Pictures from the poster debut.

Here are a few pictures from the Books By the Banks poster debut.

There was a panel discussion with the some of previous poster artists:

Will Hillenbrand, Ryan Ostrander, John Maggard, and Christina Wald

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Books By the Banks Poster

Last night,  Joseph Beth books had an unveiling party to for this year’s Books By the Banks Festival. It was a fun event and many of the artists for the posters from previous years attended.

I wanted the poster to feel almost like an old sci-fi movie poster. The illustration features a group of characters from classic literature sailing towards Cincinnati. I tried to keep with a nautical theme for the all of the characters I picked. In the for front is Captain Ahab, because every nautical themed picture needs a grizzled old man with a white beard. I’ve always wanted to put a giant squid in one of my illustrations, so I included the squid and the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea winding up the John Roebling suspension bridge.

Books by the Banks is one of my favorite book festival and there is a great tradition of fantastic illustrators creating the poster art. I was thrilled to have a chance to contribute to that tradition.

Here is a the poster as well as the sketch and reference photo.

 

Brand new blog

It’s been a busy summer, with a bunch of projects that I’m really excited about.

I thought I would start a blog to highlight some of these projects, and show some of the process  involved in developing my books.