I was recently notified that Wiener Wolf was awarded the Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award! That means that all of the kinder to third graders in the state voted for it as their favorite book of the year. Hooray!!!

I will be traveling to Little Rock in November to receive the award at the annual Arkansas Reading Association’s conference. While there I will be giving a presentation to attending librarians and educators. I’ve done dozens of presentations for kids but this will be my first to an adult audience. Yikes!

Disney Hyperion

Wiener Wolf and I are very grateful to the young readers of Arkansas for choosing our book! Thank yooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu!

Faces magazine

I recently created these four illustrations for Faces magazine. They are all Aesop’s Fables with a modern twist in the imagery. This first one is City Mouse and Country Mouse. I am continuing with my experimentation with watercolors and colored pencils and am pretty happy with the results for this piece.

Faces magazine

Up till this illustration, I had only used a yellow wash for the underpainting when using this technique. Because this image depicts mice in a dark hole, I thought I’d try using a blue wash. It worked pretty well. This fable is Belling the Cat. The moral is: mice look ridiculous in WWII uniforms.

Faces magazine

For this image I used a pink wash because of the sunset lighting. I’d never heard this fable before. Something about an ape and a fox traveling through a cemetery and the ape bragging about his dead ancestors. The moral is: don’t ride with a driving chimp.

Faces magazine

I used a mauve wash here and don’t think it was as successful. However, I do like the simplicity of the line drawing for the cityscape and distant crowd that I was playing around with here. This fable was about a fox losing his tail and trying to convince all of the other foxes to cut off their tails so he wouldn’t be made fun of. The moral is: mauve doesn’t make a good underpainting.

The following illustrations were done for a manuscript called Winny the Princess Playing Pony that I have written and created a dummy book for . I’ve been experimenting with different styles and media trying to create art that fits the story. It needs to be something young and playful.

The above art is done with watercolor crayons and watercolor paints.

This is the first of the images of Winny in her bedroom. The drawing is really rough. It is pastels on pink paper (as befitting a princess).

Here I am going to my old standby, acrylics. However, I am adding a more calligraphic outline to everything. And it’s purple.

This is the acrylic painting over wood panel. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

This is the acrylic painting with very thick paint application and me removing some of it with the end of my brush for pattern and texture.

Since there’s no sense in beating a dead horse, I switched from acrylics. This is watercolors with outline and  hatching done with a wide nibbed pen in purple ink.

Watercolors again, this time with a narrow nib on the pen. I like this one a lot, but I am still keen to experiment.

This is watercolors with color pencil on top. I think I may be onto something here.

Under submission

Bingo! I have finally changed the drawing to be more active and I think the style feels fresh and new. Now to create a couple more of the Winny images in this style and I’ll have a dummy book ready to shop around.

Now that I have the underpainting completed, it is time to get to the good stuff. Color! I work from background to foreground and put in a layer at a time, as opposed to working all the way to finish on each element. Here, I have laid in the sky and far landscape.

The next day’s work. At this point I’m working sporadically, having other projects I have to wrap up. So not much progress is being made yet.

The jackelope gets a lick of paint.

I wasn’t happy with my rendering of the cowboy’s face. I was working from reference I pulled off of the Google, but the angles and lighting weren’t right. So I had to call in the big guns. Shooting your own reference always makes a great difference. And no, Harper didn’t mind modeling for a boy image.

Here I’ve completed the first layer of color and have started the second. In the fun spots, like the jackelope and cowboy faces, I have done even more work. In less fun areas, such as the dream catcher, there is still only the underpainting. At this point, it is Friday morning and I need to have it completed and photographed and submitted to the Hunting Art Prize competition (more on that later) by midnight of the next day.

After pulling an all-nighter, this is where I am half way through Saturday. Everything has received a third going over, except the sky, and much of the detail has been added.

Almost done. I have added late afternoon lighting to the clouds and enhanced the lighting everywhere else to fit with it.

DONE! Whiskers and all. I’m happy with my painting, but had to take a poorly lit, night time, iPhone photo of it to submit to the competition. That doesn’t bode well for my chances of being selected.

Detail 1

Detail 2

Detail 3

So why did I nearly kill myself with sleep deprivation to finish this painting? For an art contest. The Hunting Art Prize is a competition open only to Texas residents and only to traditional paintings and drawings. It is sponsored by the international oil services company, Hunting PLC. ,so the judges tend to be conservative in their tastes. But the prize is $50,000, the largest in the country. I was a finalist two years ago and got to go to the super posh gala in Houston they held for announcing the winner. I hope to go again. Fingers crossed.

