Happy Holidays to you all! I’m posting this a little after my whirl-wind busy Christmas (more on that in future posts), so it’s just a bit late for that particular holiday. However, seeing as it is not yet New Year’s, I feel that it is still the holiday season and I can still wish you all well.
I want to say a great big thank you to everyone who I have worked with over the past year. You have helped to make this my best year yet, and I am so grateful for your direction and support, both artistic and personal. I truly hope that we can work together again in the coming year, and that 2011 is a wonderful year for all of you. I know I’ve got a good feeling about it. Enjoy tomorrow night’s celebrations!
Just a sketch I worked up – giving a little more life to a critter that was in a past illustration of mine this year. Can you spot him? He’s not far…
Following my previous post of my parents’ bookplates, I was commissioned to create a personal bookplate by one of the readers of the Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie blog! Designing someone’s personal bookplate is always an honor – it’s a little piece of art that aims to be a personal reflection of the client, and one that will hopefully be utilized for many years.
The content of this piece made it particularly fun to design. This twisty creature is a salamander, and it is part of a finial found topping a building of significance to Mr. Griffin. The building itself was erected in the Victorian era, and this fellow was put on top to protect the structure from fire (salamanders themselves being a symbol of fire), which he has done admirably. Twin columns of delicate ginkgo leaves and the curvy fluted roof were some of my favorite parts to draw!
Many thanks to Mark for contacting me to design his bookplate!
Many months ago I was contacted by the lovely art director at The Little Lutheran and The Little Christian magazines to do an assignment for them. I admit that at the time I had never heard of either publication, but as soon as I received a copy of the magazine I knew I was holding something special.
These two publications are identical, and are geared towards very young kiddos – age 6 and under. Like a book, the magazine is small and sturdy, and the format of it is perfect for little hands. The images they choose are sweet, and the stories and articles are playful and supportive at the same time. It’s a wonderful publication, and working with their art director was a joy. As a plus, I love the typography they paired with my illustrations!
These two illustrations are for a piece they ran in this month’s issue called “Henry Played Church,” which told the story of Henry Muhlenberg. The opportunity to draw barn animals and historical costumes all at the same time gave the promise of fun research, and left me a very happy illustrator. Many thanks to Amber for choosing me for this article!
I come from a family of readers. On any given day at my parent’s house you will probably find all the Benhams on couches, books in hand, glasses perched on our faces, and our minds immersed in the story. I like classical literature, realistic fantasy novels (think Susanna Clarke and Charles de Lint), and re-visiting childhood favorites; my sister likes art history and art theory books, mom likes historical fiction, and dad’s literary tastes are so wide-reaching that they are unclassifiable. Books feature highly in all of our lives, and we Benhams love the sensation of soft dry pages, the deep beauty of a well printed illustration, and the smell of a book (I even have a perfume that is the fragrance of an old library – it is well loved and worn often!).
To celebrate my parents’ birthdays this month I made them both personalized ex libris plates. I’ve always liked the idea of the ex libris, and whenever I happen upon one in an old book I feel a deep and immediate connection to the previous owner, like it’s a taste of their personality. Each of these bookplates is reflective of their interests, though like most bookplates perhaps the images speak more clearly if you know my parents, and I’m happy with it that way. I hope you enjoy them, and that you have many good books in your future!
(Psst: if you want to check out more bookplates online, go visit the blog Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie. It’s like a gold mine in there!)
