some birds of paradise

If you haven’t visited Ornithoblogical this week, stop by for my take on a few birds of paradise. I’ve been saving up these crazies for when I had time to do them justice. And I’m fast approaching bird #600, with plenty of ridiculous ideas to go. 

a more mobile-friendly ornithoblogical

Ornithoblogical is now even easier to follow while you are on the go. With a new mobile-friendly interface, you can quickly scroll through the latest birds on your phone, as well as read or add to the comments section.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the latest installment of Thanksgiving-inspired birds. Looking over the comments, I see no one has yet cried fowl. ;v)

cold and flu season - group health cooperative

If you live on the East Coast, you no doubt heard, or perhaps directly experienced that crazy nor’easter over the last weekend of October. Earlier that week, I completed an illustration assignment that really put me in the mood—albeit not too literally. 

I was asked by the Group Heath Cooperative in Seattle to create an image for their cold and flu season outreach, encouraging members to get their flu shots. Below are a few of the sketches. The final solution (above) is more straight-forward, but the message is less dire than say, skiing off a stuffy nose mountain, or fending off a storm of birds and swine. Although, I think you’ll appreciate the humor of those sketches (below). Here’s to staying healthy this winter!

of rats, sloths and other notable creatures...

In case you’ve been wondering why you’ve been seeing fewer birds and other such imagery up in my slice of the blogosphere of late, it’s because I’ve been hard at work on an exciting new project.

A few months ago, I was approached
by Candlewick Press to illustrate a collection of animal poems by the hilarious and prolific J. Patrick Lewis, the current U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate. As you might imagine, I jumped at the chance. The book, due to be released in Spring 2013, allows me to immerse myself into the minds of rats, bulldogs, sloths, and mata-mata turtles, to name just a few. While I can’t share much about the illustrations until publication, I will occasionally throw a little detail at you here and there...like here, in the sketch at left.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been working on two pieces for the November issue of the South African magazine Migrate. Since we’re almost halfway through October, I’ll be able to share those in just a few weeks. In the meantime, here’s a detail from one, titled Above. Happy Autumn!

the bathers

What exactly is going on here? You’ll have to pick up the April/May issue of Kiwi Magazine and find out...

(Apologies aux Messieurs Cézanne, Renoir et Seurat.)

a thanksgiving feast

There has been a virtual feast of Thanksgiving bird imagery over at Ornithoblogical this week, a few of which are pictured below. The convenience of a national holiday centered around a bird is certainly not lost on me. And I certainly will be giving thanks for all of the ornithological imagery opportunities that come with Christmas. Stay tuned as I wrap up my year-long marathon!