NY Dogs in The BARK!

Thanks to Claudia Kawczynska, Editor in chief of The Bark! Claudia devoted an entire page of her Fall 2016 issue to feature NY Dogs.

Pick up your copy of The Bark today! And click here to order NY Dogs, written and illustrated by Violet Lemay for punchline (2016).

NY DOGS

I am very pleased to announce the release of NY Dogs (punchline/2016), a book which I illustrated and also wrote. 

NY Dogs is a humorous look at the many and varied dogs of NYC, and the valiant humans who traipse after them, picking up their poo.

Outside of a book, a dog is man's best friend.
Inside of a book, it's too dark to read.
~ Groucho Marx

In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Malcolm Gladwell mentioned how difficult it is to make a reader laugh or cry. Mr. Gladwell was more interested in moving people to tears than to laughter, but after having just spent several months trying to write a funny book, the laughing part is what caught my attention. 

Making people laugh is much easier in a personal encounter than on the page because laughter is an emotional response. Gladwell credited his friend Charles for this thought: "People think with their eyes (reading) and feel with their ears (listening)."

Thankfully I had lots of help with the funny business. Click here to read about the team who helped make NY Dogs funny.

And of course, click here to order your copy of NY Dogs today!

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!