It was a great weekend at SCBWI in FREEZING New York.  The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators hosted a terrific conference at the Hyatt by Grand Central.  (Ahhh, it was so nice to be in the city…)  Above are a couple of sketches for my book (I’ll post about that some other time.)

Jacqueline Woodson's keynote left me stunned - she was so moving, Peter Sis was a delight, and Libba Bray was warm, witty and wonderful. Thanks to them (and many others) I left inspired and fired-up!  The practical information was also outstanding.  If you’re an illustrator or writer of children’s or young adult books, I highly recommend this organization.  A little thank you shout-out to Lissa Rovetch for bringing SCBWI to my attention.  Lissa has been a most generous reader and critic of my book.  She’s a hilarious writer, illustrator (and person for that matter.) You can see some of her work at the “Hot Dog and Bob” site below.

http://scbwiconference.blogspot.com

http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/

http://www.libbabray.com/

http://www.petersis.com/index2.html

http://www.hotdogandbob.com/

Who doesn’t love the gorgeous visuals in Whole Foods?  I stopped in after seeing a movie the other night (okay, I admit it was a vampire movie) and these California Mandarin Oranges seduced me into buying them.  I have no idea how they taste, but 3 small studies and one 48” x 36” painting later, I know I love the way they look.

The big painting just walked out the door with Jane for an open house this Thursday (along with a bunch of other work - both mine and John’s).  Two of the studies went to Nest in Dedham yesterday for their small works show (again with a bunch of other things).  Suddenly, the walls look quite bare…

These little paintings are 6” x 6”.  Fun to get back to doing little studies.  It wasn’t until I started these that I took what was a fairly abstract composition and changed it to include these wonderful little fruits.  Sorry about the blurry shot, I’ll replace it when they come back.  (IF they come back.)

Finished the commission, hooray!  The painting will be picked up this weekend and hung in the conference room of the construction management firm who built the interior space that you can see through the glass facade.  The building is the Ritz Carleton in downtown Boston.  This piece is 40” x 60”, oil on canvas.  It was really fun working on it, but now I’m eager to get back to some more abstract pieces I’ve got cooking.

I just wanted to add a bunch of the fruit I’ve done in the last year or so.  People really seem to like fruit.  Maybe it is the size, they are all either 4”x4” or 6”x6”.  Small canvases are great for morning paintings, and they help me loosen up.  I can do them in one sitting, like a short meditation before starting my day.

I did these last winter.  I still really like the colors.  Alice named one of them the Mermaid Castle, which wasn’t what I was thinking of at the time, but I like it.  I started a series of 3 smaller collage paintings based on the neighborhood image from here (and from the previous post).  I’ll put them up when they’re done.

Bear with my nostalgia here.  We went to a family party this summer at “The Yellow House” as my kids were calling it.  It was built in the Adirondack mountains in 1895 by my great grandparents, and is now owned by some of my second cousins.  It was great to reconnect with first, second and third cousins and to see mom with Mike on his 90th.  Mom loved sharing with her grandchildren the place where she spent her childhood summers.  Plus, the kids learned to play poker.

I got up early the morning after the party, and the fog was just gorgeous all the way down to the lake. I want to do some painting from the photos but I’m a little daunted.

I finally got around to photographing the paintings I did while we were on the Cape this August.  I did the 5:30 a.m. time slot, John worked in the late afternoons.  Might not sound like a vacation, but I do love that schedule.  Especially when I can spend the rest of the day biking or hanging on the beach with the kids and friends.  Bliss.

I did these 3 paintings over the weekend.  I started with acrylic for the collage portion, and finished with oil paint and encaustic.  I used my monoprints of trees as a starting place, and added 1” monoprint squares donated by my artist friends.  This was my first foray into the wax medium.  Tricky, but very fun.