Lost Jackets: Wonder Light

Sometimes I can’t say goodbye to sketches that get superseded by other ideas. Here’s such an example, made for the jacket of Wonder Light by R. R. Russell. The final, published jacket looks nothing like this early composition, but I'm still fond of it, even though it doesn’t really capture the mood - and mist - of the novel. It looks more like a cover for “Wild West”-themed sheet music or “Leathercraft for Kids” from the 1950s. Maybe one day I can find a more appropriate home for this kind of approach.

Happy New Year!

A Wedding Invitation in Map Form

I made this wedding invitation in the form of a map for my friends Rebecca and Stephen. It's ink on scratchboard and was designed to fit on 8.5 x 11" paper.

More on Fantasy Maps

Ellen Booraem has posted the full interview (so to speak) she did with me about maps and map making on her own blog. Take a look!

And here's a detail of the map of "Kugisko" I made for Tamora Pierce's novel Cold Fire from The Circle Opens series.

The Enchanted Inkpot: Mapping Fantasy

Over at The Enchanted Inkpot - a community for writers and readers of middle grade and young adult fantasy - Ellen Booraem, author of The Unnameables, has posted Topic of the Week: Mapping Fantasy. Many thanks to Ellen for asking me to talk about about maps and mapmaking for her article!

You can see some of the maps I made for T. A. Barron's The Lost Years of Merlin epic here. And a while back I posted a map-esque illustration I made for The New York Times Book Review as well as a bookplate that's basically a map of Delaware. Also, a cartographer friend of mine pointed out that this picture could be considered a map, so I'll take her word for it. And here's yet another odd one I made which was never published...

Republic of Dreams

My illustration for Morris Dickstein's review of Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia,1910-1960 in the New York Times Book Review. Can you connect the names with the faces?

Emma Goldman
Big Bill Haywood
Willa Cather
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Theodore Dreiser
E. E. Cummings
Dylan Thomas
Lincoln Steffens
Mabel Dodge
John Reed
Max Eastman
Walter Lippmann
Eugene O'Neill
John Sloan
Crystal Eastman
Floyd Dell

Duke of Egypt

A deceptively whimsical ink on scratchboard illustration I made for Michael Pye's review of Duke of Egypt, A Novel by Margriet de Moor, printed in the New York Times Book Review. For want of any other leads, I threw into my picture as many of the details mentioned in the review as possible.

Bookplates

I don't think I'll ever make a bookplate for myself, mostly because I cringe at the thought of pasting anything into my books. But I love the art form and have no qualms about making them for other people.

Recently, I finished my first bit of bookplate art for a friend and fellow bibliophile from Delaware. He had found a copy of On The Frontier by Bret Harte which had once belonged to Howard Pyle. Being a rabid Pyle collector, I had to have it. So we arranged a trade: I would make him a bookplate and he would give me the book. As usual, I made this with ink on scratchboard.