Molly Stone is an illustrator and sojourner who can be found wandering the beaches of Massachusetts. She also owns a pile of lucky pennies from a fortune-cookie-come-true.

What inspired the amazing three-headed wolf that you drew for this issue's Spot Artist Extraordinaire page?
When I'm given complete freedom to make a piece, I almost always end up with something that is a little odd. I like to create works that also give viewers something to think about. What is going on in this piece? What could it mean? I want to create something that makes every viewer have a strong reaction. I want them to enjoy discovering what my images mean to them.

How would you characterize your art? If you had to classify it--give it a genre--what would it be?
I still think of myself as a sojourner--and a journeyman artist--still waiting for the levels to balance out. I couldn't put a name on my style yet--but I'll get there.

Tell us a little bit about your artistic process. What's a typical day-in-the-life for Molly Stone?
I work part-time instead of full-time so I can take part of the day for artwork. Usually when I sit down to create a piece, it involves me staring at an empty sketchbook page for a little while, and then I move on to staring out the window for some time. I play with my cats. I surf the Internet. Sharpen pencils. Stare out window ... O.K., now I have an idea! Sketch.

I find that if I try too hard to think of a piece, it makes it more difficult to create something fresh. Ironically, my best ideas come right before I go to sleep, or right after I wake up in the morning. I think it's just a matter of letting my mind settle so the ideas can surface and reveal themselves.

When I get an idea, I do a lot of preliminary sketching, composition thumbnails, and even focus in on drawing some details. Sometimes this phase takes much longer than the final piece does. I have to be completely satisfied that I have a solid game plan before I start the actual drawing. By the time I am completely satisfied, that's when I am confident enough to create the pen-and-ink drawing, which I then scan into my computer and color digitally.

What's an ideal day-in-the-life for Molly Stone?
I wake up in the morning with 100 new ideas! Then I sketch them out and--look!--in every sketch the composition is completely worked out and I don't have to change a thing. Then I go to make the piece and I know exactly what the colors are going to be. By the end of the day I've created ten pieces! Then I get a call from (insert famous artist here) and we talk shop!

If a genie offered you a one-way ticket to any place in the world, with the caveat that you had to live there for one year, where would it be & why?
I think both India and Africa would call to me. I always think that they would be "saturating" places to visit or live. The sounds, sights, and people are so exotic and the cultures are so rich and steeped in time. Actually, next year I am planning a trip to Africa with a family friend who is on the board of World Ed. I'm pretty excited about it.

Favorite food?
I'm going to be cliche here and say chocolate. And goat cheese. But not together, that would be weird.

I think one of the best things I've ever eaten is a baked goat cheese dish with a honey and sweet onion sauce. That dish was memorable!

Favorite book?
It's too hard to decide--my favorite children's series is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

As an adult, one of my absolute favorites is Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I also recently read Stephen King's unabridged version of The Stand. The book was literally a brick. It took me a month nonstop to read it.

Tell us something completely random.
When I was 12, I had a fortune from a fortune cookie come true! I received the cookie at the end of a meal and it read, "Pennies from heaven will land on your doorstep." I thought, Well, that's nice! and my mom and I continued our day of shopping. After we'd finished getting groceries, we returned to my mom's car to find a group of pennies on the ground outside of the car seat I had been sitting in! Well, you're probably thinking this was just a coincidence, and that someone must have accidentally dropped some pennies on the ground, but they were grouped together as if placed there. I have all of them to this day. They are my lucky pennies!

Thank you, Molly! You can view more of Molly's work at www.molly-stone.com.  

text © 2011 by Carus Publishing Company; spot art © 2011 by Molly Stone