These are just some of the illustrations in the book "Kugelicious" by Joan Robb of Florence MA 

This is the farm house mural I just finished. Simple and primitive, based on the lines of other artists with that basic style. I wanted to add some animals to the mural to give it that real farm like feel. I love the sheep and so didn't they. Currently, I am finishing my own mural which is more colonial. I have some small projects going next but am trying to make time for my stop motion character as well. All I need is 52 hours in a day and I'm good! 

Well it seems that I have some time on my hands, which never happens, usually there is too much to do! However, I decided to make time and try my hand a creating a stop motion character. One of my favorite blogs that I subscribe to, has been very motivating for me, so I decided it's time to give it a try! Today I found a few things I had around the house to donate to this new project. Also, when I was out on errands I took a quick stop in a second hand store and found a few things as well. So far I like the color scheme. There is a murky green/brown sweater, a white jacket with trim and orange toddler pants. Don't worry I will get some other bright colors in there to give it pop! I will need more, like pliable foam, eyes, more sculpey, etc etc  but for now it's a start. If this one comes out at all I am thinking of moving on to foam latex puppets.
Wish me luck!

Things have been so busy lately....well are things ever slow? Not really, In fact I guess it's a good thing to keep going and stay busy it keeps our mind young as well as our bodies. With Spring in the air and almost 70 degree weather I hope to get back into the walking.

 It's time to take a breather, I just finished 8 new card designs! One is featured here and two on my shop area. They will be available soon at my Etsy store, but for now they are still being scanned and printed. 

My Etsy store will have a new name Cartoon Girl Designs, so please pay a visit. One design has been pinned on Pinterest, Yay! Happy to see the designs are enjoyed!

I am hoping to also use my bamboo tablet more, I have the brushes app on my Ipad and really want to get into digital painting. I have to find out if the Bamboo can work with Ipad, if not I have the Photoshop cs5 suite so that might have to do for now. I would love to be able to scan my sketches, transfer to my Ipad and have the digital painting available for when I am in Florida. Again, I try to work in so many projects I need 54 hours in a day! Experimenting keeps you fresh and gives so many more options for creating art. 

Next Blog I hope to share photos of some fabrication I am involved with at work. Till then Have a great day!

I just finished this pill hat 1940's look for my daughter-in-law Jess to wear to a dinner party. All going will be in vintage style, sounds like fun! It was my first attempt at making a hat and it came out pretty good. 
Hope you enjoy!

Hi Everyone, Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. As you can see I was busy carving my pumpkin. My husband bought me a nice large one with a lot of meat inside. I wanted to do the extreme pumpkin carving but I didn't have the supplies. Ray Villafane is my favorite Extreme Pumpkin carving artist. He has been on Halloween Wars and he is amazing. He sells pumpkin carving kits on Amazon.com if anyone is interested in carving. I pretty much used a knife and a peeler. It was really hard to get the flesh off without proper tools so I scaled my design to minimum. 

I call this "Oh No not Maggots!"
The maggot is actually a cucumber. Hope you like it!

Greetings!  This past Saturday over 60 artists exhibited at the Paint and Pixel Festival put on at the Northampton Center for the Arts. It was a great day, so many talented artists together in one spot selling copies of books, cards, prints and original artwork. The Center for Cartoon Studies was also there to encourage young people and their cartoon skills. I met some very talented artists and had a great day sharing
my art with all who came.

To get into the cartoon flavor of the show,  I designed and fabricated one of my characters, Tilly the chicken. Tilly is a character that I created for one of my books. I thought it would be so cool to have this character in model form at the show!  So, I got right into making her a month ago using paper clay that is smoothed over bundled paper. But first she started with a wire armature for support and finished with her feet made of Fimo. She is adorned with her favorite apron and carries a scrumptious cake (as she most certainly loves to bake)which is made of foam. She posed on the platform with my name plate. She ended up with some very nice compliments! Thanks all. 

Hi All, Sorry it took so long to post, there were so many things happening at the same time. My son Chris was married in June to his new bride Jessica. I love that our family is growing. She looked fabulous in her wedding gown that she bought in Montana while visiting family. The wedding was so much fun we learned how to swing dance because they hired a swing dance band, it was awesome! My husband and I had so much fun I hope to take more swing classes in the future! 

Also, I worked on a job for a film that will be featured at a film festival in Jan 2013, I was asked to do the illustration for several props. My other son Joe, edited in photoshop so they could use the art work on props.
I love doing props but since it was long distance I emailed art and left it to Joe to use for posters, backpack,a milk carton, and a cereal box.  This project started before the wedding and ended weeks after. In fact, I was working at the fabrication studio at the same time. Whew!!!!!!! talk about having a lot on your plate!

Other news is that I have been working with a fabrication company on several projects. We are looking at a busy winter I can't just say yet but I know it will be interesting this winter to do cartoon sculpture and realism sculpture. More on that later!

More projects just finished, I just revised my book "The Giant and The Fly " on the Blurb website. I edited it with the help of my son Chris. Anyway, it has been reduced to 26 pages which meant a lot of art went away but you can find that in the original 2011 book. The revised 2012 took out lots of pages which included art and I also used that book as the E-book. You will find the link here. 
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/332113-the-giant-anflyd-the- let me know if this does not work.
Hope all is well with everyone. . . talk to me!

P.S. It's fall and all the spiders are coming in YUK!!! I guess I will have to post Halloween next (with Spiders!)