One of the great joys of children's book illustration is, of course, the secrecy.
I don't know about you, but I'm terrible at keeping secrets. This isn't to say I can't keep them, it's more that I'm not smooth in any way about keeping them. My poker face is terrible, and I wander around my day twitching a mumbling, and generally feeling like a pinless grenade.
In the case of picture books, there's this six month to year long period of planning, drawing, and painting during which (near) radio silence is customarily reserved, followed by another year before the book in question hits the shelves, real three dimensional inventoried shelves or futuristic/imaginary cybershelves. This quiet time leaves plenty of room for hand wringing, regrets, quiet self defeatism and the occasional brag-that-never-can-be.
Since I'm in the middle of one those such projects right now, it gives me great pleasure to break the previous year's silence and mention this biography of Robbie Robertson I finished illustrating a few months back, penned by his son Sebastian Robertson and set for publication by the great Christie Ottaviano's eponymous imprint of HOLT.
It won't be hitting those previously mentioned shelves till Fall of 2014, but there's no harm in pre-ordering...
Here's another glimpse or two.
oil on paper, various sizes
