Here is some art from my forthcoming picture book, BEEP BEEP Go To Sleep written by Todd Tarpley. It’s a fantastic story, and I can only take credit for the artwork. Coming in September 2015 from Little Brown 

Here is some art from my forthcoming picture book, BEEP BEEP Go To Sleep written by Todd Tarpley. It’s a fantastic story, and I can only take credit for the artwork. Coming in September 2015 from Little Brown 

A Junior Library Guild Selection 2014

“The wind whipped up, and school closed early. By the time my sister and I got home, the snow was already over our boots. “

“We dug tunnels and secret rooms under the snow.”

Blizzard by John Rocco -a book trailer from John Rocco on Vimeo.

A Junior Library Guild Selection 2014

AMAZON Best Book for 2014

Kirkus Best Book for 2014

Wall Street Journal Best Book for 2014

Boston Globe Best Book for 2014

“The wind whipped up, and school closed early. By the time my sister and I got home, the snow was already over our boots. “

“We dug tunnels and secret rooms under the snow.”

BLIZZARD- a book trailer from John Rocco on Vimeo.

Based on my experience as a young boy in the Blizzard of 78′, this picture book is a great companion book to my bestseller, Blackout.

On Monday, February 6^th, 1978, New England experienced one of the biggest snowstorms in its history. It snowed for two days and by the time it stopped parts of Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut were buried under forty inches of snow. That’s four times the height of this book! The wind was blowing fifty miles an hour and created snowdrifts up to fifteen feet high! Where I grew up in Rhode Island, it took over a week for snowplows to get to our street. This book records my personal experience as a child in that Blizzard and how I got to the store over a mile from my house with tennis racquets tied to my feet.

Based on my experience as a young boy in the Blizzard of 78′, this picture book is a great companion book to my New York Times Bestseller, Blackout.

On Monday, February 6^th, 1978, New England experienced one of the biggest snowstorms in its history. It snowed for two days and by the time it stopped parts of Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut were buried under forty inches of snow. That’s four times the height of this book! The wind was blowing fifty miles an hour and created snowdrifts up to fifteen feet high! Where I grew up in Rhode Island, it took over a week for snowplows to get to our street. This book records my personal experience as a child in that Blizzard and how I got to the store over a mile from my house with tennis racquets tied to my feet.

BLIZZARD- a book trailer from John Rocco on Vimeo.

Here I would like to discuss one of my favorite paintings I created for Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods. The Abduction of Persephone.   The story goes like this: Hades wanted Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, to be his wife, so instead of doing the traditional “Hey, you’re cute, do you want to get hitched?”, Hades decides to just lure her away from the other maidens with pretty flowers. When she wanders off to pick them, he shoots up from the underworld, cracks open the earth and nabs her. Romantic, huh?

There have been many paintings over the centuries of this story, and many of them quite good, but almost all the paintings depict Hades in his chariot whisking Persephone away. I wanted to create a painting of the moment right before the abduction. I wanted to show the two different worlds (Hades Underworld and the earth above) and create the tension between the darkness below and the tranquility above. I was very much inspired by the works of Frazetta, N.C. Wyeth, Arthur Rackham and Maxfield Parrish.

Here are some of the images of the work in progress…

The pencil sketch

The painted sketch- to work out light values.

The final pencil drawing.

Detail of pencil drawing

Detail of final painting

One of several watercolor textures I created for the painting. This one was used to show the roots and dirt below persephone.

Here I would like to discuss one of my favorite paintings I created for Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods. The Abduction of Persephone.   The story goes like this: Hades wanted Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, to be his wife, so instead of doing the traditional “Hey, you’re cute, do you want to get hitched?”, Hades decides to just lure her away from the other maidens with pretty flowers. When she wanders off to pick them, he shoots up from the underworld, cracks open the earth and nabs her. Romantic, huh?

There have been many paintings over the centuries of this story, and many of them quite good, but almost all the paintings depict Hades in his chariot whisking Persephone away. I wanted to create a painting of the moment right before the abduction. I wanted to show the two different worlds (Hades Underworld and the earth above) and create the tension between the darkness below and the tranquility above. I was very much inspired by the works of Frazetta, N.C. Wyeth, Arthur Rackham and Maxfield Parrish.

Here are some of the images of the work in progress…

The pencil sketch

The painted sketch- to work out light values.

The final pencil drawing.

Detail of pencil drawing

Detail of final painting

One of several watercolor textures I created for the painting. This one was used to show the roots and dirt below persephone.

Here is the final cover art for The Blood of Olympus.  Can you wait until October 14th?  If not, I hope Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods will hold you over. (It has over 50 original paintings I did for it, and over 300 pages of Rick Riordan’s hilarious and exciting text! It comes out August 19th. )

Here is the final cover art for The Blood of Olympus.  Can you wait until October 14th?  If not, I hope Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods will hold you over. (It has over 50 original paintings I did for it, and over 300 pages of Rick Riordan’s hilarious and exciting text! It comes out August 19th. )

In stores on August 19!  These are the Greek God stories served up by Percy himself.  Over 300 pages filled with more than fifty paintings. (A herculean task for me.) I will do some blog posts soon to discuss the art and the process of creating this beautiful book.

In stores on August 19!  These are the Greek God stories served up by Percy himself.  Over 300 pages filled with more than fifty paintings. (A herculean task for me.) I will do some blog posts soon to discuss the art and the process of creating this beautiful book.

Jay and I just returned from our East Coast book tour, which was a lot of fun. We spoke to thousands of 5th-8th graders all throughout RI, MA, CT.

