"Good Straw," says crow.

I had the honor of creating a piece of artwork inspired by my good friend Daniel Nayeri's brand spankn' new book, "Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow," which launches in stores this month.  Daniel's book is a collection of four novellas for young adults (and adults who like to feel young). For the launch party, his ever so delightful wife,  Alex, organized a bunch of hooligan artists to create a variety of pieces based on the book. My contribution is below. Here's the link to more information on Daniel's book which is published by Candlewick Press.

There's a scene in Straw House where the straw man, Sunny, is asleep and his arch nemesis, Crow, lands on his shoulder, sticks his head into Sunny's ear and starts picking away. Daniel's description paints a much better word picture, but here's the pencil picture that kept popping into my mind as I reread that passage over and over.

"Good Straw," says Crow.2011
9x12 x matted to 16x20
graphite & acrylic on illustration board

I hemmed and cawed , I mean hawed, over a few different ideas but landed on sticking with the bird silhouette and graphite pencil drawings that I've been doing lately.

Here are a few of my first idea sketches...

.... and the drawing before I added Crow.