My New Book - Don't Spill the Beans!

Need a special birthday gift?

Don't Spill the Beans!

Need a special birthday gift for a child in your life?  

Don't Spill the Beans!

Need a special birthday gift for a child in your life to bring to yet another children's birthday party?  

Don't Spill the Beans!

That's right. It's no secret. It's...

Don't Spill the Beans!

by Ian Schoenherr

published by Greenwillow Books

ISBN-13: 9780061724572

ISBN: 0061724572

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More filling than balloons and streamers!

More nutritious than birthday cake!

Easy-open packaging!

Heart healthy!

No calories!

Full color!

32 pages!

Zero fat!

Lemurs!

etc.!

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A * starred review * in School Library Journal!

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"The ink-and-acrylic illustrations hearken back to the Golden Books of days long gone.... Great for storytimes on secrets or as a special birthday gift." - Kirkus Reviews

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"Schoenherr's vintage-styled animal portraits are wholly endearing" - Publishers Weekly

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Buy Don't Spill the Beans!
from an independent bookseller!

(Or, yes, there's always Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Borders)

Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes!

Today is the 156th birthday of Sherlock Holmes, so they say. By "they" I mean crazed, obsessive fanatics who devote much of their lives reading, re-reading, discussing, dissecting, and deconstructing the adventures of The Master. I was one such fanatic in my childhood after age ten, all through my teens years, and a bit into my twenties (when, finally, my Howard Pylomania took over). Many of my sketches and first illustrations were Sherlockian in nature, but somewhere along the line I stopped drawing Sherlock Holmes. I think it was because I had such a vivid idea of how he should look, but I felt unable to capture that idea on paper. I might have to try again, though - especially since some Sherlockian details crept into this picture from Read It, Don't Eat It!

Like Monkeys

"The bears swarmed over the fence like monkeys" - a bloodthirsty yet cuddly scene from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island as illustrated in 1911 by N. C. Wyeth and subsequently bastardized by me, Ian Schoenherr, in ink and acrylic on a plywood panel measuring 8 x 10 inches.

Yes, these critters are repeat offenders: Angus, with the red kerchief, appears solo here and with his compatriots Harold (on the left), Big Bear (in plaid with an eye patch), and Bailey (with the skull-and-bones on his hat) in a Teddy Bear Pow Wow. And, of course, Bailey also shows up in more respectable circumstances here.

A Bear and His Bear

Another example of a picture of a human which I morphed into an animal. The source was an 1840's daguerreotype I found on page 26 of American Album by Oliver Jensen, Joan Paterson Kerr, and Murray Belsky (American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1968) - a terrific book, filled, as the subtitle states, with "Rare Photographs Collected by The Editors of American Heritage." I don't know the name of the gentleman bear, but the well-loved companion tucked under his arm is named Bailey, made circa 1930 by Bernhard Hermann in Sonneberg, Germany. My acrylic-on-paper painting measures 2 7/8 x 4 1/4 inches.

Furry Traders Descending the Missouri

Sometimes when I want to make a picture, but am void of ideas, I'll take a work by an artist I admire and "recast" it with pigs or mice or teddy bears. Here's an example, painted with acrylic and ink on a scrap of plywood measuring 10 x 8 inches. It's based on Fur Traders Descending the Missouri by George Caleb Bingham, which now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Sleepyhead Bear (and a butterfly)

Sleepyhead Bear (and some frogs)

Teddy Bear Pow Wow

In anticipation of this coming Sunday's Teddy Bear Picnic, here is a painting I made of some teddy bears having a pow wow. You might recognize the one playing the drum from his starring role in Black Angus: Terror of the High Seas!

Coming in May: Read It, Don't Eat It!

Black Angus!

Angus is a teddy bear with a very active imagination. Here he is performing a take-off on N. C. Wyeth's cover illustration for Treasure Island. I made this picture with ink and acrylic paint on plywood.

Back to the Drawing Board

Here's what I'm up to right now: painting this bear, this elephant, and a cast of what sometimes seems like thousands. These two will appear in Read It, Don't Eat It! next spring, but this particular illustration won't debut until...Winter 2010?! Maybe the elephant will look less gloomy by then.

Bubba and the Bear

I made this for Bill Keller's piece on The Russia Hand by Strobe Talbott. I'm not sure if I captured (or understood) the gist of the review or of the book...but I like the bear.