doggy city

I did this doggy city a while ago. I can't even remember what it was for. I think it was some kind of educational program thing.

these are a few of my favorite things

cool gorilla uh?

hello freight train 2

doing this book brought back a lot of memories at my train table. Although my train table always included army guys and a Godzilla model.

hello freight train

Hello Freight Train was a design challenge. The text became a list of the car types and the layouts became very similar. I tried to add variety and subplot with the birds and poses of the characters.

fly

here is the first and only art of an unwritten book. I've got an idea and a cover, that's how a lot of my books start out.

vinyl guy

A friend of mine left work last week. As a good-bye gift, we all got these little urban vinyl blanks and customized them. It was a pretty cool collection. I'll try to get pictures of the other ones.

hello fire truck 2

Concerned onlookers or curious disaster chasers?
Will Cat and Firedog have a future? Or will the pressures of cultural and species differences eventually tear them apart?
All's well that ends well, or so we think..

hello fire truck

I think "Hello Fire Truck" is my personal favorite in the series. It is full of drama and intrigue.
What was Cat doing? Is any one left in the house?
Yellow Dog was first on the scene and reported the fire, umm, rather suspicious.
It even has a race scene.

L is for lion, and lazy

I started this alphabet book and got distracted by things like work. I wanted to do a circus abc. Circus themes don't seem to be in favor now. I still like them.

my space

someone asked, this is where I work. I wish it was by an ocean or a mountain, but it's a basement in a suburban Kansas City home.

beastie #16

hello fire truck

These are from Hello Fire Truck my favorite in the series.

hello series

I did a little series of books that featured animated vehicles. As a kid I had this book called Tootles the Taxi which I've always loved and inspired me when I started the Hello series.

I know this is stupid

I know this is stupid but I just upgraded to Leopard from Panther and I now have Photo Booth. Between this and Widgets I my not get anything done.

racerdogs goodnight

here's the last thing about racerdogs, and some of my inspiration. That's my son Jonathan on the right.

racerdogs

I grew up around car parts. My dad was a mechanic as was my grandpa. I had to include a scene where a car breaks down. It was fun to get to draw motor junk.
This was a little promo item I made for my publisher, editor, art director and agent as a thank you for helping me get the book out. I always have ideas and intentions of doing something fun with every book. Finding the time is hard.

racerdogs, the gas shack

This is the "Gas Shack" which is right next to the "Snack Rack" in the Racerdog world.
This was the research. I actually had this model as a kid. Stella the neighbor lady gave us her son's old toys when ever he wasn't looking. This model was way out of scale for my train table, but it was free and cool. I found this picture on E-bay. I hope it's OK to show this picture, it wasn't mine, it was the seller's. Am I wrong for posting it?

racerdogs cover

This is the very first art I created in the racerdog project. I hadn't written the story yet, I really didn't know what it was going to be about. I just knew I wanted to create a book about dogs who race. "Go Dog Go" is one of my favorite books. I remembered as a kid wanting more about those dogs going around fast in cars. This little sketch got me the contract.
Here is the final cover. I think I like the first sketch better.

racerdogs

I'm going to share a little about an older book called Racerdogs. I would like to share about more current projects, but you can't until a project is on the shelf. So until my latest is out, I'm going to talk about old stuff.
People have been asking about how I work. here is a sketch, in progress and finish of a Racerdog spread.

party lizard

These are from a little reader. A lizard has a party, everybody comes and makes a mess, he has to clean it up. As I sum it up I think it may be a lot more profound than I ever realized.

missouri countryside

I drove down to Warrensberg Missouri to watch my son perform in a drumline/marching competition. It was a beautiful drive.