Illustration Friday #6: ROUND

I'm putting up an older piece for this week's Illustration Friday prompt, ROUND. I have so many... round moons, round suns, round the campfire... but I chose a holiday image of children dancing 'round the tree. When I painted this (watercolors and colored pencil), I called it "Dancing with the Stars."
Now that a fun, family Thanksgiving has come and gone, I'm trying to move on to the the next holiday.

Whispering Pines Reunion Dinner

About fifteen prior participants from the writer's retreat, Whispering Pines, got together at Andrew's Bistro in Cumberland RI last night to network, catch up, and enjoy each others company. A special treat was to celebrate the ARC (advanced reading copy) of Lynda Mullaly Hunt's middle grade novel, One for the Murphy's, coming out from Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin), in 2012.

It was an inspiring evening.

Lena Goldfinch, Sally Riley, Julia Boyce

Liz Goulet Dubois, Sue Fraser-Perotta, Marlo Garnsworthy, Mary Pierce, Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Licia Rando, Mary Pierce, Laurie Smith Murphy, Jenny Bagdigian

Sandy Budiansky, Betsy Devany

Cheryl Kirk Noll and Lena Goldfinch

Brian Lies visits Illustration III at RISD ce

What a treat I had last night.  RISD CE instructor, Emilie Boon, invited New York Times best-selling author/illustrator Brian Lies to her Illustration III class. Intelligent, well-spoken, down-to-earth, and incredibly talented, his "just us artist's sitting around" presentation was informative and inspiring.

Here, Brian is showing us one of his originals for Bats at the Beach, meticulously painted in acrylics.

Brian was generous enough to share his process, from idea to hand-written text, through multiple revisions, sketches, studies and tracing paper drawings, to color studies and painting. Here he lays a classic acrylic underpainting. 

 Brian also told us about his latest project, More, which he illustrated. It looks AMAZING!! It will be coming out in March.

Here, students from Illustration III and instructor Emilie Boon get a close up and personal look at Brian's amazing originals. Thank-you so much for your generosity, Brian. Let's hope "More" is a best-seller, too!