To transfer my sketch to the six foot tall canvas, I enlarged the drawing in Photoshop to the right dimensions and then divided it up and printed it in 11″ x 17″ panels. I taped them all together and then to the canvas.

Next, using old fashioned carbon paper placed underneath the sketch, I traced it with pencil to transfer it to the gessoed canvas surface.

Once the drawing was on the canvas, I got to finally start the painting. The underpainting that is. I do a burnt umber painting first, just to solidify my drawing and establish values. It usually results in some cool textures too.

The underpainting under way. I printed out reference photos I found on the internet and taped them to the canvas for easy access.

The underpainting completed. Note that I did not fill in the sky. That is because a burnt umber underpainting doesn’t make for an especially luminous sky.

And here is a detail of the finished underpainting. In the end, most of this layer will be covered over by other layers of paint and you will see little evidence of it in the final painting. But, like I said, it strengthens my drawing and give me a solid base to build on. So in the end, I think it is worth doing.

This is the tight sketch I created for The Return of the Jackelope. I scanned into my computer the thumbnail sketch I thought worked best (as seen in the previous post) and enlarged it in Photoshop. I then reduced the output levels using the Levels adjustment, so that when I printed it out, the sketch would appear very light. I then drew this much tighter/detailed version on top of it. Nothing fancy, just a #2 pencil and regular printer paper. You may be wondering, are those tiny volcanoes in the sketch? They are in fact, a burning prairie dog town. I discussed the inspiration for this image in my last post, as being my time spent in the Colorado foothills and my reaction to the suburban sprawl. Well, my in-laws have lived in a very large neighborhood development in Castle Rock for many years. Only sections of the development were completed and in the empty spaces, which were very large areas of high plains desert, there lived prairie dogs. It was always such a thrill to see the little critters scurrying between burrows and peeping from their holes. Then one day they all disappeared. And a week later, construction began on those sites. I don’t know for sure what happened to the prairie dogs, perhaps the developer trapped them all and relocated them to some other part of the prairie, but I doubt they went through the trouble and expense of doing that. So, that is the reasoning behind the scorched earth imagery  left in the wake of this kid and his tractor.

Once I had my tight sketch completed, I created a few value studies. These are just prints of that sketch that I shaded in with a #2 pencil. I’m exploring different light sources and how the shadows lay. I chose the middle one for my painting. I like the 10 o’clock directional lighting because it casts the jackelope into shadow, adding to his mystery, but also the rim lighting on the boy, buttes, and cumulonimbus clouds should have a nice dramatic effect. I don’t believe I’ve ever painted an image before with this type of lighting. I look forward to the challenge.

The next step will be the prepping of the canvas and transfer of the drawing which will be in another post. I will leave you with a photo I just came upon while visiting my brother this past weekend. As, I mentioned in my previous post, I was a tractor loving kid.

Tim and Jeff with Tonka tractors and Tippy dog.

This is the tight sketch I created for The Return of the Jackelope. I scanned into my computer the thumbnail sketch I thought worked best (as seen in the previous post) and enlarged it in Photoshop. I then reduced the output levels using the Levels adjustment, so that when I printed it out, the sketch would appear very light. I then drew this much tighter/detailed version on top of it. Nothing fancy, just a #2 pencil and regular printer paper. You may be wondering, are those tiny volcanoes in the sketch? They are in fact, a burning prairie dog town. I discussed the inspiration for this image in my last post, as being my time spent in the Colorado foothills and my reaction to the suburban sprawl. Well, my in-laws have lived in a very large neighborhood development in Castle Rock for many years. Only sections of the development were completed and in the empty spaces, which were very large areas of high plains desert, there lived prairie dogs. It was always such a thrill to see the little critters scurrying between burrows and peeping from their holes. Then one day they all disappeared. And a week later, construction began on those sites. I don’t know for sure what happened to the prairie dogs, perhaps the developer trapped them all and relocated them to some other part of the prairie, but I doubt they went through the trouble and expense of doing that. So, that is the reasoning behind the scorched earth imagery  left in the wake of this kid and his tractor.

