Line Art Illustration

I have been creating black and white line illustrations for many years for a wide variety of printed pieces and publications; working for the Sierra Club, Stanford University, the University of California, and for many science curriculum projects. I began drawing in pen and ink on paper in a pre-computer age, and now I also draw on a Wacom tablet in Adobe Illustrator. The art still feels very much mine, only the tools have changed...

Ecosystem Posters and Book Covers

The images above are a series paintings I created for a science and literacy curriculum for elementary school students: Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading, developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at U.C. Berkeley and Berkeley's Graduate school of Education, and published by Delta Education. Each painting represents a different aquatic ecosystem: a Costa Rican rain forest, an Arizona desert, an Indian mangrove swamp, and an Alaskan river system. The paintings include fauna and flora native to each ecosystem, as well as a small "I Spy" detail in each showing some form of human impact, no matter how remote the location. All four were published as large posters within the Aquatic Ecosystem unit of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading series.


Below are three of the many book covers I have designed and painted for the Great Explorations in Math and Science Teacher's Guides, also created at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley.  GEMS produces preschool through early childhood activity guides and is a highly respected curriculum development and training program for teachers, parents, science centers, museums, and community groups.

    

Pet Portraits

Detailed Pet Portaits are one of my specialties. I place the subjects of my paintings in their own personal or symbolic environment: gardens, favorite hiking trails or parks, their special place at home, or in an idealized landscape, often inspired by 18th century English portrait painters like Gainsborough and Reynolds.

To see more examples of my pet portraits on the terrific Pupstar Sonoma webpage, please click  here.

Stanford University Libraries Bookplates

Bookplates are small gummed labels pasted inside books and book collections to identify the library and the donor. Visit the Stanford University Bookplate Exhibit to see their full collection of custom-designed library bookplates, including many that I have created for rare book funds and collections at the Stanford Libraries.  A new trend is beginning at some major libraries to create "digital bookplates" rather than printed pieces.  My designs are all easily adapted to be digital files for library websites, as well as traditionally printed bookplates.


Below is the first bookplate I designed for the Stanford Libraries.  This plate is for use in books purchased through a book fund at Hopkins Marine Station, created in honor of my parents.  The illustration is my pen-and-ink rendering of the marine research vessel Te Vega on which my father spent many months in the 1960s in the South Pacific.