According to my mother, I've been drawing since I could pick up a pencil. People were always my favorite thing to draw, and I would make up people and name them. It was fun when in 5th grade I drew a picture of Mrs. Bradley, labeling her size 5 shoes because she always seemed to feel the need to tell us she had small feet, and one of the other kids in the class started showing it to everyone and passing it around.

People are still my favorite subject. I have been known to draw the person in the car next to me while stopped at a light, and when my kids were younger, I spent lots of time drawing the people around me while my kids waited on line for an hour at every single roller coaster at Great Adventure. (No, notice I was drawing, NOT on the rollercoasters...) And, yes, sitting at Starbucks, a relaxing way to spend a couple of hours with two of my favorite things, coffee and drawing, although that is often frustrating, I always seem to be sitting at the wrong angle to everyone. I'm always a little conscious of people being aware that I'm drawing them. The last guy who noticed, asked me "how did I come out?" I showed him, worried he would be insulted because I had exaggerated the shape of his head, but he must have liked it better than the real shape of his head because he was happy and amused with it.

I graduated from Parsons School of Design with a BFA in Illustration, and after a stint at a jewelry store, driving cross-country and living in LA for 9 months, basically goofing off and not understanding why the sun didn't come out there the entire month of May, I came back to New Jersey, got serious with my portfolio, and got a job in New York designing prints for childrenswear. Teddy bears, Mickey Mouse, cars and trucks, hearts, Bugs Bunny, and Brut underwear, and flying to North Carolina and Boston in a twin engine-impossibly small plane, and being in New York and not caring when everyone complained during the winter about it getting dark so early, because it meant when I looked out the big window next to my drawing table at 4:30, the city was aglow with lights.

After a few years there, I left to be a freelancer, with most of my business still in childrenswear for a while, eventually leading into designing licensed character toys for Burger King kid's meals and other products like glassware and Christmas ornaments, into bedding and home textiles, and gradually into children's publishing, where most of my business is today.

Clients include:

McGraw Hill
"Somersaults" Magazine
Jabari
MacMillan
Globe Fearon
"Highlights for Children"
Springs Industries
Carter's
NJ Transit
Princeton Partners
Evan Moor
Licensing Corp. of America
Visual Education Corp.
United Media
"Clubhouse Jr."
Franco Manufacturing
Strasser and Rose
Brookdale Community College
Asbury Park Press

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