Casey Girard Illustration

Where Have I Been?

I can’t believe a month has gone by and then again I really can. My family and I finished packing up our belongs put them in a pod and the car on a truck and shipped them across the country. As our belongings made their journey we made a side flight to Europe, specifically Romania! Our friends invited us out for their wedding. The friends all arrived a few days early so we could travel out to Transilvania (spelled as they do in Romania) to see the castles that inspire Haunted Castles.

It was a wonderful trip. There was sketching of the architecture, furniture, armor, pictures of the Carpathians! I am so happy to have had the opportunity to travel to Romania. I loved it. We made friends with locals. Since, the bride is from Bucharest she introduced us to her friends. They welcomed us with open arms showing us around and helping with the language.

If you have never heard Romanian spoken is sounds a bit like Italian smushed together with Russian. It is absolutely beautiful. Noroc was one of the most commonly used phrases amongst us as we toasted our friends through their 12 hour wedding/celebration. At 4am we helped them close down the establishment.

Noroc AJ and Lumi! and Multumesc for taking us to Romania!

Tomorrow the story continues as we landed back in the states then, within 24 hours flew across the country to begin our adventure of living in California.

Also once I have a scanner again there will be a follow up to Romania.

And the Winner is!

Liz Smith

of Made In Lowell

is our winner!

Congrats, you get your very own poster 🙂

Thank you all for your support through my second sale. I really appreciate all of the help spreading the word.
Where would we be with out the support of our communities and friends?

Final Day of the Sale

Last day of the sale! Stop by Fab.com to get your letters.

Share news of the sale to be entered into the giveaway for a free poster!

I will announce a winner this Thursday.

To enter, post my blog to your social media site of choice and let me know you did it in the comments of this linked to blog post. Or within your social media posting include my name @CaseyGirard in the post and use the hashtag #animalsinalphabet to link back to me.

Inspired by Illustrators

On Thursday Jennifer E. Morris reminded a bunch of illustrators of Kelly Light’s phenomenal workshop and one of the specific exercises she gave us. A grid where in you draw different shapes then build characters from them. Jennifer started this and threw out the call for other illustrators to participate. It caught on! Check out her recap of them all.

I finally had a chance to sketch mine this morning:

Thanks for the inspiration, what a fabulous warm up.

Fab.com Sale

I’m on FAB! Sale of the Animals in Alphabet until next Wednesday! Get ’em while the getting’s good!

update: Retweet, share, and comment here and you are signed up for a giveaway of one of the Alphabet Posters!

All folks who have already shared on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or G+ are already signed up. The more you share the more times your name is in the hat. I will pick a winner June 14th. Thanks for helping spread the word 🙂

Alphabooks Choice

Alphabooks the latest blog theme for the Alphabet crew!

Here are my B and C entries:

B is for Bartholomew from Dr. Seuss Universe

C is for Clifford the Big Red Dog

MeCAF Octo-Pus in Boots!

MeCAF is such a nice convention. It was low key and pleasant and offered great meet-up opportunities for all the creatives involved. A huge thank you to Rick Lowell for all that he did and for bringing together such a fabulous show! And big thank you to my table mate Michael Rapa! It was good sharing space with you.

Rock on for Casablanca Comics!

Here are the Octo-Pus in Boots collected throughout the day, and one from MICE.

Loren Lee

(actually done at MICE! but I hadn’t started taking pictures yet)

Stephanie Yue

It has also happened again, I got a submission from Dave Roman as well but, no picture! I will have to find him at another convention.

It was a great weekend and it continues as we read through the haul we brought home:

I want to give a shout out to Elenore Toczynski loving her books!

Moving to California and MECAF

Well I was really hoping to have art to post yesterday and now today. It just isn’t happening. I think it is time I succumb to the fact that I am moving to California in about 35 days and am going to have to shift my focus from making art to packing up my life.

Folks I am moving to the Bay Area of California, San Jose, in under two months and you might not see a lot from me between now and when I am settled!

We are going from a 2000 sq ft house to a 2 room efficiency while we transition into more permanent housing. I am needing to decide what art materials are can’t-live-without and which ones I can leave in storage for a time. My mind is racing at a steady speed of 100 mph. We also are going to pass on a lot of our house hold wares. We are seeing this as a marvelous opportunity to pair down. Our first load went off to a donation center yesterday, 20 boxes worth! We are certain we have at least 20 more.

Then if moving isn’t enough there are still a few other ventures I am involved in until the move.

1) MECAF this weekend! Many of us from Fanartica will be participating stop by our tables.

2) Another Animals in Alphabet Sale should be underway in June. More details to come.

3) I am working with a vendor to make the Animals in Alphabet available as Vynl Wall Decals. How cool is that!?

Then of course transitioning from NESCBWI. I am going to dearly miss working with such a wonderful region. Thank you New Englanders for making my time volunteering for NESCBWI such a great experience!

Now I need to get back to work and also accept that I am 30! today!
too-much-to-take-in-in-a-short-period-of-time

MoCCA ReCap – Octo-Pus in Boots!

Sorry for my delay in writing up what happened at MoCCA. I have just been so busy reading all of the comics I got while there!

I had a great time at MoCCA. My table mates Ellen T. Crenshaw, Shanon Weltman and Ray Jones, were phenomenal and we made great friends with our neighbor Jonathan Baylis.

The list of incredible artists we made connections with is mind boggling. MoCCAFest and Drink and Draw Like a Lady created wonderful atmospheres for us to be able to share and chat about our art and get it in front of our fans. A couple of folks that I didn’t get Octo-Pus in Boots from this year but, was very happy to see again were Laura Lee, Jannie Ho, Doreen Marts, Becky Munich, Gareth Hinds, Stephanie Yue, Colleen AF Venable and Emma SanCartier.

And then the artists that I chatted with featured with their contributions of Octo-Pus in Boots!

Thank you all of contributing! I love every entry.

Komodo Dragon

This weekend I am participating in SOS, Somerville Open Studios.
I am #80 on the map at 45 Laurel Street #1.
We are open from Noon to 6pm both Saturday and Sunday.

I have some new work that I will have on display, mounted creature heads. Check out the first one:

And of course there will be new specimens, check out these three:

And one more of the Dragon:

I love Komodo Dragons

Hope to see you this weekend!

MoCCA Fest!

Another week of just one post. Followers, thank you for your patience! Next month I will hopefully be able to get back to two postings a week.

For those of you in NYC this weekend be sure to stop by MoCCA Fest. I will be at table B8 up front to the left when you come in the doors. At my table with me will be Shanon Weltman, Ellen T. Crenshaw and Ray Jones.

Here is a preview of new work I will have available:

I will also have my specimens and Animals in Alphabet. It should be a great weekend!

Conference Re-Cap through Octo-Pus in Boots!

This weekend at NESCBWI Conference ’12 was incredible. I had a wonderful time visiting with everyone. Reconnecting with old friends and getting to meet a few folks face to face for the first time after being long time twitter friends.

Some of these wonderful people kindly gave me their interpretations of Octo-Pus in Boots check out the contributions received at this conference!