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I'm starting my 2013 with a made up word. Portfolio-izing is the act of "accessorizing" or enhancing one's portfolio. By "one" I mean my own. As you can see in my snippet above, I've transformed my portfolio into a giraffe pelt. The WHOLE portfolio looks like a giraffe now. This is just a close-up of the finished patterning: Lately I've been playfully gussying up my portfolio for the Annual SCBWI NY Conference. I'm beside myself with giddiness to get back into the city to show off my collection. I'm spending my weekend deciding on the interior pages and assembling my dummy book. This is what it looks like for me to "plot" out my portfolio pagination: I've got a lot of work to do, but I'm confident with the pieces I have completed. I can hardly wait to have my completed giraffe portfolio. Some of the "interior" bits can be found in my online portfolio . A few more pages will be making their way into

Left: Frida Kahlo's "Girl with Death Mask", 1938; right: Samantha Grenier's "Death with Girl Mask", 2005. I was just reading another blog post featuring the art of Stephen Mackey, and it triggered a little nostalgia. I don't know if it was in the lighting of his paintings, or maybe the tone, or my (slightly) morbid appeal, but something brought me back to a Halloween assignment from my graduate studies. My painting was not well received at the time. I think the assignment was something along the lines of making a Halloween or depict a horror scene. Trying to be clever, I created a nod to Frida Kahlo's painting " Niña con Mascara de Muerte". Since this was for an illustration class, something a little more "illustration-y" was probably expected. Probably. I didn't get it at the time, but sometimes it's difficult to separate the "artist" from the "illustrator".  I was always proud of my little