Winter Meeting

Winter Meeting:

Monday, February 1st, 5 to 7pm

Flatbread Pizza

72 Commercial Street

Portland, ME 04101-4749

(207) 772-8777

Bring art, ideas, art in progress...

See you there!

Mike Gorman

xmas priest © Mike Gorman

Mike Gorman is an award winning illustrator from Westbrook Maine. Since graduating from Parsons School of Design in 1992, his work has appeared in some of the most prestigeous publications in the country, including the New Yorker, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, Mac Addict Magazine, and many others.

Mike is the illustrator of the Alien Agent book series from Carolrhoda Books, Lerner Publishing with the titles: My Cousin the Alien (Young Hoosier Book Award Nominee and winner of the Westchester Fiction Award), Camp Alien, and Alien Expedition.

xmas tunes © Mike Gorman

Mike works in a wide range of styles and mediums, depending on the task at hand. While best known as an editorial illustrator, he has worked in many different facets of the industry, and is currently looking for more work in the fields of animation and video game design.www.mikegorman.com

David Poole, Animator, Musician, Teacher

We were saddened by the news that member David Poole passed away recently. As with most things in the small world of illustration in New England we learn it both on Facebook and through the Portland Press Herald.


Portland Press Herald's article on David:
Dave Poole died unexpectedly while vacationing with family in Southern China on Dec. 30, 2009. He had recently been an assistant professor at the Maine College of Art and the University of Southern Maine, and taught seminars at the Maine Media Workshops. He earned an MFA degree in June of 2009 from the Art Institute of Boston.

Dave grew up in Portland and Cape Elizabeth before attending the Northfield Mt. Hermon School. A graduate of the University of Maine, in the 1980s he wrote and produced television commercials for WCSH-TV, Portland, earning New England Emmy Awards for best copy and for best musical score. Upon moving to New York City, he developed an interest in computer graphics and his digital illustrations were featured in magazines such as Newsweek, Macworld, Scientific American and Computer Graphics World.
Spending a few years in California he was a consultant to major media and technology companies.

David returned to Maine in 1993 as a director for the Kodak Center for Creative Imaging in Camden where he designed and implemented new curriculum in animation and video. In the late 1990s he built a realtime 3-D character animation facility for the Disney Company and completed a handful of successful animated short films that have appeared in a variety of industry film festivals as well as on national television.

Some of his recent creative work can be seen on DavePoole.com and ComputerPutty.com.

A saxophonist and trumpet player, Dave was a widely respected member of the Portland music scene, most recently as front man for the funk/jazz/freestyle group Super Sized Chameleons, and he released a CD called Don't Quit Your Day Job in 1997.

Desk Scene © David Poole

Dave was celebrated for his open and easy-going nature and a congenial humor that he brought to his performances, the classroom and gatherings of friends and family. In addition to his creative legacy, he will be remembered for his enormous consideration and respect for others.

A funeral will be held at:

The State Street Church UCC, 159 State St., Portland
on Saturday, Jan. 9, at 11 a.m. The Rev. Jeanette A. Good will officiate.

Contributions in Dave's memory may be sent to the Morrison Center, Scarborough, mdcmaine.org.

Jessica has a new Website!

One of Jessica's book illustrations soon to be published by Birdland Publishing

You just have to admire Jessica...she drives all the way cross country just before winter sets in...across the Rockies, finds a place to stay in Oregon 'til she can get to Alaska, and she still manages to do her blog, finish her book, and make a new website for herself!
Amazing!

Jessica Clark's new site:
www.jessicalynnclark.com

Kim Jacobs-creating art in the Deep, Deep Woods

Woodyend Theatre © Kim Jacobs

Kim's cottage in Maine, home of the Cottage Cats

Baba and the Phoenix © Kim Jacobs

Kim Jacob's art reflects her intense love & commitment to her gardens and nature; interweaving them with images from her extensive travels and her childhood fairytale beginnings.

"Kim began her illustration journey inspired by the fairytale illustrators...Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, and Howard Pyle
among many others...."

By also studying the Swedish artist Carl Larsson and the Dutch masters of her ancestral home, Kim learned to compose and create her softly detailed paintings that have a true sense of place.

Attending college in California, Kim began illustrating for early childhood educational literature. With continual assignments, the opportunity arose to illustrate greeting cards and with the great success of her line, came more stationery products and her very first Cobblestone Way Calendar. For the past 21 years Kim has designed and illustrated this best selling calendar, which was retitled "Cottage Cats" in 2010; celebrating her third book...titled "Cottage Cats, My Companions on the Path to Joy", written as well as illustrated by Kim and published by Seller's Publications.

Kim's art studio and real cottage home is nestled in the middle of 131 acres in mid- Maine, surrounded by gardens, lush fields and forest. She and her husband discovered their woodland paradise intending to live lightly on the land and built a "green homestead"..... a home completely powered by the sun. There they homestead by raising their own vegetables and herbs; living as sustainably as possible.

Today Kim's art appears on a wide array of gifts, toys, and art prints for such companies as AMCAL/Mead, Milton Bradley, and Thomas Nelson; distributed throughout the world. And in her cozy studio one will find her painting away illustrating and pursuing her first love.... children's books.

To see more of Kim's art go to:
www.kimjacobsart.com