Been A While...again

2018 marked 35 years for me as a professional freelance illustrator and artist.  During that time I've created art for many books, 80+, including some for Scholastic, Inc.  They have also acquired some of my books for their book club.  Always had great experience with the art directors and editors there.  Here's a look at my Scholastic books from their website.

You can still find these books on the secondary market on amazon.com , barnesandnoble.com  other and  other sites  as well.

New Book Release.." God Saves Jerusalem".

I love illustrating historic or nature oriented books especially.  Each project brings an opportunity to research and learn.  For this book I researched ancient Jerusalem via virtual tours and photos and looked at sculptural reliefs for clothing, chariots and the hanging gardens.  You won't see all of my research but it's all needed to get the feeling of time, place and character.

Illustrated by Steven James Petruccio

Author- Larry Burgdorf

Published by Arch Books, Concordia Publishing

(Click image to go to amazon.com for purchase)

Some of the steps for this book...

Relief sculpture reference...

...pencil sketch...

                                                
                                                   










...finished painting.

After many months creating new works for illustration and fine art projects and before I begin painting the illustrations for my next book, I thought I'd post a picture of the cover of " American Heroes".  It's a coloring book I created for Dover Publications and the latest in many books I've written and illustrated for them.  This is a great way for young people to learn about men and women in the USA who have achieved greatness by their deeds or imagination!

It's available now from Dover Publications

http://store.doverpublications.com/0486498956.html

...and from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com!

School Visits

I've begun my school visits for the new school year and have been to some wonderful places thus far in New York and Philadelphia. My program "A Day In The Life Odf A Book" is always well received by students and teachers alike.  In fact, teachers often get more excited about it than the students.  They have the chance to get inside the book illustration process and see original work.  I'm including a link here to a video which tells a bit about my school program and workshops so you can get a better idea of what I do.  My program  meets Arts-In-Education standards in an interesting and entertaining way and brings visual art to places that often have cut classes due to budget constraints.  My visit inspires young students to work for what they want and do their best!
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gtxp3g6jAc
You can also visit http://encoreperforming.com/ to book a school visit and learn some more.

Meeting Charles Santore

It's not often that you get to meet one of your idols and having that person turn out to be as impressive as you'd imagined is a bonus. I took a chance and called illustrator Charles Santore a few weeks back and told him I'd be in town. I asked if he would have time to meet with me and, without hesitation, he invited me to his studio. Mr. Santore was as nice a person as one could hope for. I had the opportunity to see many of his original paintings which were illustrations for his wonderful books. Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and Santa Claus to name a few. We spoke about illustration and he gave me his opinion of my own work which was encouraging and complimentary. He also gave me some advice on making my work even stronger. I value his suggestions. This was a great chance for me to see the artist at work on a new project as well. This is one day I won't soon forget.