Jay and I just returned from our East Coast book tour, which was a lot of fun. We spoke to thousands of 5th-8th graders all throughout RI, MA, CT.

Had a great time at the LATBF.  Here I am in the middle after a fun panel on picture books. With (from Left to Right) Kelly Sonnack, Jennifer Fosberry, Doreen Cronin and Mac Barnett.  I also participated in another panel on Middle Grade Fiction with Lisa Greenwald, Joyce Sidman and Holly Goldberg Sloan.

Had a great time at the LATBF.  Here I am in the middle after a fun panel on picture books. With (from Left to Right) Kelly Sonnack, Jennifer Fosberry, Doreen Cronin and Mac Barnett.  I also participated in another panel on Middle Grade Fiction with Lisa Greenwald, Joyce Sidman and Holly Goldberg Sloan.

I will be at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival at the USC campus today. I am speaking on two panels and signing books.

The first panel is called Middle Grade Fiction: In BeTween Tales , with authors Lisa Greenwald, Joyce Sidman and Holly Goldberg Sloan.  It is 10:3-11:30 at the Norris Theatre. Then I will be signing SWIM THAT ROCK from 11:30-12:30

The second panel is called Children’s Books: Inspiring Young Minds, with authors Mac Barnett, Doreen Cronin and Jennifer Fosberry. It is at the Salvatori Computer Science Center from 3-4pm.  Then I will be signing Super Hair-O and the Barber of Doom as well as Blackout from 4-5pm

Hope to see you there.

I will be at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival at the USC campus today. I am speaking on two panels and signing books.

The first panel is called Middle Grade Fiction: In BeTween Tales , with authors Lisa Greenwald, Joyce Sidman and Holly Goldberg Sloan.  It is 10:3-11:30 at the Norris Theatre. Then I will be signing SWIM THAT ROCK from 11:30-12:30

The second panel is called Children’s Books: Inspiring Young Minds, with authors Mac Barnett, Doreen Cronin and Jennifer Fosberry. It is at the Salvatori Computer Science Center from 3-4pm.  Then I will be signing Super Hair-O and the Barber of Doom as well as Blackout from 4-5pm

Hope to see you there.

Here is the new trailer for the book!

<iframe src=http://roccoart.com/feed/”//player.vimeo.com/video/91371186?byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=409476″ width=”640″ height=”426″ frameborder=”0″ webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/91371186″>Swim That Rock – a book trailer</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user15736873″>John Rocco</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

Swim That Rock, my new novel, due out in bookstores April 6th has received some nice pre-publication buzz. For more information about the book go to the official website here.

The brand new covers I created for the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series have been unveiled. You can see them on Percy Jackson’s FaceBook page here.  Here is the new cover art in it’s entirety that spans across all five books.

When I was initially asked to re-do the covers of the Percy Jackson books I had mixed feelings. At first I thought, “Hey, what’s wrong with the originals?” as I was very proud of them and thought because of the popularity of the books they had become very iconic. My second thought was “How cool that they asked me to re-do the covers!”. Covers get remade all the time. They do this for many reasons. Sometimes its to just give the books a fresh look to possibly attract new readers. Sometimes the covers feel to old fashioned, and sometimes they want to draw some attention to a series that has had a lot of success. Rarely, if ever, does the same artist get the opportunity to re-do his or her own covers. This was an honor and a challenge.  I wanted to update the books but I also didn’t want to depart too far from what was already familiar. Almost like a tribute to the originals. I initially had the idea to create one long painting that would span across all five books because I thought it would look fantastic when you put all the books together end to end. Creating a composition that went smoothly from one “scene” to another was tricky to say the least. Also it should be said that most of my covers don’t exactly depict scenes from a book, but rather a representation of what the book felt like to me. For instance, in Th Lightning Thief, I always felt like  that book was about a boy who was stuck in the middle of an argument between two adults. Those adults, being Zeus and Poseidon, were represented by a raging sea, and a stormy sky. In the new version I have a similar composition, but this time Percy is standing atop (or being supported by)  a sunken statue of Poseidon. What I wanted to represent there was the forgotten Greek Gods, and how this boy, Percy, is here to remind us of their importance.

I sure hope you all like what I have created. I sure had fun doing it!

Below are  various stages of completion.

Here you see an early sketch where my plan was to have no text at all on the covers. A bold choice that the publishers thought would not fly past the sales and marketing folks. They were right.

below is the revised sketch with text in place. You can see I’ve replaced Luke’s boat with the Ironclad ship that Clarisse had. I also decided to have Percy more in an action pose in the center image.

Here is the final art in progress. For this painting I decided to work in black and white to make sure all my values were working, then I came in with color at the end. This is a process I sometimes use when creating complex paintings.

Further painting…with various notes to myself.

Here are the spines that I designed. I wanted to go with more of a graphic approach so that when the spines and the covers met on the edge of the book they would be distinct from each other. I used greek designs I found on ancient vases for the design of the clouds and the waves. I liked this cut paper effect because it reminds me of old fashioned theatre sets and I think it is a great reminder that this is a timeless tale.

I am very excited to announce the upcoming release of my first young adult novel that I co-wrote with my best friend from childhood. It is published by the fabulously talented folks at Candlewick Press, and it is featured in the Publishers Marketplace Book Buzz 2014. Swim That Rock will be available wherever books are sold, on April 8th 2014.

Click here to download the first two chapters for free at Book Buzz.

Click here to go to a dedicated site for the book:  www.swimthatrock.blogspot.com