Gale Sherman

Three of Gale's grandparents were artists (a designer, a painter and a sculptor), while her mother, an occasional painter, instilled her with the love of art. 

Gale began teaching school when there was an explosion of artists beginning to make a living by illustrating children’s books. She started collecting and immersing herself (and her children) with the best of the best. Picture book illustrations remained her focus during her teaching career and then as an early childhood librarian for 23 years. Gale also was an instructor of children’s literature at the university level, wrote about illustration in library journals and co-authored books including Worth a Thousand Words: An Annotated Guide to Picture Books for Older Readers (Libraries Unlimited, 1996). She was a member of the 2001 Caldecott Award Committee, selecting the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year.

In the 1990s Gale started studying drawing. After moving to Tucson, she took classes at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Art Institute and earned a Nature Art Certificate. Her work has been featured in several juried shows, and she is the co-founder of the Starr Pass Art League.

Gale has been happily caught up in the world of Zentangle® art and is a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) who draws on the traditional 3.5”x 3.5” tiles as well as on gourds and other surfaces. As a CZT Gale can combine her love of art and of the Zentangle Method with her Zen meditation experience and her decades of teaching all ages — from babies to university students. Gale teaches  group and private classes in the Zentangle Method in her art studio, as well as homeless women in a local shelter.