Blog
May 9th, 2015
Speaking of new books, my work has appeared in a few other recent titles, and I finally had a chance to share some photos with you.
First up is another garden book, which I hinted at some months ago: The Nonstop Color Garden, published by Cool Springs Press, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group.
This is the second garden book I’ve illustrated with Quarto, though while the first one was about centering a garden around edible plants, this one is about creating a year-round display of color.
I contributed a dozen illustrations to the book—each showing a garden plan throughout the year, with the color evolving and changing with the seasons.
The book couldn’t have arrived with more perfect timing for me—now that the Tailor and I are in the new house, we have all sorts of ideas for how we’d like build and shape a future garden. One of the things I always admire in Pacific Northwest gardens is how they’re bursting with color in nearly every month of the year. Just researching the illustrations for The Nonstop Color Garden gave me lots of new knowledge and ideas (and the book doesn’t just deal with one region, either!), and you can bet I’ll be reading the finished book carefully for even more inspiration. Big thanks to Quarto and my fantastic art director, Brad Springer, for helping turn my thumb just a shade greener!
The other two books are centered around my favorite thing ever: sketching. One is the latest book written and edited by my friend Gabi Campanario, founder of the Urban Sketching movement. His newest, published by Quarry Books, is a handbook on urban sketching, focused on drawing architecture. The book includes tips and examples from artists all over the world, in a wide variety of techniques and styles. I was asked to contribute a sketch I did in Philadelphia a few years ago—it feels great to be in such good company in the book. Thanks, Gabi!
Finally, the newest book is called A World of Artist Journal Pages, by Dawn DeVries Sokol and published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang. This book is different in scope from Gabi’s sketching handbook—instead, it’s more of an anthology of journaling. There are over 1000 artworks represented in the book, and they present a broad range of journal work—everything from personal diaries to collage books to handwritten calendars to idea sketchbooks to figure studies to travel journals. Much of the work reminds me of the personal diaries of artists like Frida Kahlo, and the book is a fascinating glimpse into how the creative process works differently for everybody. If you’ve ever wanted to keep a visual journal, but didn’t know where to start, this might be a good reference book to have on hand.
Many thanks to the authors and publishers who included my work! It feels so good to have these babies on my bookshelf.
May 5th, 2015
This beauty arrived in the post a little while ago, and I finally remembered to put it down for a moment to take some photos to share with you. Our Dead Feminists are in a new book! Our friends Kseniya Thomas and Jessica C. White, who founded the Ladies of Letterpress organization and conference, have just published a gorgeous anthology of women printers with the Ivy Press and Princeton Architectural Press.
The format of the book is really something special. First of all, it’s huge—a whopping 11 x 14 inches—so you can really get in close and see the detail of all the work featured. Second, each page features a large piece on one side, and smaller images and background info on the other—and every page is perforated, so those who want to can turn their favorite pages into frameable wall art. (Not that this book purist would do that, but it’s a great idea!)
Jessica and I are honored to be a part of the book, and proud to be some of the earliest members of the Ladies of Letterpress community. Best of all, it feels so good to be in a book with so many of our friends and colleagues, and included with such great work being done around the U.S. So in honor of our community of printer friends, we’ve been given the green light to share our contributor’s discount with all our friends. If you’d like a copy of the book, you can order it at PA Press and enter the code LETTER for a 35% discount!
And speaking of community and the Dead Feminists, Jessica and I have a large batch of them on display right now at the gallery at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. (I don’t have a photo of the show yet to share with you, but when I get one I’ll post it here.) The exhibit is called The Contained Narrative, and deals with all the myriad ways books and broadsides tell a story—from the traditional to the unexpected. Nine of our broadsides will be on display (it’s been many years since we displayed so many at once!), as part of the “Book as Community & Collaboration” section of the show.
The exhibit is already on display, and timed to run through the 2015 Book Arts Biennial this summer—where book artists and visitors from around the world will see it. If you happen to be in the Twin Cities this season, here are the details:
The Contained Narrative: Defining the Contemporary Artist Book
April 8 through July 26, 2015
Star Tribune Foundation Gallery, Minnesota Center for Book Arts
1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN
Opening reception: Friday, May 8, 6 to 9 pm
Closing reception: Friday, July 24, 6 to 9 pm
More info and list of artists here
June 5th, 2014
I’ve been drawing a lot of Adirondack chairs lately—which, since I adore them, is just fine with me. I’m working on illustrating another book with Quarto Publishing Group, that will be released in late fall of this year. I can’t share any salient details yet, but I thought I’d show just a wee slice. As soon as the book comes out, I’ll let you know!
