Archive for the 'travel' Category

Jul 24 2022

Ashley Bryan Memorial in Maine 2022

Published by under authors,landscape,sketchbook,travel

My wife and I recently returned from our annual trip to Maine. Sadly this year the occasion was the memorial ceremony for our dear friend and artistic genius Ashley Bryan, who passed away at the age of 98. To say he was beloved on the tiny island of Islesford (aka Little Cranberry Island), and throughout the book industry, is a huge understatement, and to us he was family. We absolutely had to be at this memorial, even though there were significant logistical hurdles.

We drove up with stops in Delaware, Boston, Portland, and at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, which has a lovely exhibit of Ashley’s work (alongside the Wyeths, Leonard Baskin, and other important American artists).

Then we met up with a crew of amazing authors with whom we shared a house on Great Cranberry Island (just a short hop from Islesford and the closest accommodations we were able to find). Linda Sue Park, Renee Watson, and Vaunda Michaux Nelson. We were later joined by Ashley’s wonderful editor Caitlyn Dlouhy.

Sketches of the boat rides, the islands, and the ceremony (more on that below):

The ceremony was absolutely beautiful. We all wore pins we’d made from a “Beautiful Blackbird” craft station at the Farnsworth (Alison’s great idea!) After the ceremony there was a reception with two amazing cakes, plus a slideshow and a show of Ashley’s paintings in the local gallery, and then his family went out in a parade of boats to scatter his ashes.

We felt truly blessed to celebrate him with so many of his friends and family and even more so to have known him and spent so much time with him over the years (every year since 2007). Thank you Ashley, and thank you, Islesford. We love you.

If you want to see more of my Maine paintings, click here.

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May 10 2019

The Iliad Tour is Complete!

Published by under appearances,iliad,travel

I’m back from San Francisco, and with that the Iliad tour is complete. I want to note that I still have some upcoming events, listed below, and then I’ll give a quick recap of how the tour went (in summary: awesome). Read on if you’re interested!

5/18 – Gaithersburg Book Festival, Gaithersburg MD
6/21-6/24 – ALA Annual, Washington DC (table 3909)
7/6-7/7 – Nerd Camp MI
11/22-11/24 – NCTE, Baltimore MD (booth 341)
Event Recap
DC Events: An incredible launch party at Vigilante Coffee in Hyattsville, with approximately 150 people!
Vigilante Alison pano
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That same week, a lovely school visit and public event with The Curious Iguana, Urbana High School, and Delaplaine Arts Center.
Curious Urbana Curious Iguana
A wonderful event at the Takoma Park MD Library – with great photos by Maurice Belanger.
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Boston Events: Porter Square Books was packed with long-time friends and supporters.
Boston Porter Square
An Unlikely Story has the best event space of any store I know, and a very good crowd came out, PLUS I got to meet one of my personal fav illustrators of comics and children’s books, LeYuen Pham, for the first time. She makes me look lazy by drawing a portrait in every book – in this case a double portrait!
Boston Unlikely Story
Unlikely Story Gareth & LeUyen pham portrait
Then it was off to the LA Times Book Fest (no pics of that, sadly) and the Texas Library Association (here’s their “Texas Tea” which was a sort of speed-dating with tables full of librarians).
Austin TX Tea
Then the last leg: San Francisco, or rather, the area around SF Bay. First, Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley (in conversation with Pam Turner, author of Samurai Rising and many other great nonfiction books):
San Francisco 680 San Francisco 682
We had a brief window to visit to SF itself and do touristy stuff. Here’s an obligatory selfie, and I found and signed my books at Book Passage (in the Ferry Building).
SF-02 Golden Gate SF-01 Book Passage
The tour finished off with Books Inc, Kepler’s, and Hicklebee’s. This is Books Inc. in Mountain View:
SF-05-Books Inc SF-06 Books Inc SF-07 Books Inc
Kepler’s:
SF-10 Keplers SF-11 Keplers
And Hicklebees:
SF-12 Hicklebees SF-14 Hicklebees SF-15 Hicklebees
Below is the full list of places I went. Sadly I didn’t get any good pictures from my events at Left Bank, Politics & Prose or Bank Street Books, but those were lovely events too.

