The Happy Birthday Party

the portrait party is two years old this month!

the portrait above was drawn by my sister, lali shaw!

dale o'flaherty & lucy knisley

it looks like dale (portrayed above) was on a rampage of portraits! this swap with lucy is one of several he sent out at the same time.

julie oakley & xavier oakley

julie and her son, xavier, had a lovely evening. he helped her make meatballs for supper and then they had fun drawing each other. xavier ended up going to bed very late because julie can’t estimate time when she's drawing.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts

my wife and i moved this month and, although we love our new home, it hasn't had internet access until this afternoon. perfect timing actually because, just this afternoon, i received a beautiful surprise from roz stendahl. she and her friends at mcba (the minnesota center for book arts) had a portrait party! they made books from their drawings and they sent me a copy! the cartoon above is by ken avidor. he opened the party with a pep talk and drew this picture of the party in progress. thanks for including me everyone!

The SELF-Portrait Party

like whitney said last year, "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all." so, in honor of valentine's day, the portrait party will celebrate the greatest love of all with an entire month of self-portrait parties. draw yourself. share the results. self-portraits will be posted until midnight on february 28th.

(feel free to share your portrait swaps also. i will resume posting them in march.)

rama hughes

i originally drew this self-portrait as an example for my middle school students' animation class. i liked it so much though that i adapted it as an example for d.i.y. notepads and stationary and it's a portion of the illustration for the fliers for my after-school art workshops.

thanks, everyone for participating in the self-portrait party! you can resume sharing your proper portrait parties at your leisure.

lucie geffré

this is lucie's contribution to the portrait party. lucie was born in france, lives in madrid, and runs a trilingual blog that you might enjoy!