One person's roadside weed is another's garden of inspiration...

It's Queen Anne's lace (Bishop's lace or wild carrot) time in Iowa. Aside from it's unpleasant invading nature, a field of these blooms, backlit by a July sunset, says summer to me. This year I've captured the ubiquitous roadside plants in a small square composition. Along with a few other invasives, thistle, clover, vetch, and those wacky little buckhorn plantains that have seed heads like cone shaped pencil eraser tops, Queen Anne's lace figures into our mental picture of many regional landscapes almost as much as the native plants do.

An Illustrator is Nice...

A little shout-out to one of my favorite illustrators who passed away this week. Marc Simont's work graced many picture books. He won a Caledcott (1957) for A Tree is Nice (written by Janice May Udry), the title a sentiment I still whisper to myself when lost in a moment of natural world reverie. I love the picture of the snoozing granny and reading mother under the shade.

A lesser know picture book called "Glaciers" is a non-fiction work, written by Wendell Tangborn. The original printing of this book was illustrated by an artist with a realistic, yet a bit ho-hum pen-and  ink style. I accidentally ordered this one online when I was trying to track down a picture book I had borrowed from the library. This library copy had been a reprinted version a few years more recent, with Marc Simont as illustrator. "Glaciers", with Simont's renderings, bursts with feeling. His sensitive line quality and an added human elements made you want to explore the icy worlds.  With the two books side by side, I was able to see what illustrations for me evoked a story rather than just instructed on facts.  I appreciated Marc Simont's great talents even more.

I see his influence in many contemporary illustrators today. He has left a mark in me as a reader and artist as well.

Marc Simont

1915-2013

Under the Milkweed (apologies to Dylan Thomas)

Swimming into summer

Summer is at high tide. I haven't wedged myself into my swimsuit yet, but thoughts of dappled waters glimpsed from half closed underwater eyes brings the season home. Nothing better than a water-logged body drying off on a line-dried towel in the late afternoon sun. Hope some of you are already experiencing wet eyelashes glued to your cheeks, blinking away the chroline or algea after the sheer 

satisifaction of a good swim.

Wings and things

A quick share as I send off a small job to Augsburg Fortress Publishing which had me creating spot illustrations of the four Biblical Evangelists in symbolic form: Matthew as an angel, Mark as a winged lion, Luke as a winged bull and John as an eagle. Like drawing birds with different bodies! I liked Marks the best.

Peony Envy

A thoughtful host

I'm reading a collection of Vincent Van Gogh's letters to friends and family (mainly those to Theo). I learned Van Gogh created his famous sunflower paintings to decorate the guest room, in anticipation of Paul Gaugain's visit. We know Van Gogh was an intense individual and tragically unbalanced, but the pleasure he seems to have taken in making Gaugain's room cozy and bright touched my heart.

Here's a sunflower to warm this cyber space in welcome.