Mushrooms with a little personality

Personalized Map of Cooperstown, New York (More generic version also available)

Cut out characters to move around their rainbow "stage"

Purple Floral with Bugs

A journal for, perhaps, the more unseasoned gardener, to keep track of what plants pop up in their garden.

collage and line art, digitally combined

Promo postcard for inki splatter beasts, collage style

Mixed Media collage of pen + ink, rubber tamps and cut paper textures.

Random bits of Heraldry, inspired by Random Castles

Random Castle images from off the top of my head :)

pen + ink

Page from Sketch Book. Favorite House near me

Simple Kitchen Scene, limited color, line art.

Cover art for the fictional picture book title, Egg and Spoon and the Amazing All-Star Chase

Sample facial expressions on these three characters

The little iron leaves its mark on everyone!

Art for Counting Board Book

Art for Counting Board Book. Four French Beans Rocking - from New Orleans!

Logo icons for World Sleep Day, March 15th

Cover mock up for a classic Eastern European folk tale about a little mouse who helps the farmer and his family harvest a giant turnip.

Expressions and body language sketches for the star of a the story, The Enormous Turnip and the Teeny Mouse.

Concept for a set of chicken-shaped coasters that are stored in a chicken house. Matching cloth cocktail napkins also pictured.

pen + ink + texture

(finished digitally)

Schools of ocean fish, minding their own business, being watched.

We keep a gaggle of pet ducks in our yard … the neighbor chickens come to visit … they do not like water.

Set of kids’ Halloween stickers for “Cooptober Fest” in Cooperstown, New York

An updated take on vintage tin packaging.

My interpretation of a vintage motel sign, somewhere in the Adirondack mountains.

Poster art for the tween-age Ballet enthusiast!

Poster art for any ballet enthusiast!

Line art + collage, finished digitally. Quote by Rumi.

Mer-Man and Mermaid tea cups with descriptions

Big and small fish shadow a yellow submarine as people peer out of the portholes

Promotional project

i love you… just sayin’

Concepts for chicken-themed art for the kitchen

Concepts for Honey Bee themed art for the kitchen

Spotlight inset from picture book, personal project.

Picture Book Cover Illustration

Pencil renderings of a mischievous mouse, who is quite the character. (Also see pen and ink renderings of same guy!)

Mischievous mouse, hiding on leaf of giant turnip plant.

Poster Design + illustration for a fictional production of West Side Story (Mock Up)

Poster design + illustration for a fictional production of West Side Story

Playbill design + illustration for a fictional production of West Side Story

Invitation is designed to be reminiscent of mid 20th century souvenir travel postcard packets

Hand made pillows, created for Fund Raising Auction for Hyde Hall Gala

Hyde Hall Gala, Jane Austen theme, invitation, open, showing “bookmark,” which is the rsvp card, closed.

Gala invitation, front, with “bookmark” and envelope

Design of a timeline for a traveling exhibit of the Era of Impressionist Painting for the Munson, Williams, Proctor Institute of Art in Utica New York. This was an extremely interesting and educational project to put together! See following for close up images of each panel.

Emphasizing the fact that it was to be a cocktail reception, the invitation and rsvp cards were printed on a set of six paper coasters, wrapped in a ribbon and packaged in a custom hand-printed canvas sack, including a vile of custom labeled bubble stuff. I also created a custom pattern for the wedding (pictured here) which was printed on the flip side of all six coasters as well as being printed on fabric and used for the men’s bow ties, on table top arrangements, throw pillows and ribbons of the bouquets.

Logo commissioned by the Utica Zoo, requested to be modeled after a vintage, 1960’s era, cast iron lion-shaped water fountain in the kids’ area of the Zoo, as seen in photo.

Creation of the mascot “Wesley Weasel” for the Utica Zoo fitness trail. (The zoo requested using a weasel.) Wesley was then incorporated into my subsequent designs for the fitness trail signage. The Lion logo is my design from a previous project. The actual size of signs are each approximately 2 x 3 feet.

Actual signage shown installed at beginning of trail.

Logo Design for Cooperstown Beverage Exchange (Retail Shop and Tasting Bar for Cooperstown Distillery)

Logos for The Cooperstown Beverage Exchange, a retail space for Cooperstown Distillery, Cooperstown. New York

Logo and Packaging design for Cooperstown Distillery’s Fenimore Gin

Design for Abner Doubleday Vodka - Box and baseball-shaped decanter.

