Coming soon.

I've been working on the "Which Art Student Are You?" book for some time now. Above is the front cover. 

The book will be available as a 28 page full color comic book format. It will include a few new characters, my favorite hate mail quotes, and it will be entirely re-lettered.

I was expecting it to be available by the end of January but after the holidays and a family matter that needed attending to I'm not entirely sure when it will be printed. I will let you know asap. I'm hoping for the end of February.

Christmas Card 2009.

I am submitting this for Illustration Friday: Trail. Forgive me if I have submitted this for another theme, I honestly can't remember if I did or not.

For the past few years I have incorporated Ranger Kent and Cowgirl Pearl (two characters my wife and I portrayed for our church's annual Vacation Bible School) into our Christmas card. This year, with the birth of our daughter Virginia, I wanted to put her in as well our dog, Charlotte. The problem I ran into was that Kent and Pearl were never married so I would have a lot of explaining to do if they showed up on the card with a baby, right? I decided to go with it anyway and added this little note on the back of the card:

Last year sometime Ranger Kent and Cowgirl Pearl got hitched and had a baby some 10 months later. Oh, and they also adopted a dog, apparently.

________

I hope that straightens things out kids!

As a little side note, if you go back and look at some of the illustrations I have done for Highlights this year, you can see Kent or some kind of cowboy in the illustration.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. God Bless you and your family and best wishes for a successful and healthy new year.

- Chuck, Daisy, and Virginia.

O Bethlehem.

In April of 2001 I had the wonderful privilege of visiting Israel, a trip which changed my life and forever altered my appreciation of God's word for the better. This is a small excerpt from my Israel trip sketchbook, as well as my Christmas card for 2001. I hope to have my Christmas cards delivered to me by Tuesday which means I should be posting the illustration on Christmas Day at the latest. Meanwhile, enjoy and have a Merry Christmas.

Forgive the quality...

Miniature Golf - January Highlights Magazine

This one took me a while. The fun part of a "What's Wrong" illustration is that you can add some pretty off the wall things but they must be obvious for the kids to get. The problem with this one (as instructed by the art director) was that miniature golf courses already have unusual things on them (windmills, etc.) so I needed to make this work in a way that still looked "wrong." I decided making a generic miniature golf course and focusing on the people and their accessories worked best, but this was after a few trial and errors.

This illustration will appear in the January issue of Highlights for Children which should be in stores now.

Coming soon in Highlights...

I just received my copy of the December 2009 Highlights in which I illustrated a fun story written by Cecil Dzwowa. This is my first double page spread for Highlights so it was really nice to work on using all that space.

Also, I recently completed some big illustrations for the back cover of the upcoming issues of Highlights magazine's "What's Wrong?" feature (see below). Look for them in the February and (I think) March issues. Here's a sneak peek at a couple of the "wrong" things.

With the Holidays coming I'm sure all the little ones on your gift list would love a subscription to Highlights or High Five.

Virginia Paige

On Tuesday November 3rd at 10:54 pm my lovely wife, Daisy, gave birth to our daughter Virginia Paige weighing in at 6 pounds 9 ounces and 20 inches long. Virginia is in perfect health and Daisy is recovering nicely. We're the happiest we could ever be.

Ilustration Friday: Fast

In the little river town of Delanco, New Jersey (where I had the pleasure of living for 8 years) is the Holiday Skating Rink. Older costumed roller skaters come from miles around one Tuesday night a month to roller skate to the organist's music (yes, they still have an organist- one of the few in the country to still have one). One night I accompanied a friend and was amazed to see just how good these folks were. I was simply shocked at how fast they were roller skating all the while doing their fancy dance moves. It was captivating to watch, especially when the couples would "roller dance." They would move in flawless unison to the music. One woman tried to teach me but I was hopeless. I met with a few of them and sat back and sketched them as they whizzed by me.

Latest Art Student

At my height I am often mistaken for a student, especially in the beginning of the year by the Freshman. When I first started teaching it was a struggle for me to maintain respect and discipline the students. Short people simply do not get the respect that tall people get and I'm okay with it, it's just a fact of life.

Let me share one of my experiences with you:

Once, after a long day of teaching, I was on the train drawing and the elderly woman sitting next to me asked if I was an art student.

"No," I kindly replied, "I'm actually an art professor."

To which she responded, "Well, you don't LOOK like a professor."

So I quickly said with a smile, "Well. you don't look like a rude person but here we are!"

I followed it with a laugh and thankfully she laughed with me. What a funny memory for both of us.

You really can say anything with a smile.

IF: Frozen

I did this back in 2006 for the Philadelphia Zoo's Big Cat Falls exhibit. There was some signage there with some corny kid's jokes in which this one asked, "What kind of treat do cats like on a hot day?" The answer, of course, is "Mice Cream Cones." Laugh hysterically.

Now available...

Two of my pieces were published this month. The first here is in this month's Highlights High Five and the second is on the back cover of this month's Highlights for Children. See? I'm not a liar.