day Art Challenge! I was nominated by Gary Fabbri to start this challenge, where each participant shares 3 drawings/paintings each day for 5 days and also nominates a fellow artist each day to do the same. I've invited Jason Hart and Stephen Macquignon to share their awesome work. Today I'll nominate the multi-talented Peggy Collins, whose boundless creativity never ceases to amaze me!

Day 3:
Last summer I illustrated the jersey designs for the Annual Zodiac Tournament. These were the first three that I sketched out and they remain my favourites. smile emoticon

Art Challenge Day 2 - Rainbows

It's Day 2 of the 5-day Art Challenge! I was nominated by Gary Fabbri to start this challenge, where each participant shares 3 drawings/paintings each day for 5 days and also nominates a fellow artist each day to do the same. Yesterday I invited Jason Hart to share his awesome work. Today I'll nominate Stephen Macquignon, who's delightful watercolours won over Tomie dePaola himself. 


Day 2 - Last year I taught some classes at a wonderful non-profit organization called Story Planet and Intergalactic Travel Authority. They run workshops that encourage young people to create and tell their stories. One of my programs involved a dozen 10 year olds and 5 weeks to create 1 picture book! Here are some spreads in that book...

Art Challenge Day 1 - My Heroes

It's the 5-day Art Challenge! Yesterday, Gary Fabbri nominated me to start this challenge, where each participant shares 3 drawings/paintings each day for 5 days and also nominates a fellow artist each day to do the same. I met Gary at the New York SCBWI Winter Conference last year and his infectious optimism and talents won me over. We were inseparable all weekend, even after my country beat his country for GOLD in Mens Olympic Hockey.

Today, I would like to invite our good friend and talented artist Jason Hart to share his work. Jason's illustrations are thoughtful, meticulous, and full of humour, just like him.

Day 1:

Seems apropos to share 3 portraits of people that inspired me to become a picture book artist: Maurice Sendak, Mark Twain, and My Parents.

I love Sendak's Max and Twain's Tom Sawyer characters, because at that age I too was quite the troublemaker. I wasn't as sneaky per se, but let's just say trouble always found me.

Just like Max, I was always sent to my bedroom where I'd spend hours staring at the faux wood closet doors and drifting away on imaginary adventures.

Tom Sawyer's adventures are inspiring and I can envision Mark Twain's delight as he penned this iconic fence-painting scene. Hopefully you can envision this too (hint: look at the tree branches).

Last but not least, I owe everything to my parents. They worked really hard at multiple jobs to support my brothers and I. As a result, we didn't really see them until the end of the day. This made bedtime the best time of the day. Because bedtime meant story time and story time meant listening to my parents read us wonderful books. They shared so many fantastic western fairy tales and ancient Chinese fables. It warms my heart just thinking about this - those were truly special times.