Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ada Lovelace project and updated website

I designed the characters for a new Google For Education short celebrating Ada Lovelace's birthday today! You can watch the short here. The piece was animated and produced at The Productive.

I've also given my website a long overdue update. See more character designs from this project, some illustrations from All Cat Wants For Christmas and All Dog Wants For Christmas and more!

Two books I illustrated are now for sale!

I've been waiting until it was at least the end of November to share the news of my latest work for sale. Two books that I illustrated earlier this year are now available exclusively at Barnes & Noble!

All Dog Wants for Christmas

All Cat Wants for Christmas

Because of my experience with drawing cats for The Collected Counter Attack!, my author friend Colleen AF recommended me as an illustrator to her author friend Lizz Brady. Lizz wrote and I drew the illustrations for two books that are now available at Barnes & Noble online and in their stores!

Lizz wrote the hilarious letters from pets to Santa and let me chose the letters I wanted to illustrate. It was a really fun project to work on with a super quick turnaround for publishing. I signed the contract in February (shout out to Thomas Crowell for his legal advice) and handed in the final jacket cover art at the end of June for both books. Lizz even included my cats Moe and Fidget as two of the pets who wrote letters which was very touching.

The folks at MJF books did a lovely job with the printing. Here are a few interior pages:

You can check the Barnes & Noble website to make sure they have the books in stock or you can order online. It seems like they may be able to ship internationally, but I'm not sure exactly how that works. They should be shelved on a table with stocking stuffers or at the bargain book table. If you like them and want to leave a review on the B&N website, that is always appreciated! Also if you take a picture with your pet and either of the books, I will definitely retweet it on Twitter or share on my Facebook page.

Here's Moe looking unimpressed next to the books:

Florida watercolor and ink sketches

Here are some sketches I did a few weekends ago when I was visiting Florida with Allan. This is how I kept myself busy when I had a few lunches on my own while he was doing advisory board things at Full Sail. It was nice to do some location sketches.

Rambutan and Marang

Two more fruit paintings I did a few weeks ago. I tried both of these for the first time on my trip to the Philippines and they were so good! I don't think marang are widely exported to the U.S. and they were my mother-in-law's favorite food while we were visiting. They are about the size of a durian and have a similar pudding-like texture but aren't as stinky. Rambutan tasted kind of like lychee but look even more like a spiky alien fruit.

Happy Book Birthday!

Tomorrow is the release date of the 2nd book in the Stratford Zoo series by Ian Lendler and Zack Giallongo, colored by yours truly. Find The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents Romeo and Juliet at your favorite comic shop, bookshop, or online seller. It already has some great reviews on Goodreads and here is what the Kirkus Review says. If you enjoy it, consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It helps the publisher decide if more books will be made for the series!

Here is a peek at a few of my personal favorite pages (without too many spoilers) from my review copies:

(Full disclosure: I did not color the delightful cover.)

Mangosteen and Lanzones

I've been working on some little watercolors of the delicious tropical fruit we ate while in the Philippines. Here are the first two!

Philippines watercolor sketches

Oh blog, sorry to ignore you for so long! Short update: I finished illustrating two books earlier this summer that will be out this November. More on that in a later post. Then my husband and I moved to a new place in late July (still in Queens) and we just got back from 3 weeks in the Philippines!

Here are a few little watercolor and ink sketches I did on location while there. The first three are from The Pearl Farm Resort on the Island Garden City of Samal in Davao. The last one is of the Manila Film Center that I painted from our hotel balcony.

I did some travel comics and took a bunch of notes for the days I didn't draw, so I may get those up here at some point when they're finished.

A great weekend in Toronto

Thanks to everyone who came out to say hello at TCAF in Toronto this past weekend! I had a lovely time tabling at the convention and exploring the city a bit before returning to New York. As always, it is great to catch up with friends I know from Twitter, Kickstarter backers and meet lots of new creators and readers.

Although I didn't get too many photos during the convention, here are some of my photos from Toronto this weekend:

Refreshing apple juice and pretzels on the short flight.

CN tower from our cab to the hotel.

My beer (Dieu du ciel rosee d'hibiscus) and grey owl cheese with bread (not pictured) at Barvolo.

Hotel elevator selfie with my husband Allan.

I was sad this cookbook store was closed, but found another cute one in Kensington Market on the weekend.

The Toronto Reference Library where TCAF was held.

The crowd on the first floor on Saturday.

Dave Roman and Allan were in their NYC uniforms (all black).

My Veggie Explosion sushi at spring rolls.

The space age interior of the Reference Library.

