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I have been doing some spring cleaning and have found lots of activity/coloring pages that I'm putting all in one place and making available on my website.   There are word searches, mazes, dot-to-dots and all sort of stuff. All of these images are free to download and distribute for non-commercial use.

Most of them relate to my book titles, like this little cut-out for "May I Please Have a Cookie?"

But some were just for fun, like this easy-to-make dog hand puppet.

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I'm in the process of creating some new activity pages to coincide with my latest book that is coming out in a few weeks.  But I felt like this weekend was a perfect time for this super simple rabbit puppet.  Just download the free PDF and cut out the face and hands and glue them to a paper lunch sack.  Ta da! a bunny rabbit for Easter.

Download the PDF here...

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This is my cat, Flubby.  He doesn't move for days at a time.  That is, unless, I'm trying to paint him.

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I made it to the Amazon bestseller list for Children's Literature & Fiction today!  There I am! I'm right there WAY down at the bottom, right after Dr. Seuss.  I took a screen shot before it disappeared. :)

"May I Please Have a Cookie?" is also the number one best seller in Children's Books (hyphen)  Animals (hyphen) Alligators & Crocodiles AND number one in Children's Books (hyphen) Growing Up & Facts of Life (hyphen) Friends, Social Skills & School Life (hyphen) Manners

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This morning's warm up on the iPad.

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Today's warm-up done with #procreateapp on the iPad. The view out my window, snow and all! I'm not too smooth painting with the iPad yet, but I hope I'll get used to it eventually.

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I felt like I had to do at least one more cardinal.  And since yesterday's cardinal was biking, I thought we should go old-school and have a cardinal flying today. I think this guy is enjoying the last of the warm weather before the snow moved in tomorrow. :(

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What better warm up for a Monday morning than drawing a bird on a bicycle?

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I gave a copy of my latest book, "The Ice Cream Shop: A Steve and Wessley Reader" to the first grade boy that lives on my street.  He sent me a lovely letter saying he and his sister both love the book, plus he made me this awesome plaque.  I think it's so adorable, I'm going to hang it up in my studio this weekend.

Here's a page from the book.  I don't know why but all of my stories seem to revolve around food. 

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Today's cardinal is a sketch from life.  Well actually it's not from "life" because the bird was a dead. This is from a trip today to the Harvard Museum of Natural History where I went on a drawing field trip with some awesome kit lit peeps; Samantha Grenier, Eloise Narrigan, Jason Hart and Marcela Staudenmaier. Thanks everyone for a lovely day! 

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Today's cardinal is taking advantage of his natural Mohawk.  Sorry, I didn't have time to do a video today.

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Ok so I've made a couple of improvements over yesterday's video attempt.  For one thing, I cleaned the grunge off the camera lens!

I thought I'd stick with cardinals for a little while longer and see what sorts of characters start to develop.  This guy is much more happy-go-lucky than the guy yesterday.

I was also able to get the screen recorder to behave itself today.  So I was able to show the Photoshop piece.

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I love watching other people draw.  So this morning I've been playing around with the camera and trying to video tape myself drawing.  Here's a little bird that I did just for the fun on it.  (I also need to consciously start doing a warmup drawing every morning to get myself going.)



I scanned in the drawing and colored it in Photoshop which I wanted to include in the video but, alas, the video capture software I was using refused to cooperate. Grrr!

There are definitely some things I'll do differently next time.  For one things, I'll use a darker pencil. And I'll make sure to clean the camera lens!  But I hope you find it interesting.

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I created a little speed painting demo of Steve, one of the main characters from my new easy reader book, The Ice Cream Shop.  Hope you like it.

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I did an entry for the Tomie dePaola award this year.  This year's challenge was to illustrate the following poem for a baby/toddler book....

My challenge to myself was to illustrate the various stages of a toddler's sneeze.

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I think we've all seen illustration where the children or babies look like miniature adults? Of course sometimes, like in this medieval painting, that can be a stylistic choice but other times it can just look downright creepy.

I have definitely had times where I have had characters look 10 when they needed to be look 5.  Sometimes it can be hard to figure out why a character looks the wrong age and even harder to fix it.  Here are some pointers and things to keep in mind when changing the age of your child characters.

First of all, you need to consider the size of the face.  Look at photos of babies or, even better, draw babies from life (you'd better be quick - they are squirmy little suckers!)  But you will soon notice, that compared to adults, their chins and noses are quite small.

So, one of the easiest things you can do is move the face lower on the head.  Even a smiley face can look younger when you shift the eyes down and make the chin and mouth smaller.


The smaller you make the chin, the pudgier the cheeks will appear. If you look at the profile of a real baby sometimes you can't see their mouth or chin because their cheeks are so round.

Another thing you can do to make your characters younger is change the size of the head compared to the body.  A real adult is approximately 7 1/2 heads tall, a real 5 year old is about 6 heads tall and a real infant is about 4 heads tall, but depending on your drawing style those proportions might not look right.  When I draw kindergartners they are usually about 4 heads tall, the same proportions as a real life infant!

In the above diagram, all the figures have the same head placed on the same body.  The body is just smaller each time (I also made the neck a little shorter each time.)  By the 3rd figure, the body was getting too narrow, so I widened it a bit. But you can see by just changing the head/body proportions you can go a long way to changing the age of a character.



When you pair that with the facial changes discussed above, you can really alter the age of characters. I hope this helps.

Good luck and happy drawing!

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There is now a companion website for the new picture book, A Gluten-Free Birthday for Me! written by Sue Fliess and illustrated by me. Check it out for free downloadable coloring and activity pages, gluten-free resources, and information about author appearances and other events.

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My gazebo image moved along a lot quicker than I expected today.  This is the piece I'm submitting to the "Art at the Library" show at the Lunenburg MA public library.

Here it is with the colors roughly blocked in...

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Starting my piece for the "Art at the Library" show at the Lunenburg public library. This is the first time I've ever submitted a juried show.  I've only exhibited in 2 other shows (not counting high school!) I was pleased that they were receptive to having digitally painted art.

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A Gluten-Free Birthday for Me! is officially out as of today!

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More stuff I did just because.

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The first day of school is always a little scary, especially if it's a new school.

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I'm using this image for rescue because this is a portrait of a little kitty named Beverly that it at the rescue shelter right now waiting for a home.  I'd take her home myself but she doesn't get along with other cats.  I just love the expression on her face.

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