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Some drawings from life.

In 1998, I started visiting New York City more often, to look at the paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but also to bring some of my own paintings to publishing companies there. I wanted art directors to notice my work and hire me to illustrate children's books. I got my chance when an editor at Harcourt, asked me to illustrate Linda Ashman's Rub-a-Dub Sub. Harcourt wasn't in New York, NY, though. It was in San Diego, California. This meant I would have to work in NY and mail my paintings across the country to them. That was no problem, except that I never got to meet my editor or the author. But they were fun to work with. And Rub-a-Dub Sub became one of my favorite books!

Carving pumpkins with my brothers and sisters.	When I was a kid, the things I liked most were pinball machines, robots, and haunted houses. I wasn't happy just playing pinball machines or visiting haunted houses. I had to build my own. My mom collected cardboard boxes from the grocery store that I could turn into pinball machines with rubber band bumpers and flippers. They never really worked the way I wanted them to. I would get mad about it, but I wouldn't stop trying. Usually my mom would say, "Jeff, it's time to stop. You have to eat." Or "One of these nights, you'll need to sleep."
It was the same way with haunted houses. I wanted to be sure I'd have enough time to build my haunted house before Halloween, so I'd start planning in August. Mostly I drew maps of my parents' basement and pictures of monsters scaring the wits out of my grandmother as she walked downstairs. But the haunted houses were never quite as scary as my drawings. When my grandmother came downstairs, I could tell she was just pretending to be afraid. That's when I realized how much I loved to draw. The things I couldn't make happen in real life, I could make happen in a drawing.	A drawing of monsters I did when I was 7.
Check it out! A haunted house pinball machine!!	Sometimes I'd get mad that my drawings didn't look as good as I wanted them to, but with a ton of practice (and a little help from my dad), they started getting better. I can't even tell you how many monsters I drew back then. Eleventy hundred billion, perhaps. I often used my drawings to illustrate the stories that I wrote. Most of these stories were about things that happened to my brothers and sisters. At the beginning it would seem like a normal day for them, but by the end, everyone would get eaten by monsters or turned into robots or pinball machines. It bugged me when other kids would say, "But that can't really happen" because I thought, "I know it can't really happen. That's why I'm writing a story about it." I figured if I couldn't please everyone with my stories, I could at least please myself. So I kept writing.
When I was in eighth grade, I had a really great art teacher named Mr. Cole. He helped me paint a huge mural of dinosaurs to hang on the wall in the middle school. The school was torn down years later, and my grandmother helped rescue the painting just in time. It's in her house now. These days, I paint murals in libraries, restaurants, hospitals, and other people's houses. They are bigger paintings. And better ones too. But the dinosaur mural was my first big break.	The dinosaur mural I painted in 8th grade.
The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo was here.	I went to elementary school in Solvay, NY and high school in Skaneateles, NY. Then I went to college in Oswego, NY and in Florence, Italy, where I studied painting and creative writing. I never saw any famous paintings in Central New York, so when I got to Italy, I was blown away by all the fantastic art there! I saw Michelangelo's frescos in the Sistine Chapel, his sculptures in the Accademia Gallery, and his architecture in the Medici Chapel, and I thought "That's incredible, but did he ever build any pinball machines?" After college, I had my first "art" job creating huge posters of rock stars, movies stars and video game characters for a company that sold CDs, DVDs and even a few books now and then. There was a new poster due everyday. I had already made big paintings in college, but this was good chance to practice painting them quickly.
My next job was working with a faux-finisher. That's someone who paints walls and furniture to look like they are made of something better than they really are. I learned how to make surfaces look like marble, expensive wood, tortoise shell, leather, and gold. We made regular walls look like castle walls with just paints, brushes, and rags. Besides teaching me special new painting techniques, that job gave me a chance to start painting murals for money. Since then, I've painted dozens murals for kids and adults. To see more pictures of my murals click here.	A spa I helped faux-finish with a mural in the background.
Portraits by John Spencer that I painted for the Munson Williams Proctor Institute in Utica, NY. Some drawings from life. In 1998, I started visiting New York City more often, to look at the paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but also to bring some of my own paintings to publishing companies there. I wanted art directors to notice my work and hire me to illustrate children's books. I got my chance when an editor at Harcourt, asked me to illustrate Linda Ashman's Rub-a-Dub Sub. Harcourt wasn't in New York, NY, though. It was in San Diego, California. This meant I would have to work in NY and mail my paintings across the country to them. That was no problem, except that I never got to meet my editor or the author. But they were fun to work with. And Rub-a-Dub Sub became one of my favorite books!	Because I could draw well, I was even hired to copy a few old portraits that were being donated to a museum. When I got home from work at night, I kept on painting and drawing. I practiced drawing people and landscapes from real life. I also created strange scenes from my imagination like this: Or these:
	When it was first published, I was thrilled to think about all the people who would be looking at my pictures. I was a little nervous too. I liked the pictures, but I wasn't sure what others would think. Since then, I've illustrated thirteen books including a sequel to Rub-a-Dub Sub called Starry Safari, and six books in James Howe's Bunnicula: The Vampire Bunny series. Plus, there are more books on the way!
I'm also the author of Hush Little Polar Bear, the first book I've written and illustrated (not counting my stories about the monsters eating my family). It will be in bookstores in the Fall of 2008, so keep an eye out for it. What do I do when I’m not drawing or writing? Well, I love to visit other countries, eat interesting meals, listen to all different kinds of music, read, hike, talk to people, and watch movies. Sometimes I also practice playing the trumpet and, if I’m feeling dangerous, the musical saw. That’s about all for now. Thanks for visiting!