A great show

My web designer and good friend, Barbara DiLorenzo, runs a gallery in Ipswich, MA.


This month she had a children's book illustration show featuring the work of Mary Jane Begin, Pat Lowery Collins, Ed Emberley, Jarrett Krosoczka, Kristina Lindborg, Tom Palance, Julia Purinton, Andy J. Smith, and my own. I tried to include pictures of everyone's work, so I apologize if I've left anyone out.








She even featured the work of some very young aspiring artists.

Final EllRay cover?

So this is what the book designer at Viking did with the cover art I sent for the first EllRay book by Sally Warner. She said she might try some different colors for the "blast" - but I like this one a lot. Now I just have to wait a long, long time before I see a printed proof of the cover.

Final EllRay cover art

It's hard to believe my part with the cover is done. I'm so happy and relieved. I can't wait to see what Nancy (book designer at Viking) will do with it next.

Favorite new quill pen

I use a quill pen a lot in my ink and watercolor illustrations. For years, or as long as I've been illustrating, I used the very popular Speedball Crow quill holders and Hunt nibs. I used the "finest" nib (no. 104) because, surprisingly, it offered the most range in line width. I found that I could ink 2 full spreads before I needed to replace the nib with a fresh one. I dipped the pen into india black Calli ink (acrylic-based and waterproof) by Daler-Rowney.


But then, I was reading a book on making comic books (Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud) and there was a reference to some great-sounding inking supplies that are very popular among the Japanese Manga artists. After some hunting on the web, and research on some blogs, I learned about the Deleter brand of Japanese art supplies. The yellow pen holders, nibs and inks are hard to find (they're not sold at the big art stores like Blick, Pearl, Cheap Joes, for example) but I have found them on-line at BlueLine Pro Art Supply and the new Deleter on-line Manga shop.


There are three kinds of nibs. I've only used the G-Pen nib, but I plan on trying the other two. The Maru-Pen nib is used for drawing thin lines and the Saji-Pen is used to draw "...a variety of lines with pen pressure control." The nibs are great because they're so flexible, yet sturdy too - they last such a long time.


Deleter has black and white inks too. Actually there are 6 blacks and 2 white inks available. Some blacks are waterproof, some aren't, some are dry matte, some are glossy, etc., I've used the #3 ink and it's worked great. It's important, I read in a blog, to use the Deleter inks as opposed to other inks because they may be too thick for the nibs.

I've recently learned about a new brand of Japanese nibs called Zebra. They're supposed to be the Excalibur of nibs so I think I need to try them next.