2/28-3/1 – Write To Learn, Osage Beach MO

3/4 – Left Bank Books, St. Louis MO

3/12 – Politics & Prose, Washington DC (official launch date!)

3/13 – The Curious Iguana / Delaplaine Arts Center, Frederick MD

3/15 – Local Launch Party, Vigilante Coffee in Hyattsville MD

3/18 – Takoma Park, MD Library

3/21 – Bank Street Books, NY, NY

3/24 – An Unlikely Story, Plainville MA

3/25 – Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA

4/4 – State of MD Literacy Association, Baltimore MD

4/13 – LA Times Festival of Books

4/17 – Texas Library Association, Austin TX

4/27 – Mrs. Dalloway’s, Berkeley CA (with Pamela Turner)

5/1 – Books Inc., Mountain View CA

5/2 – Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park, CA

5/3 – Hicklebee’s Books, San Jose, CA

 

…Plus a dozen school visits. Whew!! It was a blast, and it’s good to be home. Thanks for reading!

 

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Sep 16 2016

Islesford Painting Workshops 2016

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I just got back from a fantastic week on Little Cranberry Island, Maine, helping to teach the Islesford Painting Workshops. As always, it was a complete blast. Look how much fun we are having!

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I’m up to my ears in catch-up tasks, so I won’t write too much about it, but once again it was great. I’m sad that this is (almost certainly) the last year it will be held, because the Dock Restaurant & Gallery which hosts it is being sold.

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Anyway, here are my paintings/sketches/studies. Some are digital this time — I continue to play with the iPad, and I’ve also been messing about with Kyle’s brushes for Photoshop. On one level it’s silly trying to get painterly effects on a digital device, because a real painting “in the flesh” is SO much more awesome than any print or purely 2-dimensional representation of it can capture. On the other hand, using tools that make different kinds of marks can help one understand more about the problems of painting, and in that respect it’s cool to have a really large toolbox in a small device to experiment with.

My favorite take-aways this year: First, the idea of “carving into” a painting, usually to simplify or define the space better. Second, the realization that I am usually willing to get quite experimental with color but not so much with forms/drawing. I want to play with that a bit more.

Previous year’s workshops: 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 (2012 has the most theoretical/philosophical musing in it, if you like that sort of thing.)

So long, Islesford. The workshops may be over, but I’ll be back.

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Jan 19 2016

Samurai Rising is here! (Almost.) Plus, school visits!

Published by under appearances,travel

I just returned from a 2-week trip, part of which was attending ALA’s Midwinter conference, where, for the first time, I got my hands on a finished copy of Samurai Rising by Pamela Turner, illustrated by me. It doesn’t officially hit store shelves until Feb 2, but I wanted to give you a preview of how beautifully the finished book came out. I’m SO pleased with it. Note the wonderful design work by Art Director Susan Sherman, the embossed and red-stamped hardcover under the dust jacket, and the copious author notes that take up almost 1/3 of the page count (they’re really readable and interesting too — quality as well as quantity!). The two symbols are the mon or family crests of the warring Taira and Minamoto clans.

Samurai Rising 003 Samurai Rising 004 Samurai Rising 005 Samurai Rising 006 Samurai Rising 008 Samurai Rising 010 Samurai Rising 011 Samurai Rising 012 Samurai Rising 014 Samurai Rising 016 Samurai Rising 017

Here’s me signing it for the fans who dropped by the Charlesbridge booth. (I used a brush pen, and alternated between drawing a sword, helmet, tiny mounted archer, or bow and arrow.) In the background is my editor Alyssa.

ALA signing Boston 369

You can pre-order Samurai from most retailers now. I’ll start taking pre-orders for signed books about a week before the on-sale date.

