Wayne Geehan Bio Wayne Geehan was born in 1947 in Hartford, Connecticut, and he spent his formative years growing up in Manchester, Connecticut. An avid reader with a love of history and art, Wayne knew in high school that the field of illustration was what he wanted for his career. After high school, Wayne went to and graduated from the Art Institute of Boston (it is now merged with Lesley University) in 1969. He served in the military and is a Vietnam veteran. For over 45 years Wayne has been in the art field as a freelance commercial artist and illustrator. For his first 20 years as a commercial artist, he illustrated jigsaw puzzles, designed and illustrated board games, wrote and illustrated three mystery stories, created rubber stamps, and illustrated fantasy and science fiction stories. During those years he did logo designs for clients and drawings for advertising, along with package design for various products. In the last 25 years Wayne has illustrated twenty children’s books for various book publishers. Wayne illustrated the very successful and popular Sir Cumference Math Adventure series for Charlesbridge Publishing. These books are found in bookstores, schools and libraries across the U.S. and Canada, and they are sold in Europe, Russia, China and South Korea. Wayne is an artist member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, The Society of Illustrators, and he is a published member of the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Acton, MA with his wife Susan. They have four grown children and three, soon to be four, grandchildren. www.WayneGeehan.com Wayne Geehan Artist Statement Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Maxfield Parrish, Jesse Wilcox Smith, Harvey Dunn. These names mean very little to many people today. To me, the illustrators during “The Golden Age of Illustration” of the early 20th century were my influence and mentors. I knew the name of Norman Rockwell long before I ever heard of Monet. It was much later in life that the names of Sargent, Homer, and Hopper joined the many artists in my long list of influences. There were no art museums close to where I lived in Manchester, Connecticut. Plus, I was very busy being a kid and not thinking of my future in art. I did not realize it at the time but magazine illustrations, illustrators of children’s books, calendars, and classic novels were my art museum. The skills in drawing, painting, and storytelling in the illustrations that I saw moved me to want to do what these illustrators did. I wanted to tell stories in pictures and that is what I still do today. To be an illustrator of a children’s book is much more than skill. We try to move our audience with humor, sadness, excitement, and every emotion imaginable to make a story pleasurable for children and adults. The field of children’s book illustration is wide and includes education, history, animal stories, fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction. More than our skills, we all need and use our imagination! I am honored to be among this small group of illustrators in StoryArt. We all came here through different paths. We may use different mediums, but we all can say we love what we do.