"the dust of everyday life"

Nightfall in the City and the Country

Two sequential spreads showing the deepening blue skies of sunset, from Yozora o Miage yo, a picture book for Japanese publisher Fukuinkan Shoten about discovering the stars of the night sky (2016). Twilight is absolutely my favourite time of the day, that fleeting time when everything changes - the sun is just disappearing over the horizon, leaving a deep blue sky, and the first stars start to come out. All the lights come on, but it's not yet night. I find that shifting, mysterious time of the day endlessly fascinating.

John Shelley

www.jshelley.com

Big Blue Planet

STEVEN JAMES PETRUCCIO

Such an amazing underwater world!

Pacific Dolphins feeding from "Dolphin's Rescue".

Frozen Fishing by Patrick Girouard

While seated on a chilly crate
And angling where my friends all skate
I wrestle with the frozen bait
And dream of fish piled on my plate.

BIRDS!

by Steven James Petruccio

http://www.stevenjamespetruccio.com

Families Belong Together...

Families Belong Together....

John Nez
www.johnnez.com

Tiny Giant, my bird contribution for June

I love to play around with the concept of opposites in children's books, so I had some fun illustrating the cover artwork for The Tiny Giant. Can you guess who or what the tiny giant could be?

Also, June keeps rambling along so I wanted to add one more bird illustration, our theme of the month.

Please check out my Studio With a View Blog for more illustrations.
Thanks for taking a look! And please click on the image for a larger, more detailed view.
Cathy Morrison

Can you find my bird?

Work in progress, Gardener Girl

Here's a work in progress, currently titled Gardener Girl. I wanted to post because 1. there's a bird, which happens to be our word-of-the-month and 2. I'm totally enjoying working on this project.

Thanks for taking a look. You can find more illustrations happening on my Studio With A View Blog.
Happy June to everybody!
Cathy Morrison

Menagerie

An exhibition piece from Japan days - the show was one of the biggest I held in Tokyo, sponsored by the WWF, and was on the theme of encouraging a love of the natural world through fantasy and imagination.

John Shelley

www.jshelley.com

Robin's Egg Blue

From a book about Spring.

It's always so amazing to see a robin's egg.

John Nez

www.johnnez.com

I always feel like...

...somebody's watching me.

by Patrick Girouard

Memorial Day Breakfast. Historical Destination.

Bill Hoffman proud Veteran

Took my Vietnam Veteran Husband out to The Town Common in Hopedale MA today to celebrate Memorial day. A young couple (who we didn't know) bought our breakfast! How nice was that? They left with out a word, we didn't get a chance to thank them

The Town Common is a new discovery for me. I am always in search of
perfect breakfast spots and this one ranks high. The location across from a park and beautiful old stone church is gorgeous. Breakfast is served on Fiesta wear in a variety of colors. You can watch the owner cook your delicious meal from and opening looking into the tidy kitchen, and the waitresses are amazing (one helpful gal helped me when I could not shut of the data sucking app Waze!)

Below is a bit of cool history about this scenic little town.

Outside Town Common

Hopedale Community, a Utopian dream becomes a self-contained Company Town

Founded in in 1842 Adin Ballou and his followers purchased 600 acres of land on which they built homes for the community members, chapels and factories.
Ballou believed that he could create a Utopian community blending the features of a factory town with those of a religion-based commune. The community stood for temperance, abolitionism, women's rights, spiritualism and education.

Fourteen years later the intentional community was converted into a textile factory town. The factories were purchased by George and Ebenezer Draper.

In side Town Common. refinished old wood and brick.

The Drapers believed that good houses make good workers and created a model self-contained company town with one of the best collections of architecturally significant double houses in the country, built on hills and in valleys in garden settings which preserved the views. The company charged low rents, and provided high quality housing, impeccable maintenance and recreation opportunities. Workers left their handsomely designed duplex houses to walk to work, then left work to play in company parks or stroll along company streets.

Side door leading into Town Hall. Stained glass windows not visible.

The Town Common Restaurant is in the Town Hall. The architecture inside and out is grand. We drove around the town of well designed houses imagining what a great place it must have been for the factory workers of long ago.

The planned community with innovative 19th and early 20th century employee housing, remain essentially intact today.