February 27th, 2014
This gigantic tome (I know you can’t tell from the photograph, but you’ll have to take my word for it—you could pave a street with it) has been a long time in the making. The folks at Codex have finally published the second volume of Book Art Object, and look—I’m in it! It’s a beautiful book, and filled with all kinds of inspiration.
If you don’t hear from me for awhile, you can probably bet I’ll be curled up and reading…
February 20th, 2013
You can imagine my delight when I came home to find a book I’ve illustrated waiting in my mailbox! I’m happy to announce that The Edible Landscape by Emily Tepe, published by Voyageur Press, is now available!
The book is centered on a subject very close to my heart: urban homesteading and the slow food movement. It’s all about crafting a garden plan centered around edible plants. My drawings are sprinkled throughout the book, illustrating lots of design possibilities for gardeners. I love the idea that my watercolors might help someone dream up a plan for feeding their family and beautifying their home.
Many thanks to Voyageur Press, and most of all to my amazing art director, Cindy Laun, for bringing me onboard!
May 2nd, 2010
I think it’s time to get that new wok I’ve been meaning to buy, because I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot of use. The cookbook I illustrated is now available, and I can’t wait to give it a whirl.
Tacoma Community House has been serving Tacoma’s immigrant community for decades, offering an enormous range of educational and social services to its clients—including language translation and interpretation, job training, citizenship assistance, and employment programs. The diversity of clients is astounding—in the last year alone, TCH served clients from fifty-four countries. To bring their clients together and welcome them to the community, TCH has a tradition of holding potluck dinners. As a result, they’ve compiled an impressive collection of international recipes over the years. In honor of their 100th anniversary this year (can you believe that?), TCH has compiled a collection of their favorites into a cookbook: ¡Entrée!
I have a feeling they had quite a job of editing; ¡Entrée! contains over 140 recipes from five world regions. Even the name is a play on this diversity, combining the inverted exclamation point from Spanish with a French term.
Dishes represented here include empanadas, tabouli, spring rolls, moussaka, samosas, gazpacho, cottage pie, a wide range of curries, and even American Indian fry bread.
To bring all these recipes together into a cohesive theme, all the illustrations focused on hands—which came in handy for the step-by-step instructions.
(Hence all the hand-modeling by Zooey.)
Each recipe is as authentic as it gets—instead of being filtered through some chef or ethnic restaurant, these dishes come directly from the family traditions of TCH’s clients. They even passed the Tailor test (and he has high standards!)—no processed ingredients, no store-bought shortcuts, no mention of canned cream-of-mushroom soup. He even gave the English plum pudding recipe (which is one of his specialties) his stamp of approval.
I think I’ll be trying this one first:
Arroz Mexicano (Mexican Rice)
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp lard or cooking oil
1 cup long grain rice
Tip: It’s important in Mexican rice to fry the rice before you add the liquids. It will make a difference in the texure and taste.
1. Mix tomato sauce and water together; add green onions, garlic and salt to the tomato sauce.
2. Heat lard or oil in a sauce pan on medium-high heat; add the rice and cook till slightly brown.
3. Add tomato sauce mixture and lower the heat; add more water of the mixture does not cover the rice. Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes or until liquid is gone from the pan.
4. Lard is used by many Mexican families for cooking instead of cooking oils.
Oh, and about the lard: heck, yes. If you’ve ever tried refried beans at an authentic Mexican restaurant, the lard is what makes it taste so good. Don’t be afraid—a little lard won’t kill you. Go ahead and try it! Learn it, love it, lard it.
I loved working with TCH (and with Hana K., their talented designer, who treated my illustrations with such care), but even better was seeing ¡Entrée! on a bookstore shelf. You can find a copy in town at King’s Books, or you can try more sample recipes and order online here.
August 3rd, 2009
Lately I’ve been doing some things that fall a little outside of what you might normally find in my studio. See figure A, above. Daughter of Kura, the debut novel by Debra Austin, is being released tomorrow, so Debra and the folks at Side x Side Creative put together an in-depth website to promote the book and give background information about the book. They asked me to contribute some illustrations to the project. (Full disclosure: I’m not the book jacket illustrator. Edited to add: the above illustration did become the jacket illustration for the book’s sequel, Mother of Asili.)
This was no ordinary illustration gig; in fact, I’d say this project was one of the biggest creative challenges I’ve faced yet. You see, Daughter of Kura is a novel about a pre-human culture—not merely prehistoric, but pre- homo sapiens. The only reference materials available were the fossil record and educated conjecture. It took a lot of research on everybody’s part to bring all of this together, and we hope you’ll be as pleased with the final product as we are. You can learn more about the book and see all of the illustrations here.
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