People like John Steven Gurney

John Steven Gurney (born 1962) is an American author and illustrator of children's books. Gurney is the author and illustrator of the picture book Dinosaur Train, as well as the Fuzzy Baseball graphic novel series. He has illustrated over 150 books. including popular series such as The Bailey School Kids, A to Z Mysteries, and the Calendar Mysteries. His work has also appeared in popular children’s magazines such as Cricket, Babybug, and Ladybird. Gurney is also an art educator. He is on the faculty at both Hollins University in Hollins, Virginia and Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where he teaches illustration

Gurney was born in 1962 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He wanted to be an illustrator since he was in kindergarten and while he was in High School, he studied privately with the renowned Illustrator William Arthur Smith. Gurney attended college at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. During the summers while attending Pratt, he drew caricatures on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After graduating, he continued his studies of traditional oil painting technique at the Stevenson Academy of Fine Arts in Glen Cove, NY and at the New York Academy of Art in New York, NY. In 2017 he received his Master of Fine Arts in Illustration from the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School where he studied with Murray Tinkelman and C.F. Payne.