Last Week's Read Across America Program

Last Thursday I was honored to be the featured guest for the Read Across America Program at Fruitland Elementary School in Puyallup, Washington. The students just finished their monster drawing that I demonstrated for them from my Monster Safari How-to-Draw Book. They wanted to hold their drawings up to show me... so I grabbed my camera, just in the nick of time. It was a fun and memorable day. I will have more Monster Safari Programs through the Spring semester and next school year. 

I would be happy to answer your questions regarding bringing my Monster Safari and/or Read Across America Program to your school: http://bronsmith.com/schoolprograms.htm

Cayman Islands Water Bottles

I got a surprise in the mail yesterday. My cartoon map associate in the Caymen Islands sent me these Cayman Islands cartoon map water bottles. It's one of the ancillary products that he has spun off of my Cayman Islands Cartoon Map.  He has also produced giant Cayman Islands Cartoon Map beach towels. I put the water bottles on the book shelf along with my new Monster Safari How-to-Draw Book. Thanks, Paul!

Bird's-Eye View of Monster Island

This is the final art for the Monster Island bird's-eye spread. It will be the opening spread in my Monster Safari kids' book. I inked the pencil layout (below) then colored it in Photoshop with my Wacom Cintiq. Most of the graphite under-drawing is still there, mostly covered with color. I did remove the graphite in the light areas, like the beach.

At present the text remains my hand-lettering. But I will probably substitute the hand-lettering with typeset text. 

The next thing that you'll see on this blog will be the pencil layout for the next spread, which will be a straight-down view of the island. It will look more like a treasure map, in that it will show where we located the monsters, the location of the peaks, swamps, etc. There will be a dotted line which will trace the route of our expedition to the island. 

Check out my other blog: Trowbridge Chronicles.