In the course of my employ in the wsj.com art department I recently had the opportunity to design their Olympic pin. Pin trading is a long tradition at the Olympics so it was an honor to do it. Editor Adam Thompson had requested I do something fun that perhaps included a beaver or perhaps a mountie. So I came up with these designs and naturally the beaver-on-snowboard look won out. I delivered the vector version (top right) and it was cool to see how the final product came out (top left). One of these just sold on ebay for $52.75!

With the explosion in popularity of social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s important to make sure your portfolio site and it’s individual pages can easily be shared and discovered by your obsessed fans.
Nate Williams of Illustration Mundo has been an avid supporter of embracing these social networking sites, and has added fields on the user pages for Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz and Flickr accounts to be listed.
People are sharing so much great content with their friends and colleagues, you will be missing out on a huge opportunity if you don’t make sure you have a way of getting your art out there.

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It’s been way too long since I’ve posted! My excuse is that I’m lame. This is a recent sand painting I did for a gift. It’s 12″x12″ enamel and sand on board.

For one thing, this dapper gent is a toad and not a frog. I know this because he has fingernails which are something frogs do not possess (at least that’s what a guide at the The Frog Pond of Monteverde told me).
I’ve set out to make my portfolio more cohesive and geared towards kids books and I thought a character study or two would be in order. Next up: maybe an octopus.

Here’s a new book I just finished and online at www.blurb.com . I love blurb and you can do an on demand book in just a week. Quality is excellent, and both the hardbound and soft cover are excellent. Not cheap, but good. Works for me. Take a look: http://www.blurb.com/books/1191786