CURRENT PROJECT: "Joy" Page 1

I recently completed an illustration for a lovely story, titled "Joy, about adoption and the special bond between families.  I am working closely with the author, Susan Longley, to create a series of 12 illustrations to help bring her story to life as an illustrated e-book app.

 Here is a sneak peek at the first page of the children's e-book, "Joy":

Visit this link to the author's website for more information about this e-book, to learn about the author's personal experiences that inspired her to write this story, and to pre-order your own copy of "Joy."

Can't wait to share more with you all soon!

NEW PROJECT: Adoption E-Book- "Joy"

I am pleased to announce that I have started working on illustrations for an e-book project with author Susan Longley.

The book, titled "Joy," is a story about adoption that has a great message, described by the author as being "about the spiritual connection between adopted children and their forever family." Since the author is self-publishing, she has started a campaign to help raise money to fund this project so she can move forward spreading the wonderful message of this book.

Visit this link for more information about this book and how you can contribute to the campaign.

I can't wait to share these illustrations with you all soon!

Planning a Picture Book... and a Lesson in Making Kids Look the Right Age

I've been working on an illustrated picture book for a story called "When You're Older," written by my friend James Littlejohn. I've been sketching for months now, and here is a little sneak peek of the picture book in progress- a mini storyboard of the overall layout of the book.

I'm still trying to decide what to do for the cover. I'm thinking of maybe showing the boy standing next to his mom and dad, but all you can see of his parents is their legs... to show that he is really little. What do you guys think? Any cover ideas?

Lesson Learned: Little kids have huge foreheads! The lower you draw the eyes on the head, the younger your character will look. In my original sketches, my character looked about 9 or 10. Then, I made his body shorter and increased the size of his forehead, and voila... he turned into a 3 year old!

An Indian Queen... and a Lesson on Enhancing your Portfolio

Last spring in my children's book illustration class, I started working on a version of "The Princess and the Pea" set in India. For the midterm for my portfolio prep class this semester, I got an opportunity to create a new piece for my portfolio, so I chose to illustrate the other half of a spread for "The Princess and the Pea" that I had started a few semesters ago.

Here is the finished illustration:

And the complete spread (along with the other illustration I did in the spring):

Lesson Learned: Every time you have an assignment for class, think about what you can create that will make your portfolio better. I could have illustrated a brand new concept or story for this assignment, but instead I decided to use it as an opportunity to strengthen a piece that I had already completed. The illustration of the princess in the rain was a strong portfolio piece on its own, but now when I open my portfolio to this illustration, the complementary illustration on the facing page finishes the spread and makes it look more complete. Plus, I got to introduce a new character and show my ability to keep a cohesive style throughout a series of illustrations. 

Martina Koala... and a Lesson on Preliminary Sketches

For my first Children's Book Illustration 2 assignment this semester, I was assigned to interview a classmate and then come up with an illustration that somehow relates to 3 bits of information that I gained from the interview. I interviewed my lovely friend Martina, and from her responses I decided to illustrate these three points:

1. If she were an animal, she would be a koala.
2. Two words that describe her are: ridiculous and dramatic.
3. If she could go back in time, she would go back to when she was 5 years old, because she loved it.


So, here is my illustration of a ridiculous/dramatic koala in kindergarten:

Lesson Learned: Even after you have chosen the final narrative and composition for your illustration, sometimes the concept development can go even further. When I was refining my original sketch for this illustration, I placed a sheet of tracing paper over the original so that I could re-draw the koala's head in a different position and make the blocks look like they are starting to tumble. As I was drawing, I accidentally shifted the tracing paper a bit to the side. With the original drawing visible underneath, this created the illusion of animation- like the koala's head was moving and the blocks were falling. This sparked the idea to create this illustration as vector art, so that later I can go back and animate it in Flash! I plan on creating simple buttons (the blocks tumbling, Martina roaring, her classmate's head turning) that will transform this into a fun, interactive illustration! 


So next time you start working on refining your sketches and other technical aspects of preliminary work, don't put your brainstorming to rest. You never know when a new idea might come up if you stay in a creative mindset throughout the entire process.

