A home run for Chloe!

Classes and Presentations

These are locations where I will be lecturing or teaching for 2012:

Field Museum in Chicago, September 15, 2012





School of Visual Arts: 2011/2012, Children's Book Illustration Class



Mazza Museum at the University of Findlay: July 2012, Summer Conference





Fine Art Factory in Martina Franca, Italy: August 2012, The Art of Children's Books CANCELLED

Little Bunny on the Move

Night Driving was a success and received positive reviews.  Laura Godwin, the editor, offered me a contract to write and illustrate the next book.  I was giddy with the possibilities and I could not choose.  I created characters that lacked a storyline. My sketchbook was filled with talking hot dogs and creatures from the pit of my imagination.  My wife, Yunhee, told me to get a job where I could think about the book and get paid.  I got a job delivering doorknobs to new houses around Denver. The scenic route of grass and mountains inspired the setting for Little Bunny on the Move.

 The other inspiration came from watching hours of television.  I saw a documentary about the "Oregon Trail".  After the program, the image of a little white rabbit walking with purpose came into my head.  Laura is an incredible editor with words.  She advised that the book should have descriptions like "over, under, past, and across".  These words engaged the reader on the journey with the Bunny.

Drawing the Bunny was surprisingly fun and easy.  Most of my time was spent on creating the foliage on the trees and the blades of grass.  The little girl who wants to keep the bunny, is the daughter of a friend of ours. For the reference photo, she is actually playing with Fabian, the cat.

When I finished the final illustration, I laid out all the drawings on our couch.  My cat, Fabian jumped onto the drawing of the bunny going under the fence.  As I screamed and picked him up, he dug his claws into the paper.  After a few hours of panic, I sanded down the grooves using a power tool normally used for sanding details on doorknobs. I could not forgive Fabian for at least 3 years, which is apparent when I made Hondo and Fabian.

Night Driving by John Coy

I was fortunate that the Frozen Man book was accepted by the publisher and the audience as a decent enough book.  Laura Godwin at Henry Holt offered me a manuscript titled, "Night Driving"  by John Coy to illustrate.

While I was contemplating all the references I would need for this book, I got married.  My wife, Yunhee, got a job offer in Denver, Colorado.  We decided it was time for a change so we moved out to Colorado.

When I read the manuscript, I had a vision of this round car going through a desert landscape. Every page required a historical reference, so I carried my camera everywhere. One weekend,we went to a town called Manitou Springs to be tourists.  I saw this car sitting in a parking lot.  It was the perfect shape I wanted for "Night Driving". 

I sent in the thumbnails of my ideas to the Laura and waited for an approval. The next step is usually a dummy book. After all the committees approve the dummy book,I start working on the final illustrations.  I begin with the first page by gathering references and supplies (paper, watercolors, and brushes). I move on to the next page when the first page is completely done. With "Night Driving", I started over many times before committing to a final drawing.

References for the rest of the book were easy to find, except for the ear on the boy in the diner.  I never had to draw an ear that was so detailed before.  I think I watched too many Star Trek episodes.  The boy  and the waitress look like Vulcans but I moved on and finished the book.

History Part II: After Art School



Illustration for a school assignment



In my senior year at SVA, William Low, suggested I make an appointment to see Laura Godwin, an editor at Henry Holt and Company.  She reviewed my portfolio and said to come back in a year.  In the meantime, I went to work full time as a t-shirt designer and went to SVA at night. 

When I graduated from SVA, I got a job as a security guard at the Guggenheim Museum.  I kept working on my portfolio until I thought it was worthy of another review. With my new promotional cards and a new portfolio case, I made another appointment with Laura.

Laura gave me my first job.  I quit my security guard job and went to work on Frozen Man by David Getz. I worked on it day and night.  This was my break into the market and I wanted to make a good impression.

 The medium I used for books such as Hondo and Fabian and Little Bunny on the Move was developed in college.  I was comfortable layering graphite and adding water colors to create the "ethereal" look.  The biggest drawback was that it was time consuming and difficult to reproduce. 

When I got the assignment to do Frozen Man, the snow and the muted tones from the watercolors were a perfect combination.  I did struggle a bit with the portrait because I had do an artist interpretation based on his skull.  Henry Holt sent over some photographs for reference but I still had to add hair and a facial expression.

It was a good thing that I took a lot of math and science courses. Frozen Man is a book for schools and libraries and I had to resist the temptation to make him into a caricature. 

If I had not taken the other academic courses, I think he would have look like this:



The usual



History Part I: Art School

I was clearly excited to start School of Visual Arts in New York City after attending University of Colorado and North Carolina State University. I could not decide on a major, so I went from liberal arts to mathematics before applying to the School of Visual Arts.  The biggest hurdle came when I presented to my parents the plan of going to art school.  They asked a lot of questions and I am not fond of explaining myself.

I was awestruck by my instructors.  Marshall Arisman, William Low, and Kurt Vargo were just some of them.  They allowed me to create, expand, and understand the methods of being a visual artist.



Preview

February 3, 2012
Book signings: Merritt Bookstore Friday, February 17 10:00 to 11:30


New Books



The Monster Returns (released in January 2012)us.macmillan.com/themonsterreturns/PeterMcCarty

Chloe (released May 2012)

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Chloe-Peter-Mccarty/?isbn=9780061142918