"Artists and Their Pets" at BookExpo

BookExpo is happening right now at the Javitz Center in NYC. I feel like I'm there, thanks to this Instagram photo of a lovely Workman sales rep showing off duopress books. 

Violet Lemay Illustration is well represented on that table, and is in terrific company—so many collaborations of great artists, authors, designers, and editors! My art is featured in several of the books shown in this photo, including the soon-to-be-released... drumroll... ARTISTS AND THEIR PETS!

If you stop by Workman's booth (#2807), you might be able to get an Advance Reading Copy—a soft-cover version with a black and white interior. We adapted the cover design especially for the advance printing, as shown above. Eventually, ARTISTS AND THEIR PETS will be a beautiful hard-cover book with 298 full color illustrations.  Yes, 298—as in, two less than three hundred! Some of the images are tiny, but still!!

As the publication date nears, I'll post more about ARTISTS AND THEIR PETS. For now I just wanted to spread the word about the advance copies that are being given away at BookExpo. 

Enjoy!

Click here to advance-order an actual, hard-cover, full-color, to-be-released-in-September copy of ARTIST AND THEIR PETS today!

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Artists and Their Pets | written by Susie Hodge | illustrated by Violet Lemay | published by duopress | September 2017 | distributed by Workman Publishing

A Ream of Paper, a Box of Pencils, and About a Million Dogs

This week I am wrapping up work on a new project for punchline: NYDOGS, a 96-page gift book for adults—not kids this time—which I wrote and also illustrated.

Most pages in NYDOGS are covered with multiple illustrations. That's a doggone lot of dogs! Every single one of the little critters was drawn on regulation printer paper with an HB Faber-Castell Goldfaber 1221 pencil. Totally classic. And speaking of Old School, we went with a vintage printing technique, opting to create all of the art using only three colors: Black, PMS 485 (Coke red), and PMS 2985 (a nice, retro aqua-blue). The result is quite beautiful, although also proved to be rather time-consuming. These dogs kept me tied up in my studio for the past four months! Was it worth the effort? Oh WOOF yeah. So excited about this one. :)

NYDOGS is currently in the final stages of editing before being sent off to the printer, and will be available in bookstores in and around NYC in September 2016. Between now and then I'll be sharing more behind-the-scenes stories about the team who made NYDOGS possible. Meanwhile, click here to pre-order your copy of NYDOGS today!

Bella's New Baby

I am very pleased to announce my latest literary "arrival," BELLA'S NEW BABY! A Little Golden Book (Random House 2016), Bella's New Baby was written by Sue Douglas Fliess and illustrated by Yours Truly, with art direction by Diane Muldrow.

Click here to order your copy today!

Pet Pharmacy

It's been raining cats and dogs at Violet Lemay Illustration! 

After adding a slew of furry friends to my portfolio site (click here to see!), I got a call from Christine Garrson at USA Today to create art for an article about pets and prescriptions. Did you know that a variety of local drugstores now fill scripts written by veterinarians?

The concept for the art was to show cats and dogs at the pharmacy, mixing with the usual crowd.

Fluff and Fido (above) got cut, which was fine, because illustrating guys in fedoras reading the newspaper is one of my all-time favorite activities.

Also, at the last minute we traded out fedora man's fictional Gazette for an actual copy of USA Today.

Working on this project while snowbound in my upstate New York studio in early March helped beat the winter doldrums. Who knew a visit to the pharmacy could be so much fun? That was several months ago. After the long wait (the grass is finally green now, and the tulips are about to bloom), I'm glad the art is finally in print. Look for it in USA Today's Pet Guide, which is available today.

If you'd like to see a larger version of the pharmacy art shown at the top of this post, click here.

When I said it's raining cats and dogs around here, I wasn't kidding! A variety of pet-friendly projects are keeping me busy lately, so stay tuned for more.