Once I had my tight sketch completed, I created a few value studies. These are just prints of that sketch that I shaded in with a #2 pencil. I’m exploring different light sources and how the shadows lay. I chose the middle one for my painting. I like the 10 o’clock directional lighting because it casts the jackelope into shadow, adding to his mystery, but also the rim lighting on the boy, buttes, and cumulonimbus clouds should have a nice dramatic effect. I don’t believe I’ve ever painted an image before with this type of lighting. I look forward to the challenge.

The next step will be the prepping of the canvas and transfer of the drawing which will be in another post. I will leave you with a photo I just came upon while visiting my brother this past weekend. As, I mentioned in my previous post, I was a tractor loving kid.

Tim and Jeff with Tonka tractors and Tippy dog.

I have never really documented my creative process before, so it’s about time I tried it. And the project I chose to show the steps of is a doozie. I am creating a 38″ x 72″ painting on canvas, which is roughly the size of me. I have painted on large canvases before, but it has been many years. The title of this painting is “The Return of the Jackelope.

As with all of my projects, I start off with thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook. I draw them with a .005 Micron Pigma pen. There is also a bit of wordlisting done with a sienna colored Micron (because I think it looks cool). In my thumbnails, I am trying to figure out the concept as well as the composition. I go a little bananas at this stage and even try to work out shadow and light.

I had a hard time figuring out the concept for this painting. The overall idea has been with me for at least four years now, since it was inspired by the time I lived in Castle Rock, CO. Colorado is a beautiful place with it’s forever mountains and marching foothills and rolling high plains deserts. Living outside of Denver though, I witnessed the ever-expanding suburban sprawl as it carved its way through the landscape. It would make me sick to see the hillsides and open land being flattened and paved over. At the same time, I was awed by the giant convoys of earth-moving vehicles stationed alongside these sites (hey, I was a tractor-loving boy once too). So, what would nature’s response to this destruction be? The return of the Jackelope!

I knew I wanted to paint the jackelope. Not the cute little fuzzy bunny with deer antlers, as it is usually depicted, but the grizzled jack rabbit of the American West, with the legs and horns of the pronghorn antelope. I see the jackelope as a shaman-like figure wrapped in Native American type dressings. I also wanted to paint the beautiful Colorado landscape and amazing sky. I had in mind the Georgia O’Keefe paintings of the cow skull on a post against the towering clouds. I liked the verticality of those images and the proportion of sky to ground. The third thing I knew I wanted to include was one of the giant earth moving tractors. I took about fifty photos of them.

At first, the conflict I was going to create was going to be between the Jackelope and the tractors. But after several thumbnails, I realized there isn’t a lot of drama to be created with a rabbit creature facing off with an inanimate object. I tried the tractor as a rotting carcass with crows descending upon its rusting hulk. But that made the Jackelope victorious and I wanted to show the face-off. So I injected a human boy into it. A boy with a white cowboy outfit on, pulling the tractor. Leaving a trail of destruction behind him. This figure has appeared in other art I have done. He represents the young and naive but destructive force that mankind is on this ancient planet. The final thumbnail ended up looking like this:

I created a tight pencil sketch based on this thumbnail, which I will share in the next post.

I have never really documented my creative process before, so it’s about time I tried it. And the project I chose to show the steps of is a doozie. I am creating a 38″ x 72″ painting on canvas, which is roughly the size of me. I have painted on large canvases before, but it has been many years. The title of this painting is “The Return of the Jackelope.

As with all of my projects, I start off with thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook. I draw them with a .005 Micron Pigma pen. There is also a bit of wordlisting done with a sienna colored Micron (because I think it looks cool). In my thumbnails, I am trying to figure out the concept as well as the composition. I go a little bananas at this stage and even try to work out shadow and light.

I had a hard time figuring out the concept for this painting. The overall idea has been with me for at least four years now, since it was inspired by the time I lived in Castle Rock, CO. Colorado is a beautiful place with it’s forever mountains and marching foothills and rolling high plains deserts. Living outside of Denver though, I witnessed the ever-expanding suburban sprawl as it carved its way through the landscape. It would make me sick to see the hillsides and open land being flattened and paved over. At the same time, I was awed by the giant convoys of earth-moving vehicles stationed alongside these sites (hey, I was a tractor-loving boy once too). So, what would nature’s response to this destruction be? The return of the Jackelope!