Saris, Patterns, The Princess and The Pea... and Tips for Setting Your Story in a Foreign Land

For the final project for my Children's Book Illustration class, we had to choose any story and plan a 32-page picture book illustrating the full text. I chose the classic fairytale The Princess and the Pea.

 I decided to set the story in India, since I love the look of the palaces there and the thought of illustrating an Indian princess just seemed so beautiful to me. I really love the colors of Indian textiles and jewelry and wanted to be able to work with that in my illustrations too.

Now, I have a full book dummy of rough sketches and text layout for a 32-page book, and two completed interior illustrations plus a cover illustration! This was such a fun project and an incredible class- I can't wait to take Advanced Children's Book Illustration in the fall!!

Here is the cover:

One double-page spread:

One single page illustration:

Lesson Learned: When you decide to set your story in a foreign country- RESEARCH is absolutely necessary! I pored over dozens of books at the library- books on Indian architecture, art, and fashion... I even found an entire book about saris that had diagrams about how to wear them for different occasions, which was very helpful in dressing the princess. There were some incredible books about arab patterns- I photocopied just about every page because all of the patterns were so gorgeous and inspiring when it came time to design my own patterns for the borders of my illustrations. Of course, internet searches were helpful too, but the best internet research I found wasn't from Google Images, but from YouTube. I watched clips of Bollywood movies and found some great inspiration for costumes and colors!

I spent more time researching than I spent painting- once I had it all planned out the rest was easy!

A Cute Little Milkmaid... and Composing for Page Turns

Last night, I finished my illustrations for Aesop's fable, "The Milkmaid and her Pail." I was given the text for the story and assigned to create an 8-page rough storyboard and choose 2 pages or spreads to do finished illustrations for.


Here is the full text for the story:

The Milkmaid and her Pail

Patty the Milkmaid was going to market carrying her milk in a pail on her head. As she went along she began calculating what she would do with the money she would get for the milk.

"I'll buy some fowls from Farmer Brown," said she, "and they will lay eggs each morning, which I will sell to the parson's wife. With the money that I get from the sale of these eggs I'll buy myself a dainty frock and a new hat; and when I go to market, won't all the young men come up and speak to me! Polly Shaw will be that jealous; but I don't care. I shall just look at her and toss my head like this. And as she spoke she tossed her head back, the Pail fell off it, and all the milk was spilt. So she had to go home and tell her mother what had occurred.

"Ah, my child," said the mother:

Do not count your eggs before they are hatched.



Here is the finished illustration for the first page of the story:

And a double-page illustration for the climax of the story:

Lesson Learned: When illustrating for a picture book, pay attention to how your page compositions can assist the flow of the story across the pages. 

The composition of my first page illustration leads the viewer's eye down the winding path toward the girl who is walking off of the page, urging the reader to turn the page to see where she is headed. In the two-page spread, I had to come up with a unique solution to illustrate both fantasy and reality in one illustration. As one of my classmates noted, "the girl's dreams are spilled along with the milk."Thanks for stating that so nicely, Martina!

Hula-Dancing Hippos... and a Mixed-Media Experiment

For my latest assignment in my Children's Book Illustration class, we had to choose the first letter of either our first or last name and create a double-page spread illustrating that letter for an ABC book.

My initial brainstorming for the letter H ended up with a disconnected assortment of H words:

happy, humungous, hippopotamus, hairy, hammock, hero, hip-hop, hummus, home, heart

I ended up picking a few of my favorite words from that list: happy, hippopotamus, and hammock and started there.

I thought about where a hippo in a hammock would be happiest: Hawaii! This location conveniently brought along two more H words: hula and hibiscus...

And here is the finished H illustration: (the line in the center marks the page break)

Lesson Learned: Chalk pastel works very well over gouache for adding highlights and transparent washes of color. I used colored pencil to add detail later on, and I'm quite pleased with the result of this mixed-media experiment on cold-press illustration board.

Also, pattern is a great tool to help focus attention where you want it.