Conference Weekend

Life is always taking me on new adventures, and a few weeks ago the path lead me to the Canyon Inn in McCormick's Creek State Park for the SCBWI Indiana Conference, aptly named Trails to Sweet Success. We had an amazing array of faculty for the conference that included Andrew Harwell, Associate Editor, HarperCollins; Eve Adler, Editor, Grosset & Dunlap; Jessica Garrison, Editor, Dial Books for Young Readers and Joann Hill, Art Director, Disney•Hyperion Books. Prior to spending a jam-packed weekend dedicated to children's books in the Inn, we managed to hike along the path to a waterfall with our NY editors. An interesting aspect of the weekend included a one-on-one portfolio review and a workshop titled The Illustrator/Art Director Relationship, with Joann Hill.  Here's a new image from the workshop with Joann.  It was an eventful weekend with outstanding faculty as well as artist and author friends! 

The Great Goose Egg Auction 2012

I am excited to be a part of The Great Goose Egg Auction 2012 for Open Fields School. Open Fields is a small non-graded private school in Thetford Hill, Vermont.

Back in 1996, a parent donated more than 100 blown goose eggs for use in the school. A friend of the school and illustrator of children's books, the late Trina Schart Hyman (April 8, 1939–November 19, 2004), suggested that the eggs, if decorated and sold as unique works of fine art, could benefit all of the Open Fields students. Her idea hatched into an annual online auction that supports the school with the sale of artist-decorated eggs. Each year, goose, quail, hen and emu eggs are sent to artists all over the world and returned to Open Fields School as works of art!

Trina's "eggstraordinary" art event, The Great Goose Egg Auction, has become the school’s biggest fundraiser.   This year they will start with a brief viewing and auction on Friday, May 11, 2012 and at AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH.

If you’re on Facebook, you can join the Open Fields School group:
here
The auction itself:

here

The exhibit opens at 5:30, and eggs can be viewed from 5:30 to 7. The auction starts promptly at 7PM.


In January I started sketches for the upcoming children's book, What We'll Do, Just Me and You! by Diane Ohanesian, debuting this summer. When my goose egg arrived carefully wrapped in a brown box just a few months ago, I thought the beach spread from the book would be a great image for the egg. I LOVE the beach, and am happy the egg captures a fun day at the beach!

Here is a step-by-step diary of how I painted the egg, titled: Me and You!

 

Happy Spring!

This illustration is for the upcoming children's book, What We'll Do, Just Me and You!
by Diane Ohanesian, debuting this summer. 

Happy New Year!

New Highlights Cover Art

The December Highlights for Children is out!
The original art, titled Season's Greetings, is posted here for you to enjoy.
It's great fun for me to feature real pets in my Illustrations. Bailey Thomas, a happy, tail-wagging West Highland White Terrier is one of two real pet friends drawn in this piece.
The cat in the window, (who gets covered up with the banner) was inspired by the real life Mac Vargo.
Thanks for stopping by to see my new December Highlights cover!

November is Picture Book Month, encouraging everyone to celebrate literacy with picture
books. (Click on the logo) Every day this month, there will be a new post from a picture book champion explaining why he/she thinks picture books are important.

Happy Halloween!

Shhh... lets tiptoe inside the spooky old house...
~Terry Webb Harshman