The cutest firehouse.

Even the mannequins near TCAF were sporting undercuts.

Exploring on Monday before our flight back to NY.

A delicious peanut butter and banana crepe at Karine's Fresh.

Allan and I explored some street art in Kensington Market

We found a freshly drawn slush cat outside Wanda's Pie in the Sky.

The TCAF pop up store in the Reference Library had some really great displays including some of my favorite authors.

And an appropriate Scott Pilgrim display to end this post about Toronto.

Thanks for the hospitality, Toronto! I'm looking forward to returning at some point. Back to deadline mode!

I'll be at TCAF this weekend!

I am so excited to be exhibiting at TCAF for the first time this coming weekend! If you're in the Toronto area May 9th and 10th come check out this free event at the Toronto Reference Library and surrounding venues. It looks like I will be at table 226 on the second floor of the Library in the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon. This may change, so I'll update on Twitter if it does.

This beautiful poster for TCAF Kids' Day was designed by special guests Gurihiru.

TCAF will be the Canadian festival debut for The Collected Counter Attack! If you have photo reference and ask nicely, I will even draw YOUR cat inside your copy of the book. I will also have issues of Urban Nomad and some cat stickers, cat button sets and mini comics. Come say hello!

MoCCA Fest 2015 review

MoCCA is still one of my favorite conventions and I was excited to see how a new venue and a new book debut would effect sales. Luckily there was near constant foot traffic on every floor of Center 548 this weekend. Alison Wilgus and I were towards the back of the 4th floor and my sales were only slightly less than last year when we were along one of the main thoroughfares along an outer wall in the armory.

While heading over to the new venue to set up on Friday afternoon, I bumped into Megan Brennan and Rel (School of World, Pencil Pup) at Penn Station and hijacked their cab. We rode up to the 4th floor in the amazing and kind of creepy freight elevator.(It got stuck between floors on my way to the table on Saturday.)

Center 548 was a gorgeous light-filled space for MoCCA. Sadly I heard rumors that the building will not be available next year due to it becoming yet another high priced apartment building. The consensus seemed to be that Center 548 as the venue for MoCCA Fest was a nice change of pace. Everyone I spoke to seemed to enjoy the airy, well lit space despite the narrow stairs and distance from public transportation. It reminded many of us of the Puck Building days of the festival minus the 100 degree temperatures.

What a brilliant idea to paint the event schedule and map right on the wall on the way to the stairs of the venue.

The Drink & Draw Like a Lady party on Friday night was a wonderful success! Here is Clare DeZutti who designed the stickers we had for people who donated and also drew this cool chalk welcome sign.

Following two photos courtesy of Lisa Aurigemma. You can see more of her photos on her Vermilion Ink Flickr.

Possibly the classiest photo of my table mate Alison Wilgus and I.

I didn't take many MoCCA photos, but that means that I was too busy catching up with animation and comics friends and meeting new people! Here are Alison and Drew Brockington who I sat next to at Locust Moon Festival in Philly last fall. They both do comics about cats and space!

The highlight of my weekend was meeting Tomm Moore and his wife Liselott who run the animation studio Cartoon Saloon (Song of the Sea, The Secret of Kells) based in Kilkenny, Ireland. This was their first MoCCA and it sounded as though they sold out of everything they brought including art prints, original paintings and art books of The Secret of Kells. My awesome husband bought us a print of Pangur Ban to add to the wall of cat art.

I also got to chat a lot with my Irish cartoonist friend Cliodhna Ztoical and compare European comics festivals with those in the US. I met lots of new readers, spoke with several librarians, critics and editors along with tons of other awesome friends, creators and fans.

One of the drawings I did in a copy of The Collected Counter Attack! over the weekend. I met a bunch more cat lovers and some friends from Twitter which is always fun.

There was access to the roof with some tables and chairs set up, so my husband and I ran up there to check it out. It was rather windy on Saturday but the views were great.

Lisa got this photo of me on Sunday as she describes, making the same face as my character on my banner. Best!

I didn't get a chance to walk around the festival on Saturday, so I ran around on Sunday before I went to my table and caught up with a few more people. I didn't have much of a spending budget this year but couldn't leave such a great festival empty handed.

Aside from the long haul from Penn Station and weekend MTA construction messing up the C,E train, I had a fantastic weekend at the new MoCCA space. Taking the High Line on Saturday evening and Sunday morning was a nice alternative way to get to the venue. Everyone seemed in good spirits all weekend, the weather was agreeable and it finally felt like spring in New York. Thanks to everyone who came out to say hi and support what I do.