I knew I wanted to paint the jackelope. Not the cute little fuzzy bunny with deer antlers, as it is usually depicted, but the grizzled jack rabbit of the American West, with the legs and horns of the pronghorn antelope. I see the jackelope as a shaman-like figure wrapped in Native American type dressings. I also wanted to paint the beautiful Colorado landscape and amazing sky. I had in mind the Georgia O’Keefe paintings of the cow skull on a post against the towering clouds. I liked the verticality of those images and the proportion of sky to ground. The third thing I knew I wanted to include was one of the giant earth moving tractors. I took about fifty photos of them.

At first, the conflict I was going to create was going to be between the Jackelope and the tractors. But after several thumbnails, I realized there isn’t a lot of drama to be created with a rabbit creature facing off with an inanimate object. I tried the tractor as a rotting carcass with crows descending upon its rusting hulk. But that made the Jackelope victorious and I wanted to show the face-off. So I injected a human boy into it. A boy with a white cowboy outfit on, pulling the tractor. Leaving a trail of destruction behind him. This figure has appeared in other art I have done. He represents the young and naive but destructive force that mankind is on this ancient planet. The final thumbnail ended up looking like this:

I created a tight pencil sketch based on this thumbnail, which I will share in the next post.

This past Saturday, Tom McDermott and I had a book release party for Otis Steele and the Taileebone: A Southern Tall Tale. Tom is a traveling storyteller and has been telling this tall tale for many years. Finally, he put it down on paper and got Pelican Publishing Company to publish it. He asked if I might come on board and create the illustrations for the book. I jumped at the chance to draw a creepy swamp critter and so Pelican hired me to do the art.

I created a taileebone red velvet cake and some foam taileebones for the kids to wear, but Tom was the real attraction. He had the kids howling like hounds, chanting like beasties, and jumping out of their seats with a sudden TWANG of his guitar.

It was a spooky fun campfire story to get us all in the mood for Halloween!

I did a quick slide presentation at the beginning showing how I came up with the design of the creature. I explained that I borrowed the parts from several different East Texas (the setting of the book) animals and combined them into one creepy critter. He’s got the ears and sharp claws of a bobcat, the whiskers of a catfish, the body of a gator, the eyes and mouth of a bullfrog, and the big fat pink tail of a possum! We had an activity for the kids to create their own creature from different animals by playing the classic drawing game, Exquisite Corpse. Fun was had by all!

This past Saturday, Tom McDermott and I had a book release party for Otis Steele and the Taileebone: A Southern Tall Tale. Tom is a traveling storyteller and has been telling this tall tale for many years. Finally, he put it down on paper and got Pelican Publishing Company to publish it. He asked if I might come on board and create the illustrations for the book. I jumped at the chance to draw a creepy swamp critter and so Pelican hired me to do the art.

I created squirrel-skin caps, a taileebone red velvet cake, and some foam taileebones for the kids to wear, but Tom was the real attraction. He had the kids howling like hounds, chanting like beasties, and jumping out of their seats with a sudden TWANG of his guitar.

It was a spooky fun campfire story to get us all in the mood for Halloween!

I did a quick slide presentation at the beginning showing how I came up with the design of the creature. I explained that I borrowed the parts from several different East Texas (the setting of the book) animals and combined them into one creepy critter. He’s got the ears and sharp claws of a bobcat, the whiskers of a catfish, the body of a gator, the eyes and mouth of a bullfrog, and the big fat pink tail of a possum! We had an activity for the kids to create their own creature from different animals by playing the classic drawing game, Exquisite Corpse. Fun was had by all!

T-a-a-a-a-i-i-i-l-e-e-e-b-o-n-e. Don’t take what ain’t yours. You should have known.

Speaking of which, photo credits to Shelley Ann Jackson.

One of my favorite types of illustration jobs is book covers. I’ve done several over the years and found them to be great gigs in several ways. At four to six weeks, the deadlines aren’t as frantic as the two to three day newspaper deadline, or as plodding as the children’s book six to nine month deadline. The pay is the most appropriate to the amount of work as well. The covers I have done have all been in the $1500-$3000 range. Considering the $6,000 to $12,000 I have been paid  for 32 illustrated pages of children’s picture books, that break down is pretty sweet. I also really enjoy the challenge of summing up an entire work of literature into one image. That visual problem solving is really fun.

Berkley Prime Crime

This is one of the first book covers I ever illustrated and the first of many for Berkley Prime Crime. As you can see, it is a collection of cooking based mysteries. I took delight in twisting this cozy kitchen scene into a menacing murder setting.

These are from a series of mysteries based on the teddy bear crafting world. Berkley definitely likes its themed mysteries. With all of their covers, death had to be implied through mood and juxtaposition of elements, not graphically depicted. No blood or bodies allowed!

