The New York Times Found Poetry Contest

For the 4th year in a row, I had the pleasure of illustrating the announcement for The New York Times Learning Network’s Found Poetry Contest. Students from around the country submit poetry sampled from articles in the paper. Each year, the contest gets more and more popular among students and teachers, and this time, there were over 2000 submissions. Thankfully, editors are in charge of the judging—I get to draw.

As in past years, we’ve chosen to feature the most popular subjects in the illustration. If you’d like to read some of these lovely works, click here. Thanks again to Katherine Schulten at the Times for including me in this fun event.

Rats! Pick of the Month by the Poetry Foundation

It’s always a pleasure to receive emails from author J. Patrick Lewis. This morning, in addition to pointing out that today (Nov. 2) is “Plan Your Epitaph Day”, he shared the terrific news that World Rat Day is the pick of the month by The Poetry Foundation. Thank you current Children’s Laureate Kenn Nesbitt for your kind words:

“With splendidly silly illustrations by Anna Raff, and poems about everything from ‘Dragon Appreciation Day’ to ‘International Cephalopod Awareness Day’ (and, of course ‘World Rat Day’) this cleverly-crafted collection includes shape poems, limericks, and enough rib-tickling rhymes that you can have fun celebrating ‘The Holidays’ all year long.”

Now I have to go revise my epitaph...

The 600 (with apologies to Lord Tennyson)

The 600 followers of my bird blog Ornithoblogical might have noticed a big milestone approaching — I was about to paint my 600th bird! And then there was a long pause....

My apologies for the delay; brainstorming takes time, and so does execution, but I’m hoping I’ve come up with something worthy of the occasion. 

Speaking of execution, if you’re not familiar with the refrain from Lord Tennyson’s epic poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” here’s some historical background and a link to the poem. Perhaps it’s not the most uplifting subject matter, but it certainly is epic. And at the very least, a challenge for my mostly minimalist illustration style on the blog.

A BIG THANK YOU for all the support to my 600! In celebration, I’m hoping to get my etsy shop back up an running this week, with offerings of prints and other stuff. And there are more birds to come. Meanwhile, below are some details from The 600—Charge of the Egg Brigade.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
    All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
    Noble six hundred.

The New York Times - Found Poetry Contest

This marks the third year that I’ve done some hand-lettering for The New York Times Learning Network Blog’s Found Poetry Contest. 

Students around the world are invited to submit poems sampled from articles found in the paper. Editor Katherine Schulten sends me a list of the year’s most popular subjects, and I take it from there.

As you can see above, the subjects chosen this year exhibit quite a range of interest—from heart-breaking and historic, to frivolous yet fabulous. For a look at my past interpretations, check out my website. 

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!