Richard Jesse Watson

Books are herds of words and images trapped in the amber of space/time for eternity—or … until the interstellar asteroid, ʻOumuamua returns and KA-POW!! 

When I write or illustrate, I go fishing in the Outer Hebrides of the cosmos to net the odd new flying fish, or spear floating mixed metaphors and chimerical memories with a fondue fork to line them up like little cheese soldiers awaiting orders from headquarters. Those cockroaches who scatter are rounded up and oxymoronically trained into wild mustangs. Then, singing  like Italian lemming, we canter right along into a volcano.

Reviews

"Watson's exquisite color drawings [and paintings] radiate texture, feeling and mood."—Chicago Sun Times

"exuberant"— Kirkus Reviews 

“Richard Jesse Watson's Tom Thumb will take your breath away." —Connoisseur

“Watson's artwork achieves a startling blend of the ancient and the timeless." —Publishers Weekly 

 "Richard Watson's use of egg tempera echoes the realism of Dürer."—Los Angeles Times

 "Watson's paintings from Tom Thumb are intricately detailed..." —The New York Times

 "His work is a process of thinking: an attempt at bringing two oppositions into play, efforts to balance and nod to the extremes on either end of an idea." —Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

 "...You, out of all the authors who have come to our school are my favorite. You let us experience drawing from our hearts..."—Rebekah, 5th Grade