Box also available in red printing.

Not pictured; Bottom of decanter is triangular and imprinted with baseball diamond image.

Graphic design for packaging holding three baseball decanters for The Triple Play - Cooperstown Distillery

Design art for packaging for Cooperstown Distillery, intended for the Japanese spirits market.

This label is printed in black and white on the outside and sepia tone on the inside. When wrapped around the clear glass bottle, the portrait of James Fenimore Cooper shows through the open oval on the front.

Looking closely through the die cut oval on the front, you will also find hidden images within the vintage map of the Cooperstown area.

The following two images show flattened views of both the inside and outside of the White Whiskey label.

I spent many hours working with Dover clip art, as well as doing my own hand inking, to bring together a montage of “vintage” images for this label!

Label - exterior

(Visble through die cut oval opening on front of label)

Art Direction: Montell Mara

Label design for Sam Smith's Boatyard Rum, Cooperstown Distillery

Label design for four bottles of Apple Jack to be auctioned at Hyde Hall fund raising Gala, courtesy of Cooperstown Distillery.

I first designed this logo for Sam Smith’s Boatyard Rum, then hand-painted it onto weathered corrugate tin, to appear vintage.

Sam Smith was known for his competitive racing of Star keelboats, hence the red star in the logo.

This is currently being used as decorative signage at Sam Smith’s Boatyard + Blue Mingo Bar & Grill in Cooperstown. New York.

Mock up illustration for a mug, featuring Farmer’s Museum (Cooperstown, New York) logo design.

Logo design for use on bumper sticker, canvas bag, T shirt, etc.

A small sample from my previous life designing for mass market media.

Four patterns I created (of many) for The Fairly Odd Parents Tool Kit/Nickelodeon. (As part of the in-house design team)

Pattern I created for use on all Rugrats packaging and marketing. (As part of the Nickelodeon off-air in house design team.)

Exploratory packaging design for Chorion Ltd and Mdm Alexander, for Olivia packaging, back when Olivia (the book series) was still in its early years of development.

Mixed media collage image with vague undersea references and clock image

Hand carved rubber stamps

Mixed Media Collage

A three color monotype (yellow, red and black) applied in one pass of the press, with pen and ink line work added by hand, after printing the color.

Mixed Media Collage of monotype print, pastels, paper and pages from a phone book.

Mixed Media collage, intended to be reminiscent of early 20th century collage

Mixed Media collage, intended to be reminiscent of early 20th century collage

Mixed Media Collage

Mixed Media Collage

still life, mixed media collage

Monotype print, “drawn” with brayers (ink rollers) and printed with three quick passes through the press; black, golden and red.

Otsego Lake, Cooperstown, New York

(Wash effect created with solvent-thinned ink.)

Inspired by forest trees on a moon lit night. The image was created by coating the printing plate in black ink, then rubbing away the lighter areas.

This print was made by three passes through the press, one pass for each color. The black line work was “drawn” with the edge of the brayer. (rubber roller)

Reminiscent of Asian noodle soups. Collage imagery, finished digitally.

Morandi - inspired monotype collage

Monotype with collage elements.

(Shape of vase made from canvas vase piece in the following frame.)

Vase element was initially used as a mask for previous monotype piece.

Black line transfer print, with green and yellow added via mono printing. Containers are sketched directly from the items in Morandi’s Studio - The Morandi Museum, Bologna, Italy.

Monotype collage

Monotype collage

Monotype print with Stag

Mixed media collage of canaries using a vintage pay phone.

Mixed media collage

Mixed Media; gouache, pen, various papers

Hand carved rubber stamp

Arp, Ogg, Ziz and Noz climb on a jungle gym kite, under the watchful gaze of Clock Flower, in Twoodle Town Park.

Each Twoodle character is dreaming up a story, based on an idea that popped from their thought bubbles.

(In this case it is : Donuts, Marshmallows, Banana, Tea Cups)

Four Twoodles, riding their Twoodle Scooters! Arp, Ogg, Ziz and Noz.

Clock Flower is the de facto host of Twoodle Tales™ and drives the action from Twoodle Town Park, at the beginning and end of each Twoodle Tale story adventure.

Twoodle Town Park acts as home base for the Twoodles. Some of the park features can come to life and take part in a Twoodle Tale story. They serve is the “adult” in the room, casually taking part in the Twoodles’ adventure, helping move the story along.

Twoodle stuffed toys with a surprise twist, not pictured.