Here are covers from another two series that I illustrated for Berkley. The art director for all of these was Steve Ferlauto, one of my longest lasting and most fun to work with clients. Unfortunately, he stopped working for Berkley, and as a result, so did I.

Greenwillow Books

This is the only children’s chapter book cover I have illustrated. And it was a pretty sweet deal! Not only was it a fun book about vikings and time travel, and it paid really well, but Greenwillow sprang for a photoshoot! I got to set up the scene with a photographer, lighting, and three professional models (the boys and the dog). There wasn’t a collie available so we photographed a labrador retriever instead and I had to convert it to its furrier cousin. Unfortunately, the art director left Greenwillow right after this job and you know how that goes…

Self Promo

It has been several years since I have had a book cover illustration job. My work shifted more toward children’s picture books. But as I said, I really enjoy creating them and would like to get back into the game. I need to build up my portfolio a bit more. And to that end, I created this cover for an assignment that Lucy Cummins, art director at Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers, gave us as part of her visit to the Houston SCBWI regional conference this past spring. It is a book that she had already commissioned a cover for,  about a preteen girl whose father works in a haunted opera house. This is one of my first attempts at hand rendering type, which Lucy encouraged when I sent her the sketch. I’m happy with the result and want to do more. It makes sense for me, since I have a degree in graphic design and teach it at Texas State University. Hopefully there will be more book cover work like this for me in the near future.

One of my favorite types of illustration jobs is book covers. I’ve done several over the years and found them to be great gigs in several ways. At four to six weeks, the deadlines aren’t as frantic as the two to three day newspaper deadline, or as plodding as the children’s book six to nine month deadline. The pay is the most appropriate to the amount of work as well. The covers I have done have all been in the $1500-$3000 range. Considering the $6,000 to $12,000 I have been paid  for 32 illustrated pages of children’s picture books, that break down is pretty sweet. I also really enjoy the challenge of summing up an entire work of literature into one image. That visual problem solving is really fun.

Berkley Prime Crime

This is one of the first book covers I ever illustrated and the first of many for Berkley Prime Crime. As you can see, it is a collection of cooking based mysteries. I took delight in twisting this cozy kitchen scene into a menacing murder setting.

These are from a series of mysteries based on the teddy bear crafting world. Berkley definitely likes its themed mysteries. With all of their covers, death had to be implied through mood and juxtaposition of elements, not graphically depicted. No blood or bodies allowed!

Here are covers from another two series that I illustrated for Berkley. The art director for all of these was Steve Ferlauto, one of my longest lasting and most fun to work with clients. Unfortunately, he stopped working for Berkley, and as a result, so did I.

Greenwillow Books

This is the only children’s chapter book cover I have illustrated. And it was a pretty sweet deal! Not only was it a fun book about vikings and time travel, and it paid really well, but Greenwillow sprang for a photoshoot! I got to set up the scene with a photographer, lighting, and three professional models (the boys and the dog). There wasn’t a collie available so we photographed a labrador retriever instead and I had to convert it to its furrier cousin. Unfortunately, the art director left Greenwillow right after this job and you know how that goes…

Self Promo

It has been several years since I have had a book cover illustration job. My work shifted more toward children’s picture books. But as I said, I really enjoy creating them and would like to get back into the game. I need to build up my portfolio a bit more. And to that end, I created this cover for an assignment that Lucy Cummins, art director at Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers, gave us as part of her visit to the Houston SCBWI regional conference this past spring. It is a book that she had already commissioned a cover for,  about a preteen girl whose father works in a haunted opera house. This is one of my first attempts at hand rendering type, which Lucy encouraged when I sent her the sketch. I’m happy with the result and want to do more. It makes sense for me, since I have a degree in graphic design and teach it at Texas State University. Hopefully there will be more book cover work like this for me in the near future.

This is the grand launch of my NEW and IMPROVED blog/portfolio site, JEFF CROSBY/ILLUSTRATOR AUTHOR! It was formerly a neglected blog-only site, but I have now added my portfolio of illustrations to it, right at the top of the page. The portfolios feature my new work as well as some older favorites. So, since it’s been almost two years since my last posting, I think I need to do a bit of updating on where my career stands.

