because we all should be so lucky

I love watching my wife take photographs. It's like witnessing magic happen right before your very eyes.


Taking a walk with Andrea on a foggy November morning as the trees slowly emerge from the mist is nothing short of awesome.


Autumn. Trees. Color. Yes, the obligatory leaves-changing shot.


A little beaded home. She probably took all night to work on it, too.

The Thanksgiving Story

The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh, with illustrations by Helen Sewell. © Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954.

Nice illustrations by Helen Sewell in this children's book about the first Thanksgiving in America. Helen won a Caldecott Honor for the work done on this book. More about Helen Sewell HERE.

On the first page, there's an Author's Note:

In writing the text and making the pictures for this book, Helen Sewell and I have kept them both very simple—so they tell the story of one family and of the changing seasons.

The Pilgrims and settlers were chiefly a group of country people—farmers, weavers, and other workmen. They wore the clothes of the time—perhaps less elaborate—and they wore colors. The wide, tall hats were expensive, so the men and boys had knitted and cloth caps for ordinary occasions.








There's a certain flattening of the scene that Helen does that makes it look like cut paper in some of the illustrations.






I noticed that the boy in the lower lefthand corner is actually a cutout - the artist must've painted him separately and glued him in place there. I've seen this done before many times.

Here's wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving, people. Hope you're enjoying your time with your family and friends. I know we are.

Big Birthday Sale in The Shop

In honor of my 42nd birthday coming up, I've decided to mark all my prints 42% OFF in The Ward-O-Matic Shop! Hurry and take advantage of this while the holidays are sneaking up on us! Stock up on all your favorite Ward-O-Matic prints! You know, the ones that you've been pinning over for months and months and never had a decent reason to finally make that purchase? Welp, now's your chance!

42% OFF means:

All 8.5 x 11" prints are now $14.50.

All 5 x 7" prints are now $6.96.


This is for a limited time! Hurry!

(Gah! I feel like I've stepped out of one of those crazy late-night mattress ads.)



Here, you can see my two most recent additions to the shop. Fun!

Big News and an Update

Lots to announce today! It's been a long time coming, so let me start with this:


CHICKS RUN WILD by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen and illustrated by me, Ward Jenkins! To be released by Simon & Schuster on January 25th, 2011.

My second children's book! I'm so excited. It's a fun one. Had tons of fun working on it, with all the little chicks going crazy throughout the story. I also enjoyed drawing Mama Hen and coming up with all the various ways of her reacting to her little ones.

In case you're wondering, you can pre-order the book HERE and also check out the official Facebook page HERE. I know! It's all very up-to-date and all!

By the way, if you do a search for the book, be sure to type "chicks RUN wild." Not "go" or "gone" wild. Just sayin'.

In honor of this occasion, I've updated my website - somehow, a bunch of chicks were set free and are now running wild all over the site:



See if you can find them all!

Along with a few added illustrations in the Portfolio, I've also updated the Books section to accommodate Chicks Run Wild. Once there, you can take a peek inside, follow along as I show you my process for making the book, and a few other surprises (soon).

My last bit of news is very VERY exciting for me: I am now represented by the wonderful Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary Agency. If you’d like me to illustrate a book, a book cover, etc., please contact her via email. I really enjoy Jennifer's enthusiasm for the world of children's and YA literature. Outspoken, honest, to-the-point, and very engaging, Jennifer is the real deal. All the more reason why I'm so ecstatic about sharing this news with you all. Be sure to check out Jennifer's blog. She shares a great deal of insight into the publishing world. Don't miss out.

Alright! There ya go! Lots of good things happening here at The Ward-O-Matic. Very excited.

Halloween Avatar Trickery

San Francisco was a major blast. I want to share all that we got to experience and see, but all in due time. In the meantime, I've been having fun with my avatar, leading up to Halloween. Here's the original:



Now, here's a skeletal version:




How about a zombie version? I can haz brainz?



And now, a special nod to Nightmare Before Christmas, natch:



I might do more. It's been a lot of fun.

Happy Halloween!

UPDATE: Here's more!

