About Me

As an award-winning illustrator and author of children’s picture books, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate and professor in the Illustration Department at RISD for nearly three decades… I feel INCREDIBLY lucky; I get to do all the things that I love to do. But in truth, luck + hard work + passion were and are the main ingredients for where I’m at now.

One of my latest ventures has been teaching online, demonstrating painting and drawing with virtual students. The process of developing a course, teaching in front of and talking to a camera, and not knowing how the content would be received and understood, has been a creative challenge to say the least! I’ve also been teaching at Hollins University, as both Chair of Illustration for the MFA in Children’s Literature and Associate Visiting Professor. In lecturing and teaching in places like China and India, I find myself further enlightening my perceptions of culture and creative making both as educator and artist.

As an illustrator, and book maker, I’ve been able to explore painting and color with clients like Little Brown, Hasbro, Celestial Seasonings, Mead Johnson and Disney, and have received awards from the Society of Illustrators, multiple Awards of Excellence from Communications Arts, the Irma Simonton Black Award, and the Critici Erba Prize at the Bologna Book Fair. My artwork has been exhibited throughout the country with one-woman shows at Books of Wonder Gallery in New York and Beverly Hills, at the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, the RISD Museum, Society of Illustrators (NY), The DeCordova Museum, and abroad at the Design Society in Shenzhen, China. But one’s art isn’t really alive unless you take risks, and step into the creative space, ready for surprises.