Pelican Publishing Company

Meet Otis Steele! He is a foolish trapper in the swamps of East Texas and is so hungry he could eat… The first of my book projects to be coming out this year will be Otis Steele and the Taileebone, written by my friend and traveling storyteller, Tom McDermott and published by Pelican Publishing Company. It’s a creepy tall tale that will be released later this month, just in time for Halloween! Tom and I will be having a book launch party for it at BookPeople on Saturday, October 19th at 5pm.

Holiday House

Here come those billy goat brothers to raise a ruckus! My second book project  is the long awaited picture book, The Rockabilly Goats Gruff. This one I both wrote and illustrated. It is being published by Holiday House and will be out this February. I worked long and hard on this book, not just with the writing, but with trying out a new style of illustration. It ended up being one cool book, Daddy-O! I’ll be having a rockin’ book launch party for it at the Shimmy Shack in early 2014.

Under Submission

Introducing, Winny! Winny is a pony obsessed with playing princesses and is in search of someone to share her obsession with. Will you play with Winny? This is another picture book that I wrote and I plan on illustrating.  My agent, Scott Treimel is shopping it around to publishers right now. Hooves crossed!

Disney Hyperion

Don’t despair, Wiener Dog! I am still out promoting Wiener Wolf. It was on the Texas 2X2 reading list for 2012-2013 so I performed many school visits last year all over Texas and have several more lined up for this school year. Could there be a sequel in the works? One where Wiener Dog must win the heart of a dachshund dame by winning the race of his life?!! Maybe… It’s possible.

This is the grand launch of my NEW and IMPROVED blog/portfolio site, JEFF CROSBY/ILLUSTRATOR AUTHOR! It was formerly a neglected blog-only site, but I have now added my portfolio of illustrations to it, right at the top of the page. The portfolios feature my new work as well as some older favorites. So, since it’s been almost two years since my last posting, I think I need to do a bit of updating on where my career stands.

Pelican Publishing Company

Meet Otis Steele! He is a foolish trapper in the swamps of East Texas and is so hungry he could eat… The first of my book projects to be coming out this year will be Otis Steele and the Taileebone, written by my friend and traveling storyteller, Tom McDermott and published by Pelican Publishing Company. It’s a creepy tall tale that will be released later this month, just in time for Halloween! Tom and I will be having a book launch party for it at BookPeople on Saturday, October 19th at 5pm.

Holiday House

Here come those billy goat brothers to raise a ruckus! My second book project  is the long awaited picture book, The Rockabilly Goats Gruff. This one I both wrote and illustrated. It is being published by Holiday House and will be out this February. I worked long and hard on this book, not just with the writing, but with trying out a new style of illustration. It ended up being one cool book, Daddy-O! I’ll be having a rockin’ book launch party for it at the Shimmy Shack in early 2014.

Under Submission

Introducing, Winny! Winny is a pony obsessed with playing princesses and is in search of someone to share her obsession with. Will you play with Winny? This is another picture book that I wrote and I plan on illustrating.  My agent, Scott Treimel is shopping it around to publishers right now. Hooves crossed!

Disney Hyperion

Don’t despair, Wiener Dog! I am still out promoting Wiener Wolf. It was on the Texas 2X2 reading list for 2012-2013 so I performed many school visits last year all over Texas and have several more lined up for this school year. Could there be a sequel in the works? One where Wiener Dog must win the heart of a dachshund dame by winning the race of his life?!! Maybe… It’s possible.

My daughter rec’d your book “Wiener Wolf” at a baby shower. I loved it the minute I saw and have bought several copies to have at my house to give to the little kids who often visit my home. In addition, my husband and I are members of a pack consisting of 3 wiener wolves and a stray found on a major freeway nearby. I am very interested in getting some glicee prints to display in my home…specifically the one of “Wiener Wolf” laying on the couch gazing out the window. It a perfect depiction of my doxie “Woody” looking out our large living room window. When do you think you will have the prints on your website? Thanks for such a great book and Aaarooooooooo! from our pack to yours!
Kim Tweedy

Hi, Jeff,

We love your Wiener Wolf book — thanks for a great story. We gave you a fun Liebster “award” on our bicontinental-dachshund blog today.

Keep on wagging,
Tootsie

A really great aspect of making children’s books is getting to occasionally interact with the kids. This usually takes place in the form of a school visit. Shelley and I had started doing several school visits in Colorado, talking about our book Little Lions, Bull Baiters & Hunting Hounds. Then, once we moved to Austin, we had to start all over again trying to get visits. We are finally back in the saddle and loving it. We did one together in Round Rock a couple of Fridays ago, talking about Little Lions and expository writing and then last Thursday I did a visit to another Round Rock school, presenting Wiener Wolf and story arcs.