Built Like This

So, for the weekend this is happening: Built Like This and I couldn't be more proud of the wife. She's got some serious Polaroid skills, that hulaseventy chick. I should know. To see her photos enlarged and up on walls is a sight to be seen. Come this Friday for the opening reception from 7 - 9pm at Arkay Workshop in the Mission, San Francisco. It'll be cool to finally meet you. I mean, you've been talking about it for like, forever.

Oh, and on the same weekend, this is happening:


It's filled up, but worth noting because, well, it's my wife! And she's heading up a Through The Viewfinder workshop!

It's a hulaseventy weekend in the City by the Bay, this weekend, folks. Hope to see you there!

Exaggerating

I could be, actually.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

I must see this film. It's currently playing at Living Room Theaters in downtown Portland. Hello, I must see it now:

Watching Artists Work

I don't know about you, but I love watching artists create, whether it's drawing, painting, sketching, doodling, pasting, sculpting, whatever. I love it. There's something about the process - the in-progress piece of work - and seeing it come about as it happens that totally appeals to me.

So, here's some videos of artists doing their thing:

Jackson Pollock:




Jean -Michel Basquiat (he's shown painting around :45):




Basquiat with spraypaint (From DOWNTOWN 81):




The great Picasso:




More Picasso:




Henri Matisse drawing:




Henri Matisse cutting out shapes:




Now, this is interesting. In 1985, Quantel invited David Hockney to try out painting on their Paintbox. Here's part 1 (of 5):



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Part 5:

EYEWITNESS REPORTS: Auction for 826LA

Writer Mac Barnett and illustrator Dan Santat have a new book out titled, OH NO! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World) It's about a little girl with a science project that runs amok in the city. It's a brilliant children's book, with excellent artwork by Mr. Santat. An added bonus is the book jacket: it folds out to reveal a one-sheet movie poster on the inside. Brilliant, I tell ya!

As part of the release of the book, Dan's started a show called EYEWITNESS REPORTS, that opened several weeks ago. He gathered over 30 artists (including Calef Brown, Mo Willems, Jon Klassen, Tom Warburton, Kelly Murphy, and myself, plus many more) to create some artwork to be auctioned off to support 826LA. Here's Dan's words on this event:

As a parent I can relate to the frustrations many parents must have in finding any decent place to help educate their kids. Here in California we suffer from state budget cuts and schools continue to suffer from even more budget cuts when they already have nothing left to lose. So I gathered up some friends. A little over 30 children's book artists (any more and my head would have exploded), and they did their own interpretations of Mac's book "OH NO! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World)"and starting August 23rd people can begin buying pieces off of eBay. (There will be two auctions, one starting August 23rd, and another starting on August 30th.) There will also be a gallery show where all the pieces will be on display at the Nucleus Gallery starting August 14th. I will also be selling very limited edition prints from the book to go towards the charity as well as copies of the book itself.

So, yes, the first auction has begun for this week! My piece is featured in this group and you can bid on the artwork HERE.


Here's the official site for the show: Eyewitness Reports.

Here's Dan's blog post on the show and auction: Eyewitness Reports: A Charity Art Auction in Support of 826LA.

Gallery Nucleus's page on the show: Eyewitness Reports.

Oh, and here's a video to promote the show as well (made by Dan himself):



Hope you all can support a great cause here. Best of luck to ya!

Mad Men Party

What happens when a collector of 50s-60s ephemera, books and various what-not gets a chance to illustrate a Mad Men-themed party? Well, here you go. For The Boston Globe G Magazine. Big thanks to Martin Gee for being such a swell client.

In order to pull this off, I had to endure an all-nighter - which, by the way, gets harder to recover from the older I get. Not like it was when I was in college, that's for sure. But anyway, it was worth it. I'm quite pleased with how this looked after sleeping throughout the next day. I think I was worried that it was looking too busy, with some of the colors looking jumbled and crazy. But I simplified the colors to the partygoers in the far background, near the top, and that seemed to do the trick. I also played around with the starburst in the middle of the composition. I know that it's something I tend to do a lot, but here, it worked out pretty well since we are focused on the TV in the middle. Plus, the starburst motif is mirrored by the starburst clock in the upper right corner.

I'll do a step-by-step progress post on this illustration once all the dust settles.

