NYC: Day 4: Zina, Joe C, Ms. Phelps and The Illustration House.

Zina Saunders was a riot. She is so energetic and frenetic - full of zip and ideas. She talked about her need to self perpetuate jobs, journalistic illustrations and her drive. What a great inspiration! She is a fully digital artist, after beginning to use the computer in the early 1990s.

Joe Ciardiello was a breath of fresh air for me. His watercolor washes are exquisite. After Joe's talk about the many, many jobs with the New Yorker, Newsweek, etc, I approached him about technique... He mentioned the Koh-i-noor Rapidograph company in Bloomsbury NJ, near to where I grew up...
"Oh Really?" he asked...
"Yeah, Milford"
"Oh Really, I live near Milford..." He says.
"Stamets Road, I grew up on Stamets Road."
"I live in Mt. Pleasant, the other end of Stamets Road."
... short story long, Joe lives behind my Uncle Johnny, over by the SPCA in Mt. Pleasant... Such a small world!


Cheryl Phelps had a TON of information to give us on Licensing our work for dispersal and sale. She tired to rattle off 4 hours of info into one hour... I typed as fast as possible, but it was great to know she gives a few seminars per year and is available for consultation via phone and the internet. I learned a lot from her. I hope to get moving on some of those ideas within the next two years.


Illustration House, at 110 W 25th street way downtown, houses some of the finest in American Illustration from the golden era. The Reeds, Walt and son Rodger were gracious with their gallery and knowledge to give us all history lessons on known and obscure figures in our Illustration lineage. They have a marvelous and exhaustive book out on the subject, but were very willing to give us all the Cliffs Notes version.

David and I returned to the hotel in the driving rain, dropping our bags and picking up our drawing materials for another round of figure drawing at the Society. I had an excellent night, with a lovely experience with watercolor washes on figure drawings.