Back by popular demand! Pawprints Greeting Cards
are now available online!
Though a virtuoso of pen and ink illustration, Wally Tripp’s pencil sketches are gems in themselves. Wally draws dozens of thumbnail sketches and rough compositions before committing the drawing to illustration board for inking. Among other projects, Wally designed characters for for Purdum Animation's award-winning commercials, drew countless WWI aircraft and worked out a few ideas for books, some of which you will find here.
Pawprints Greeting Cards, Inc. was a family-owned company with Wally’s then-wife Marcy Tripp at the helm from 1978 to 1999. Started as Hey Nonny Notes in 1970, then Workshop Press, Pawprints was located in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Wally illustrated over 600 cards, several calendars and other gift products. Other exceptional illustrators also contributed to the Pawprints line, including Trina Schart Hyman and Lynn Munsinger.
Wally Tripp’s exuberant illustrations and lighthearted wit enliven the pages of over 60 books. Wally has illustrated Peggy Parrish’s Amelia Bedelia, Patricia Thomas’s “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!” and other books by celebrated authors. Wally is best known for his anthologies of nonsense verse and visual puns, including Wallace Tripp’s Wurst Seller, A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His Horse to Me and Granfa Grig Had a Pig. Browse Wally's bibliography.
Wallace “Wally” Tripp was an American Illustrator best known for his children's books and Pawprints Greeting Cards. Wally was born in Boston in 1940 and grew up in rural New Hampshire and New York. Drawing was a favorite childhood past-time that he never gave up. Wally attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA} where he studied illustration and annoyed his teachers with his irreverent sense of humor. He received a bachelor's degree in education from Keene State College and an M.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire. He then taught English for three years until devoting himself full-time to illustration, thanks much to the business prowess of his then-wife, Marcy, who later presided over Pawprints Greeting Cards and Sparhawk Books. Tripp was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 46 and had to retire from illustration soon after. In 2001, Wally underwent the life-altering deep-brain stimulation surgery at UCLA Medical Center, which was an extraordinary success. In spite of his all-consuming devotion to EC Comics, Skookum Indians, RC model aviation, Middle-English poetry, travel and Classical music, Wally managed to illustrate over 60 books and create 600 cards for Pawprints in his relatively brief career. Daily exercise and a zest for life kept Wally humming until September 9th, 2018, when he passed away surrounded by loved ones in Francestown, New Hampshire. Wally has three eccentric children (all artists) and three grandsons; two musicians and a film maker. They miss him very much.