Boston-ites, this will be for tomorrow's Boston Globe: Thursday, July 15th. Look for it! Here's a sneaky-peek before it goes to press, thanks to Martin:

Summer in Full Effect

It's here. It's definitely here and we can feel it. Summer has arrived in Portland—they say that the summer usually doesn't "officially" arrive here until around July 4th, and by golly, they're right. We're expecting temps in the 90s this week—I know that's no biggie to most of you on the eastern seaboard, but over here in the great northwest, it's kind of a big deal.

To kick it off, here's some summery vintage scans for you:


Fun Avis ad from Sunset magazine, January 1962.

At bottom:
"Now! If you want safety belts, you can have them up front at no extra charge on most '62 models."

Umm...gee, thanks, Avis!


Seattle Welcome Guide
Nice little pamphlet from the Seattle Convention and Tourist Bureau. 1959. No illustrator credit.


Dubble Bubble ad in Family Circle magazine, August 1953.


From Music 'Round The Clock, Follett Publishing Company, 1955. Illustrator is Val Samuelson.

Summer is the time for jungle gyms and freaky kids, apparently.

Ooo! Some leftover fireworks from 4th of July:


Mayflower Dairy Magic

Fun little booklet for Mayflower dairy products. No date, no illustrator credit. Thinking it's probably early 50s, based on the look and style of the photographs they have on the back cover (not shown in my Flickr or here). The little cook there is so fun. Yay! Cooking!


Anytime you've got a little cook with a wand pointing to a big star with the word CHEESE in the middle, I'm going to scan it, people.






Yay! Cottage cheese! Ice cream! Yay!

Summer is here.

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans. To celebrate, here are some independence-related scans from a couple of wonderful Fireside song books, each filled with amazing illustrations by some incredibly talented people.

The first selections will be from Fireside Book of Favorite American Songs, selected and edited by Margaret Bradford Boni. Arranged for the piano by Forman Lloyd. Illustrations by Aurelius Battaglia. © Simon and Schuster, 1952:


Hail Columbia
View larger.


The Liberty Song


Yankee Doodle


Chester

Next spread is from From Fireside Book of Folk Songs, selected and edited by Margaret Bradford Boni. Arranged for the piano by Norman Lloyd. Illustration by Alice and Martin Provensen. © Simon and Schuster, 1947.


The Star Spangled Banner
View larger.

The last is not from a song book, but from the cover to a 45 vinyl record:


American Songs To Sing, complied by Judy Wathen. Illustration & design by Abner Graboff. © Scholastic Records, 1976. As many of you know, I featured Abner's work last year when I was able to interview his son, John. This record belongs to one of our buddies here in Portland—I HAD to borrow it to scan so I could share it with you guys.

Okay, that's it! Hope you enjoyed this little bit of liberty-minded inspiration for this 4th of July! Have a great holiday!

Aurelius Battaglia featured in my Flickr.
The First Noel by Alice and Martin Provensen.
Abner Graboff featured in my Flickr.

Hipster Bird

Hey look! It's a new post! And with a drawing? Even better!



This is in response to Jared's bird.

Big Site Update

I finally redesigned the website and it's now up and running! New section I'm happy to unveil: Books! Take a look around, click on all the fun clickables, see if everything is working correctly...

This intro page has only a few things different than the first version, but the redesign is all about the rest of the site found within. For instance, since I was brand new to iWeb for the first version of the site, I had no idea about centering the entire layout for each page, resulting in some wonky pages. Another thing I fixed: I didn't like having to scroll down a bit for each image in my Illustration portfolio. By shrinking the main header of "Ward Jenkins" and all the categories in the navigation bar at the top, I was able to keep it simple, allowing more space below. Now, practically all my portfolio images are viewable without having to scroll down.

Besides the new Books section, I've also split up my Illustration section into two categories: Personal and Published. Took down some old stuff, put up a whole lot of newer stuff.

Yes, an entire section devoted to my first children's book: How To Train With a T.Rex. You can check out some pages (as well as the sketches), lots of sketches on how I drew Michael Phelps, and, of course, the easter eggs found in the book. Since most who visit the Books section could possibly be kids, I'm thinking of creating an entire Kids section. Still need to mull it over, though, figure out the possibilities, how it would fit within the rest of the site.

Enjoy the new look!