Congratulations to artist Wes Thomas for being chosen by the SCBWI chapter as June's Featured artist of the month! Wes's work will be seen on a banner on their homepage and in the Illustrator's Gallery. Also find information and artwork on their twitter account (@scbwi) and the Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/SCBWI) We hope that everyone enjoys seeing Wes's fabulous artwork!

Charlotte Award/ Craig Orback

Congratulations to Artist Craig Orback! "The Can Man" published by Lee and Low in 2010, has won the  New York State Reading Association's Charlotte Award for 2012.

This is an especially high honor as the winners are voted for by thousands of students across New York State and the winners are only chosen every 2 years.

We wish artist Craig Orback and author Laura E. Williams our heartiest congratulations for touching the lives of so many young people with the wonderful content of "The Can Man" story.

Highlights Award for Roz Fulcher

Congratulations to Roz Fulcher on her 2008 Visual Puzzle of the Year Award from Highlights Magazine! The award was lost in the mails due to a move and it's just arrived now but what a welcome surprise. All our best to Roz for a well deserved acknowledgement of her great work.

Six Book series for Gabhor Utomo

Just out in the marketplace is the six book series of "I Wish I Were a.." Furry Ferret, Speedy Cheetah, Humpback Whale, Komodo Dragon, Enormous Elephant and Howler Monkey" with artwork by artist Gabhor Utomo.

The books were written by Christina Jordan and published by Magic Wagon, a division of ADBO Group. Our congratulations to Gabhor on a fabulous collection of books and great illustration. We hope that children will enjoy the books and that they'll do wonderfully in the marketplace.

Steven James Petruccio in Exhibit

Steven James Petruccio's illustrations were recently part of the exhibition, "American Nostalgia: Contemporary artists and illustrators reinterpret the traditional themes ofNorman Rockwell" , in Fullerton, CA.. More than thirty years after his death, iconic American artist Norman Rockwell’s art is still enormously popular. This invitational group exhibition examined the enduring themes represented in the art of Norman Rockwell–patriotism, family and the American ideal. Steven's illustrations were created for magazines including Scholastic News.

Artist Ilene Richard

Artist Ilene Richard has been excelling in the Fine Art world with her acrylic paintings. She is currently involved in a show that is hanging in Neimann Marcus on Newberry Street in Boston. She has presented 8 paintings for the Woman and Self Esteem show that will be on display until November 30th, 2011. Go and check out Ilene's wonderful, provocative and colorful ladies.

Artist Wes Thomas

Artist Wes Thomas has completed 4 Cloverleaf Books for Lerner Publishing/ Millbroook on protecting our environment. The books are titled: "Choose to Reuse", "Power Up to Fight Pollution", "Rally for Recycling", and "Go Easy on Energy". All titles were written by Lisa Bullard. We know that Wes's enjoyable collage style artwork and great whimsy will make these books fun for children to read and be educational in teaching them how to keep our world clean and safe.

Wes was invited by Lerner to share how he creates his fun collage artwork on their Lerner blog. We invite you to click on this link to check it out:

http://lernerbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/q-with-illustrator-wes-thomas.html