NEWSLETTER 4 - May 2007
Dude! It's been waaay too long since the last newsletter. I'm ashamed. I guess I've just been so busy, it slipped my mind... Will you forgive me? In exchange for your kindness I offer giant puppy eyes (blink, blink) , a fresh new newsletter and a *peace offering at the bottom (Don't you dare read ahead)! Start here:

NEWS ITEMS
We've Landed
The last newsletter left Penelope Illustration Headquarters in a tiny apartment working on a postage stamp-sized table. Cramped and irritated were the words of those days. But now we're very settled and very happy in our new home. In a big studio with large tables -- good for productivity and playing paper football with long field goals. (It's good!) To see a pic of the new digs, click here. And if you're a before/after picture freak like me, click here to see the rest of the house. It's like girl crack!

Art Shows
Two art shows have happened (and successfully, knock on wood) over the last few months. One was The Girly Show in Los Angeles with the likes of these fabulous girls. You can see the work for that show here. And see pics of the weekend here.

The other show took place in New Hampshire and is still going on (if you'd like to buy one of the pieces, hint hint). So I got the coasts covered basically. The next show is somewhere in the middle: Tennessee I believe. Stay tuned for that.

The Illustration Friday Blog
My Illustration Friday partner, Brianna, and I launched the Illustration Friday Blog back in March, which has gotten a good response so far. We, along with other artists, post about all the things that inspire us and it's fun to read all the different findings... Check it out if you have a moment.

Notes on Design
I wrote a short series of essays that discuss how to work with an illustrator if you're a newbie to design (or a refresher if you're old school?) for Notes on Design. I had lots of fun writing it... I hope you'll like it.

Speaking of interviews, I was also interviewed by Design Inspiration and had a write up by Asthmatic Kitty (the label that puts out Sufjan Stevens' albums. Sweet!)

CLIENT WORK
Emily Dickinson Museum
I was really fortunate to be approached by the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst MA to create the first new Emily Dickinson image released since they celebrated the 100th anniversary of her death in 1986. (Um, no pressure!) It was to raise awareness for the museum itself as well as promote tourism/travel in locations across New England. So I gulped, felt very honored that they asked me, and started to work. You can read about my thinking behind the piece and see the final here (I did both the design and illustration for this piece).

NY Times Op-ed
I did a piece for the New York Times op-ed for a story about a step-son that goes off to Iraq. Kind of a sad story... You can see the full illo here. I also did a few pieces for the NY Times Book review: here and here.

Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant called with a story about knowing how to prevent disaster before it strikes your perfect backyard party (fun topic!) and asked me to come up with something. For inspiration I was sitting outside with my sketchbook... I held up my hand to pretend to shield the backyard and thought: A drink umbrella! It says party. It says protection (well, umbrellas do... drink umbrellas don't protect squat). And this image just came to me. (The hand is blue because I've been drawing blue people lately... not sure what that's all about.)

Anyways. Gosh, I have been just really busy (and so blessed) with a lot of work in the last couple of months... which is probably why my newsletters have been absent. So you can check out all the new goodies here on my portfolio page.

GOINGS ON
* NEW PRINTS!!!
I just uploaded 9 new prints to my page on Thumbtack Press. Many of them are images that people have emailed me about... so here's your chance! And they are very well priced (cheap!) to boot. Get 'em while they're hot. :)

Thank you for reading my newsletter! Peace.

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