Shelley and I presenting Little Lions to Forest Creek Elementary

For Little Lions and our companion book to that, Harness Horses, Bucking Broncoes & Pit Ponies, we do a PowerPoint presentation about the writing and illustrating of a book. For Little Lions we use examples of the dog breeds to illustrate that process. Our two dogs, Baron and Millie, the inspiration for our book, make several appearance in the slide show as well. We include props such as an inflatable globe-of-dogs and life-sized Dalmation and Maltese to get the kids thinking and talking about the development of different breeds. After that, we show the students a slide of another dog breed from our book and have them write an expository paragraph about that breed, using us and the slide image as research. We usually end with Q & A with the kids, which usually deteriorates into every kid shouting out what breed of dog their pet is. Kids love dogs! We bring original paintings, sketches, thumbnails, and marked-up manuscripts to display for the students as they file out of the library. This presentation is geared toward third to sixth grades, as is our book.

Librarian, Ginna Wimmer, presenting me presenting Wiener Wolf at Sommer Elementary

For Wiener Wolf, I present the book to kindergarten through third grades, sometimes wearing a silly, dachshund-length WW sweater. I start with an intro to myself and to life with wiener dogs, starring our two dachshunds, Baron and Fritz. I then do a dramatic reading of my book. After that, I draw and explain what a story arc is and have the students apply it to Wiener Wolf and The Billy Goats Gruff. I then lead the kids in creating a sequel to Wiener Wolf using a story arc and I illustrate the story as they come up with it. The teachers get to keep the storyboard I made with the kids and everybody gets a bookmark!

Our presentations are typically forty-five minutes to an hour long. We spend down time signing copies of the books that the kids have purchased ahead of time and chatting

A really great aspect of making children’s books is getting to occasionally interact with the kids. This usually takes place in the form of a school visit. Shelley and I had started doing several school visits in Colorado, talking about our book Little Lions, Bull Baiters & Hunting Hounds. Then, once we moved to Austin, we had to start all over again trying to get visits. We are finally back in the saddle and loving it. We did one together in Round Rock a couple of Fridays ago, talking about Little Lions and expository writing and then last Thursday I did a visit to another Round Rock school, presenting Wiener Wolf and story arcs.

Shelley and I presenting Little Lions to Forest Creek Elementary

For Little Lions and our companion book to that, Harness Horses, Bucking Broncoes & Pit Ponies, we do a PowerPoint presentation about the writing and illustrating of a book. For Little Lions we use examples of the dog breeds to illustrate that process. Our two dogs, Baron and Millie, the inspiration for our book, make several appearance in the slide show as well. We include props such as an inflatable globe-of-dogs and life-sized Dalmation and Maltese to get the kids thinking and talking about the development of different breeds. After that, we show the students a slide of another dog breed from our book and have them write an expository paragraph about that breed, using us and the slide image as research. We usually end with Q & A with the kids, which usually deteriorates into every kid shouting out what breed of dog their pet is. Kids love dogs! We bring original paintings, sketches, thumbnails, and marked-up manuscripts to display for the students as they file out of the library. This presentation is geared toward third to sixth grades, as is our book.

Librarian, Ginna Wimmer, presenting me presenting Wiener Wolf at Sommer Elementary

For Wiener Wolf, I present the book to kindergarten through third grades, sometimes wearing a silly, dachshund-length WW sweater. I start with an intro to myself and to life with wiener dogs, starring our two dachshunds, Baron and Fritz. I then do a dramatic reading of my book. After that, I draw and explain what a story arc is and have the students apply it to Wiener Wolf and The Billy Goats Gruff. I then lead the kids in creating a sequel to Wiener Wolf using a story arc and I illustrate the story as they come up with it. The teachers get to keep the storyboard I made with the kids and everybody gets a bookmark!

Our presentations are typically forty-five minutes to an hour long. We spend down time signing copies of the books that the kids have purchased ahead of time and chatting with th

A really great aspect of making children’s books is getting to occasionally interact with the kids. This usually takes place in the form of a school visit. Shelley and I had started doing several school visits in Colorado, talking about our book Little Lions, Bull Baiters & Hunting Hounds. Then, once we moved to Austin, we had to start all over again trying to get visits. We are finally back in the saddle and loving it. We did one together in Round Rock a couple of Fridays ago, talking about Little Lions and expository writing and then last Thursday I did a visit to another Round Rock school, presenting Wiener Wolf and story arcs.

