My Wonderful Friend Nicki!

I was so pleasantly surprised last night to find my dear friend Nicki dedicated a post to me on her blog. Nicki Fazio is a talented children's book illustrator herself. Nicki and I roomed in college together. There we would spend late nights in our senior studio motivating one another to push ourselves for just another hour while taking turns playing our favorite jams on our ipods. Nicki's work is full of life and joy through her beautiful pen and ink and watercolors. If you look closely at some of her work you can see that she does her gradient shading by a technique called stippling. This is where you create your shading using a small, very tiny, and quite meticulous I might add pattern of dots. This was not one of my favorite illustration lessons learned at the University of Hartford, although talented pen and ink artists like Nicki took this lesson and let it stride through her artwork. Ms. Fazio already has two published books under her belt and is now working on her third! Nicki is a Maine artist and her books include My Maine and Down East in the Ocean: A Maine Counting Book.

How is Maine special to you? Children and adults alike will be

delighted by a young girl’s answer to this question at "show and

tell." Join in on a real Maine adventure that follows her (and her stuffed moose!) in this beautifully illustrated book. Little Beach Books Publishing

This clever counting book from the award-winning authors of Keep the

Lights Burning, Abbie, combines rhyme with a fun exploration of Maine sea life. Each rhyming verse ingenio

usly portrays one of Maine's iconic sea creatures, from one seal and two whales to nine seagulls and ten lobsters. Children will be singing it to themselves and asking for it to be read to them again and again. DownEast Publishing.

In interesting tid bit about Nicki is that she is also a very skilled graphic designer. She has doen work in magazines and also even designed a label in a health food vending machine. You can view Nicki's portfolio and learn more about her through her website www.nicolefazioillustration.com. You can buy her books through amazon.com, and if you do be sure to leave a review since this helps us illustrators increase our book sales, or you can buy it directly through her website which I recommend because she offers an autographed copy and gives you the option of a personalized message.