Also on this trip I did a bunch of great school visits (two of which were beautifully documented as per the following links). The first three were in my home town: Montpelier High School, Main Street Middle School, and my own high school, U-32. Then I did three in the Boston area: Manchester Essex Middle High School, Worcester Academy, and Duxbury Middle High School. You can see more photos on my Twitter stream. Duxbury has a gorgeous beach, by the way, and I’ll leave you with that view.  😉

Duxbury beach

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Sep 22 2015

Islesford Painting Workshops 2015

Published by under landscape,sketchbook,travel

For the last three years I’ve attended the Islesford Painting Workshop, led by my friends and amazing painters Henry Isaacs and Ashley Bryan, up in the gorgeous environs of Little Cranberry Island, off the coast of Mt. Desert Island, Maine. It’s a wonderful workshop, with first class food and accommodations and very non-formulaic instruction. This year they asked me to help them teach both 3-day sessions.

ALM Maine 641

It was an honor to be asked, a joy to work with them for a whole week, a sacrifice to spend less time painting, an intimidating challenge to try to contribute something meaningful to what these two great men are doing, and to continuously find useful things to say to painters who range from absolute beginner to highly experienced. I am happy to say that, based on lots of great feedback, I do feel I contributed significantly in a number of ways, and found the experience very rewarding and instructive (in relation to both teaching and painting).

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On one of the sketches I wrote “wrap the space around the viewer”, which was my biggest painting takeaway from the week — I think I understand more now about why that’s important and how to accomplish it.

I found a little time to paint each day, and here are the pieces I did, as well as sketches I snuck in when I only had a moment to jot something down. The paint is gouache (opaque watercolor). Some got a little additional work/color added when I got home.

It’s a pretty amazing workshop, and I highly recommend it. I’m already looking forward to next year!

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Jul 06 2015

ALA 2015 recap

ALM San Francisco 444

At ALA with Ashley Bryan

Although I’ve been to the American Library Association‘s (smaller) Midwinter show, I’d never been to the main ALA Annual show until last week. It was a really wonderful experience. Alison and I flew out a week early to explore and visit friends in the area. Here are a few highlights of our travels and of the show (below the cut):

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Sep 12 2014

Islesford Painting Workshop 2014

Published by under landscape,sketchbook,travel

For the third year I joined the excellent painting workshop held at the Dock gallery/restaurant in Islesford, on Little Cranberry Island, off the coast of Mt. Desert Island in Maine. Henry Isaacs and Ashley Bryan do a wonderful job with this every year, the restaurant feeds us like kings, locals let us stay in their beautiful homes, and it’s always a great group of folks to paint and socialize with.

Here’s  recap of 2012 and 2013.

The workshop started off with the traditional day of fog, then turned sunny and beautiful for the rest of the time. I worked almost exclusively in gouache. Most of these are painted on 5×7″ watercolor postcards.

 

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Jun 24 2014

Colorado!

Published by under sketchbook,travel

Just got back from a great week in Colorado. I was a guest of the Denver Comic Con, which has grown HUGE in just a few years. I was on a couple of excellent panels, met cool people, spent some time tabling and sketching, and then took off for the mountains of Estes Park, where I hung out with ground squirrels and elk 🙂

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Oct 28 2013

Plein-Air painting in Maine

Published by under landscape,sketchbook,travel

I enjoyed the Islesford Painting Workshop so much last year that I decided to go again. It was a rather different experience this time, partly due to completely different weather, but still excellent.

The first day we had heavy rain and fog —  all day 🙁  We painted from inside the Dock Restaurant / Gallery, and attempted to capture the solidity of the fog. Day two was still foggy but at least we could change locations a bit. Day 3 was glorious, for which Henry apologized several times (the man has a New England sense of humor and a deadpan delivery).

Here’s a gallery of all the pieces I did in two and a half days. Many of these I am thinking of as sketches for later paintings (which I’ll probably never get around to), or as somewhat unfinished works. The thing about goauche, though, is you can’t really work back into it very easily; so more than likely they will just stay as they are, sacrificing “doneness” in favor of (hopefully) a bit of that nice plein-air freshness.

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May 17 2013

Greece!

Published by under landscape,sketchbook,travel

I recently had the pleasure of being on a fabulous 12-day tour of Greece with Children’s Literature New England and The Examined Life. It was wonderful! Alison and I took about 3000 photos, to which I will not subject you except for a few of the highest highlights, and I did a few sketches and watercolors which you can see below. Alison has written a detailed blog post here. Enjoy!

 

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