Thursday, March 13, 2014

Beach Babies!

New from duopressBeach Babies!




Beach Babies is an adorable 22-page board book for you to share with all of the tiny readers and beach-bums in your life.



Written by Puck, designed by Grant McMahan....



... with illustrations and art direction by me, your friend, Violet Lemay.



I hope that you and your baby will have as much fun experiencing Beach Babies as the team at duopress had, making the book. 



The charming words and colorful art on every page, and the activities at the end of Beach Babies, are all designed to make itty bitty beach-goers and their caregivers very, very happy.
Announcing the arrival of Beach Babies makes me so happy that I have to sing! 
What better song to celebrate babies at the beach than Bon Voyage
(Think back to your high-school production of Anything Goes, and sing along!)

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Bon VOYage.
You mean bon voyAGE-uh.
I hate to say goodbye sweetheart.
By the seashore...
You mean sur la plage...
I'll sail and watch the sea,
Til you come back to me.

Oh my dearie...
You mean ma cherie...
I'm yours for life...
You mean pour la vie...
So kiss me pretty wench
In English or in French
Bon voyAGE!
Bon voyAGE-uh!


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Beach Babies is available on-line (click here to order!), and at your favorite local independent bookstore.

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Special thanks to George M. Cohan for the lyrics to Bon Voyage. Thanks also to my little brother Matt, who refrained from either killing me or smashing my stereo during my high-school "Cohan Phase"— four solid years of binge Cohen album-listening interrupted only by short bouts of AnnieHello Dolly, West Side Story and My Fair Lady. I'm proud to have been a theater nerd through and through, but Matt, I'm soooo sorry! Ask yourself: Did you decided to become a trombonist to drown out your sister's music? Perhaps my youthful obsession with classic musical theater actually spurred you on to your eventual career. It just may be that you owe a great big thank you to George M, brother-mine! What do you think of that?





Monday, March 10, 2014

SILA



Last October I submitted this image from San Francisco Baby to the annual competition sponsored by the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles. Several months later a happy e-mail announced that I made the cut. Hooray!



The perks of being recognized by SILA include involvement in ILLUSTRATION WEST 52, a group gallery exhibit, which is happening right now (March 7-39, 2014) at Center Stage Gallery, 847 Hollywood Way in Burbank, California.



Because I live on the east coast I packed up the art and shipped it to the gallery. My good friends Tyler and Paige Garrison, talented illustrators who live in Burbank, stopped by to snap these photos for me.



Tyler, Paige and I all met in a classroom at the Savannah College of Art and Design where I was teaching several years ago when they were still students. Since then they got married (yay!) and eventually moved west. Meanwhile, my family picked up and moved north. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, Paige and I co-illustrated Beach Doodles, another fun and creative activity book by duopress.
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If you can't make it to Center Stage Gallery but would like to see the show, click here to virtually stroll through SILA's on-line gallery.

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San Francisco Baby, published by duopress in 2013, was co-written by Tess Shea and Jerome Pohlen. Jerry and I have teamed up on several other duopress projects, including Doodle Texas, Doodle America, and Chicago Baby.
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As I mentioned above, Tyler and Paige are both amazingly talented illustrators. Check out Tyler's work here at fizzlepopstuido, and click here to see Paige's portfolio.