Shelley and I presenting Little Lions to Forest Creek Elementary

For Little Lions and our companion book to that, Harness Horses, Bucking Broncoes & Pit Ponies, we do a PowerPoint presentation about the writing and illustrating of a book. For Little Lions we use examples of the dog breeds to illustrate that process. Our two dogs, Baron and Millie, the inspiration for our book, make several appearance in the slide show as well. We include props such as an inflatable globe-of-dogs and life-sized Dalmation and Maltese to get the kids thinking and talking about the development of different breeds. After that, we show the students a slide of another dog breed from our book and have them write an expository paragraph about that breed, using us and the slide image as research. We usually end with Q & A with the kids, which usually deteriorates into every kid shouting out what breed of dog their pet is. Kids love dogs! We bring original paintings, sketches, thumbnails, and marked-up manuscripts to display for the students as they file out of the library. This presentation is geared toward third to sixth grades, as is our book.

Librarian, Ginna Wimmer, presenting me presenting Wiener Wolf at Sommer Elementary

For Wiener Wolf, I present the book to kindergarten through third grades, sometimes wearing a silly, dachshund-length WW sweater. I start with an intro to myself and to life with wiener dogs, starring our two dachshunds, Baron and Fritz. I then do a dramatic reading of my book. After that, I draw and explain what a story arc is and have the students apply it to Wiener Wolf and The Billy Goats Gruff. I then lead the kids in creating a sequel to Wiener Wolf using a story arc and I illustrate the story as they come up with it. The teachers get to keep the storyboard I made with the kids and everybody gets a bookmark!

Our presentations are typically forty-five minutes to an hour long. We spend down time signing copies of the books that the kids have purchased ahead of time and chatting with the librarians. They are very friendly, fun, and well-informed people who love talking about books, kids, and education. Librarians are the amazing people that make all of this happen. They invite us into their schools, get the kids excited about our books, introduce us to the audience, and take care of the set up and business end of the visit. They are also the ones that spread the word about our presentations to other librarians and get us more school visits! Shelley and I are already filling up the beginning of 2012 with more school visits around Texas. It will be a fun and busy year.

[...] more information about the book launch, please visit Shelley Ann Jackson and Jeff Crosby‘s blogs! Or, read an interview between the creators and Donna Bowman Bratton. [...]

Tim: Thanks for the nerd praise! I would like to go to San Diego, but the deadline has passed for the Artist Alley applications and all they have is a wait list. I just might have to do SF 2013.

Scott: Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed the painting. I went and checked out your site. Cool work, both on the screen and in the dirt! We haven’t met through the Austin SCBWI have we?

I love the baboons vs. hyenas!

Wicked stuff, Jeff. You are a 60th Level Illustration Wizard with a +12 Paintbrush of Awesomeness. Let me know if you plan to go to San Diego. I just saw that WonderCon is moving to Anaheim this year because the San Francisco venue is being renovated. Plan for SF in 2013!!!

This past weekend, I participated in my first ComiCon. I had a table in the artists’ alley where I displayed not only my children’s books, but also my fantasy work that I’ve done over the years. There were even a few originals on exhibit that caught conventioneers’ interests. I thought I would share some of that work here.

I did this piece to have another sci-fi painting in my portfolio. The only other two are a Star Wars/Sistine Chapel illo I did for the Village Voice and a Star Trek first episode image I did for the River Front Times. For this painting, I thought I’d do a mash up of rockabilly and robots: robobilly.

This painting, titled “Afrika”, drew a lot of attention at the con, not just because of the imagery, but also because of the rusty nails I hammered into the sides of the canvas to create a frame.

I created this painting last year after attending the Illustration Master Class in Amherst. Jeremy Jarvis was one of the guest instructors and after speaking with him, thought I’d do a sample piece to get some work for Wizards of the Coast.

I painted this for the Illustration Master Class. One of the assignments was to illustrate “Beauty and the Beast”. I chose to put a twist on that title and make a fun book cover image.

This is a painting I did a few years back for promo purposes. I had the original on display at the Con and a lot of people recognized it from when it was published in Spectrum.

I did pretty well at the event, selling several books and prints and even an original painting. Best of all, I met a lot of really talented artists and made some good connections. I would like to take a wack at the San Diego con this year and check out that circus.