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30 - Married 10 years to the best friend I could ever ask for- 2 teenage kids - Currently work as a gift set and packaging designer. I am a hopeful author, illustrator, songwriter, singer and guitarist, master of none of the above...
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My 32nd birthday was last Monday, September 28th, and my wife Gina and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time having coffee and talking with a hero of mine that I am more than humbled to call my friend. Tony DiTerlizzi has been a constant positive influence in my aspirations to illustrate for children for the past 6 years and during a stop in Cincinnati for the Spiderwick Farewell Tour, he set up a meeting time for us at the hotel. He and Holly Black spent time with us over coffee, just talking about what the Spiderwick life has been like, what their future plans are and looking over each other’s art and sketchbooks. We later attended a presentation/book signing with them at a super cool kid’s book store called the Blue Manatee where I had the opportunity to meet Loren Long, another very incredible illustrator and a super humble and good person. He sat with Gina and I after the store closed and reviewed my portfolio, gave me encouragement and shared his heart and passion with us.
Needless to say, this was an incredible time for a guy like me, who has been a huge fan of childrens books all my life and dreams of illustrating and writing. I hope I can make their time well spent and worth it by becoming successful in this wonderful field someday and returning these favors to new aspiring illustrators as well!
Thanks Tony, Holly and Loren.
This is an ink drawing I did today. Just having some fun and getting some practice.
Next I will share how I spent the coolest birthday ever...
Dick Tracy was one tough dude. He was beat up, tied up, shot up, but he never gave up. I always had a lot of fun as a kid, drawing his chiseled jaw, square nose and discerning squinted glare. He always meant business. I was never happy about the use of Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy in the 1990's feature film. I wasn't too enthralled with Ralph Byrd in the 50's either. They seemed to only take on the side of Dick that came from the very early comics in the early 1930's. But the detective we all grew to know and love was the square nosed, chiseled-jawed Tracy that was going to get the job done. This was the Dick Tracy I thought of as I drew my interpretation of him the other night.
As a young teen, I was quite the Dick Tracy fanatic. I collected comics, toys, movies, cartoons, books and just about anything else from Chester Gould's classic comic that I could get my hands on. Most of which I still have to this day.
One of my favorite comics was Dick Tracy and the Evil Influence. Influence had special lenses on his eyes that gave him the ability to control anyone unfortunate enough to gaze into them.
I got this old favorite out the other night and began reading it again. As a kid, I had drawn pictures and even created comics and short illustrated stories using these characters and viewing these wonderful, stylized drawings again got me inspired to draw a new interpretation of the characters.
I thought of Influence as being the creepy, hypnotist-doctor-type and really tried to play on the idea of that terrible "STARE" that one just cannot look away from! I enjoyed giving him my own twist while still maintaining the essence of the character that Chester Gould had created, all the way down to his Houdini-like hair style...
Tomorrow I will share my take on Mr. Tracy himself!
Wiggly gets his hopes up every day at six O'clock
But he soon forgets the reason and just mopes around the block
Pen and watercolor. I love these guys. They look like cartoon characters.
That's what I keep telling myself...I just need to survive 'til 5...
...by the way, this guy is a dork.
I drew this guy on my lunch today. This was about a 5 minute sketch, no pencils.
This was a 30 to 45 minute painting I did of my son Seth while we were at our favorite pizza shop on Hilton Head. It was the best I could do with minimal lighting, while eating pizza...
Sorry, I just really think crabs are cool...sketched this one from life too...'til he kicked sand in my eyes! Then I had to finish from memory.
Gina and I spent Saturday evening at the Dublin Irish Festival. Before the night ended we sat and listened to some really great traditional Irish music being played by 4 extremely talented individuals. I took the time to sketch them a little as they played using one of my brush markers. It was challenging but I really enjoyed just trying to catch the essence of what I was seeing as they moved and played.
In our experience Blue Crabs tend to be pretty feisty little guys. When slightly provoked, these seemingly dull-colored flat crabs will suddenly raise their arms revealing a brilliant blue and purple display from their underside. This guy here was actually brought to me dead by Gina one morning to draw and I chose to drawing him laying on
his top to show the bright blue underbelly.
