Vanitas Drawing started

I have been wanting to do a large scale drawing for a very long time mixing watercolor and graphite together. I have prepared reference photos and experimented with the mixed media part of the process. And I feel I am finally ready to do this. Below is the under drawing I worked on for the past 2 days. This drawing is 24" x 27" and it is bigger than any drawing I have ever done before. So when I sit down in front of this big paper and think about filling this from edge to edge, it is a little bit daunting. But I am excited about this challenge. I am going to post the progress on this blog as I work my way through this.

Paper Birds Review

This is a Library Journal review on my "Paper Birds" book which is to be out next week.

Paper Monsters & Curious Creatures free online projects

My publisher Lark Crafts posted a few more free online projects for my upcoming book Paper Monsters and Curious Creatures. They are the accessories to go with the projects in the book as well as the ones they could not find room for in my book. Their templates and instructions are downloadable from their web site. The book will be out on August 5th. But nothing's wrong with starting your Halloween a bit earlier! Here is the link.

Paper Birds free online projects

My publisher Lark Crafts posted free online projects for my upcoming book "Paper Birds" on their web site. You can download the templates and the instructions for free, make your own paper birds and wait for the book to come out in June. So these free projects are sort of appetizers, I suppose. Here is the link to the free stuff page.

An improvized photo shoot

I had to make this image below a few days ago for a secret group project. It was a totally improvized composition using whatever I had around the house. The lighting was far from being ideal and I had to do a lot of tweaking in Photoshop. But I think it turned out fine overall.