I began drawing a lot at a very early age and I always experienced great joy in being creative. Much of my childhood I spent stretched out on the floor daydreaming and drawing whatever came to my mind. A desire to improve my drawing and painting has always been important to me. I was determined to be able to realistically draw people's faces. I remember my six brothers and sisters often teasing me that I was drawing “Monkey People.” (Hmmm....an allusion to Curious George in the future?)
That challenged me to try harder. I once went to my mother while she was doing laundry and asked her if she could show me how to draw a face. I can still see the three sketches she did for me that day – they were wonderful! That was when she first told me she had wanted to be an artist but due to reality of the times during WW II, she studied to be a nurse instead. My mother encouraged me to be an artist and arranged for me to have art lessons when I was in 4th grade.
When I was very young I always adored the pictures in the books that my parents read to us. I began to make books from my own stories and drew pictures to go with them. I still have a few of those little books! It wasn’t until I went to Art School that I learned about the career of an illustrator, but when I heard about it, I knew that was it for me.
I studied at an Art School in New York City called Parsons School of Design. I learned so much there – so much about drawing, painting, illustrating concepts and children’s books and most importantly, how to get assignments as an illustrator. That was more than 25 years ago and now I go to Art Schools and share my knowledge with the students.
I have published more than 40 children’s books as well as illustrations for book jackets, magazines, greeting cards and advertising. Eight years ago I began collaborating with Pat Schories on her series of Biscuit books and have worked on 16 of them. I had developed a wonderful creative relationship with my art director at HarperCollins Publishers. When she began working at Houghton Mifflin in 2005, she asked me if I would be interested in illustrating Curious George books. I was so excited at the opportunity. I painted sample sketches of George to show that I could capture his essence in the style of the original illustrator, H.A.Rey. Right now I am working simultaneously on my 8th and 9th Curious George books. I enjoy working on George and I like the challenge of showing him having fun and inevitably getting into mischief.
I truly love my work. My studio is in my house here in White Plains, NY. It has been great being available while my 3 kids were growing up. Now my granddaughter is here to keep it fun. Throughout the seasons I am able to take a break from my illustrating now and then and walk through my friendly neighborhood and enjoy the outdoors. It really helps me to get clear perspective on what I am doing and find new visual ideas.
Besides drawing, I love to sew, garden, ski, kayak, hike and travel to far off places with my husband. I enjoy fiddling with computers. I use Photoshop for doing layouts although I do my final illustrations in a traditional media such as watercolor.
Thank you for your interest - Mary
Here are links to websites of some of my very creative family
The Hangman - Art Installation Services
Here is a link to my Genealogy Web