One morning while searching a waterway that runs to and from the rising and lowering of the tides, we actually came across a blue crab that could probably rival the record size. It was roughly 10 or 11” across the top and probably the angriest guy we’ve run into. It shot through the water like a rocket, attacking Gina and Seth (they weren’t injured) before darting the length of the channel and into the tide, sending schools of fish dispersing in all directions in its wake.
We named him “Claws”.
Well, I have returned safely from the beautiful Altlantic. Not that I wanted to return! We managed to make some good memories there, though much of the trip was overshadowed by the death of a family friend only hours before we left. His name was Jake Walls, one of my son Seth's best buddies from school. He was a great kid with a real heart for people and he died tragically when he fell 50ft from a cliff at Hocking Hills State Park here in Ohio. We managed to make the trip home for the funeral and then back down to SC for the rest of our vacation. Needless to say, that was more driving than I ever thought I would do in one week.
Well, I thought I would start by sharing a drawing I did early last week. Early in the morning, as the sun rises, you can find so many little treasures along the shores of the ocean. Some of the more common little creatures you may find are crabs, like this Purse Crab, that have been tossed and battered by the surf during the night. A lot of the time they will not be alive, and those that are tend to have tube like sand structures constructed over their eyes by little ocean worms. Gina and I have helped them a few times by breaking the sand away from their eyes in the hope that they may see...don't know if it helps or not, but it feels like the right thing to do...
I painted this guy for my sister a while back. It's really just a color rendition of an earlier pen sketch. I wanted to stay loose with all the lines and colors and I think the final result has a sort of "printed page" look, like the strangely warm and inviting feel Arnold Lobel always achieved in his books. I was always a humongous fan of Frog and Toad! Maybe the similarity here is that Lobel's books tended to be printed in only a few muddy colors. I chose blue and brown.
This is a pen and watercolor of a wildflower that I did yesterday.
This is a quick painting I did the other night just for fun.
I enjoy building friendships with illustrators that I admire and can learn from. 3 that I have become friends with are Tony DiTerlizzi, creator of the Spiderwick Chronicles, Jim Gurney, creator of Dinotopia, and Brian Floca, best known for the Poppy series.
Tony and I began writing in 2003 and over the years I have received some wonderful criticism and encouragement from him and even a wonderful phone call most recently.
But something that has come as a bonus to these great friendships are the really cool gifts I have received in the mail from these gentlemen. Tony has sent quite a few really cool items over the past 6 years. I wanted to share a couple.
These are a couple of posters that he sent one Christmas with some great close-ups of his art.
This poster above is probably my favorite gift from Tony. The letter with it expressed his gratitude for a painting I had sent him and explained that this 80's style poster was created by Tony for the cast and crew, family and friends for the Spiderwick movie, and that he felt I should have one. I was so honored to receive it and I hope to frame it at some point. (also shown above is an ARC of the Nixie's Song)
It will go really well with my collection of DiTerlizzi retail display toppers! (The Nixie's Song topper lights up all over!)
This last one is the most recent and was from the wonderful Jim Gurney, who I had the pleasure of meeting a few months ago. It is a promo package for the newest Dinotipia book, Journey to Chandara. It folds open and tells the stories of the main characters and plot, and includes a few promotional materials and a huge fold-out map of Dinotopia and Waterfall City. Really cool!! Also included was a super nice letter from Jim.
It's so encouraging getting to know these admirable men, almost legends of the field of illustration, and it is a real treat sometimes as well!
This is a hill at the park that people use to ride bikes and sleds down. I just happen to side near it on lunch a lot so I decided to sketch it today. I did the pen drawing at lunch and then went back after work and finished the watercolor. I'm still not a master of watercolor on the go, but I think its fun. I decided to take a quick cell phone snap shot of it when I finished, and I held it up against the actual back drop. Makes for a fun photo and Gina said I should share it with the sketch so here it is!
Me and my kids, Ciarra and Seth, at Ciarra's graduation...
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Hey Joe,
I'm so excited you guys were able to do that. Your meeting must have been so inspiring. I love the new postings. Checking everyday, almost. Hope to see you soon. Jolly Pirate night is in order!