"Hobby Trip" for USA Today

New for USA Today's travel guide: Hobby Trip! The article by Lisa Davis lists several interesting travel packages for hobby enthusiasts including archeological digs, wine making, and (shown above) knitting cruises to Hawaii. Expert art direction provided by the amazing Erin Aulov. Thank you, Erin!

Simply Saratoga

Flip to page 16 of the spring 2014 issue of Simply Saratoga magazine and you'll find an article about me and Isabella's Shoe Studio (duopress/2013), penned with excellence by the lovely Helen Edelman. Click here to be redirected to a virtual copy.

I was supposed to meet Helen in downtown Saratoga Springs at Northshire Bookstore for this interview several months ago, but the cold killed my car's battery.

Helen braved the weather and drove out to my family's Gansevoort home (Gansevoort = in the sticks). Thank you, Helen!

Beach Babies!

New from duopress: Beach 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 Annie, Hello 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?

♥

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.

Introducing: PUZZLES!

Last summer I created art for an exciting new duopress venture: PUZZLES!

My New York Puzzle and My San Francisco Puzzle were just released, and they've already won the prestigious Oppenheim Toy Award. Go, Team duopress! These 20-piece puzzles are the first in what is sure to be a successful series.

For NYC we chose to depict Lady Liberty back-lit by a night sky filled with fireworks—a classic scene that celebrates the Big Apple in a kid-friendly way.

And you simply cannot make a puzzle about San Francisco without featuring the majestic Golden Gate Bridge!

Designing art for puzzles with so few pieces presents a few unique challenges. First of all, we didn't want the seams crossing key elements in an unflattering way. Secondly, visual elements in each composition had to overlap every single seam—visual clues to aid tiny puzzlers in their mission to assemble our handiwork.

As this project's Art Director, I got to create the puzzle die (the cookie-cutter used to cut the puzzle into 20 interlocking shapes). As the illustrator, I had to design each image to work within the die.

Grant McMahan designed this project, which entailed quite a bit of work. Packaging at its simplest involves a box—six surfaces to beautify. There is a drawer cleverly designed into these boxes, which gave us five more surfaces to fill (four sides + the bottom).

I got to create tiny bits of spot art for Grant to sprinkle around the sides of each drawer, and I absolutely love to make spot art, so that was a special treat.

In keeping with duopress's mission to create innovative books and gifts for curious children, the bottom of each drawer is covered in fun facts about the subject of the puzzle it contains.

My New York Puzzle and My San Francisco Puzzle by duopress are available now in local bookstores, museum and gift shops. No matter where you live, you can order them on-line! Click here to order My New York Puzzle, and here to order My San Francisco Puzzle.

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This "My Puzzle" series, like all duopress projects, is the brainchild of Mauricio Velázquez de León, publisher of duopress books and gifts.

123 Little Bugs

Over the summer I art-directed my first project for duopress: Puck's 123 Little Bugs, a Cool Counting Book™ for itty-bitty readers. Prolific artist Rey David Rojas made the adorable illustrations, and my long-time friend Grant McMahan designed the book. Grant added patterns to Rey David's art, two of which—including these swirls on the cover—were created by me, just for fun. This art director job has its perks to be sure, not least of which is working with such talented people.

All duopress books are interactive. On the final pages of 123 Little Bugs you'll find helpful conversation starters to give you ideas about how to help your baby interact with the art on each page.

For example:

"Did you know that caterpillars have twelve eyes? How many eyes do you have? Can you close one eye? How about both? Now, open your eyes! There's much more to see in this book!"

Adorable. Where were these books when my son was small?

Get a jump on spring with 123 Little Bugs, available on-line and at your local independent bookstore.

¡Isabella va a México!

Last spring at Book Expo America, as I was wandering around the Javitz Center in awe, a small group of amazing people met to discuss the possibility of translating Isabella's Shoe Studio into Spanish. Editiones B eventually bought the rights, and here she is—en español! 

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Included in the afore-mentioned group of amazing people: Mauricio Velázquez de León, publisher of duopress books (thank you, Mauricio!), and long-time friend of duopress Pablo de la Vega of Indent Literary Agency, my new amigo.