Hi!
This page in four sections:
1) Picture books I was hired to illustrate (books by self-published authors).
2) Other Picture Bookish Illustrations.
3) Experiments and Doodles
You could also just go look at my children's art page, if you want more samples and less words. You'll miss out on the doodles, though.
Picture Book Illustration Work
I have illustrated five picture books for self-published authors. Here are a few images from each one.
Mary Rita is a Star
Go Team Human
Binkie Robinson and the Invisible Paint
Grandma, Don't Click That Link
This Thing Has a Name
Other Picture Book-ish Work
For clients, or classes, or social media challenges or just for myself.
Response types illustration (Commission)
Fictionalized rendering of a real and fondly remembered childhood backyard. (Commission)
Commissioned poster for the Milwaukee Film Festival. Possibly relevant because its hard for me to draw birds or animals without giving them personalities.
Also--I managed to be experimental and playful with the background on this.
One of many animals on bikes I illustrated for a bike rental company.
Cover illustration for a class assignment.
Character Development for a class assignment.
Frog Prince illustration for Folktale week. I rather liked this one, except the eyebrows are all wrong.
Rumplestiltskin illustration for Folktale week. The original story casts the main character as rather silly, greedy and selfish, but I like to imagine her as oppressed by parental over-enthusiasm.
Response to one of Carson Elllis's Transmundane Tuesdays. "Glowing Elder with Gloves," I think.
Sugar Plum Fairy for Jehane's Twelve Days of Christmas
Personal work. Pushing myself to be a bit looser and more playful and less totally planned out.
Personal work. Just playing with paint, really.
Personal work. I enjoy Not Painting cats.
Some Style Experiments
Most of my illustration looks the way it does not because I am married to the style, but because I can reliably make it come out reasonably well... like, on purpose. There is security in that.
But, I prefer the style that happens in my sketchbook, or when I'm just playing with paint. I want to find a way to incorporate these other styles into my illustration more. I'm hoping you can help me figure out how to do so.
I have a practice of playing with paint on tiny pieces of paper, which I call Meditative Watercolor. Sometimes, little characters appear.
I also keep a sketchbook, which I use for reference sketches, practicing, keeping my hands occupied while in Zoom Meetings, avoiding other work, etc.
Sometimes, I use watercolor in my sketchbook, and I like the somewhere-in-between-painting-and-drawing feel of these. I would love to incorporate this in my illustration work, somehow.
...but more often, I draw in pen or pencil, and to me, these drawings feel so much more like mine.
Where does all this personality go when I make illustrations? How do I get it back?
These little watercolor and pencil experiments are attempts to plan drawings that incorporate aspects of my watercolor and pencil sketches.
I want all of my illustrations to reflect how kids really move through the world. They lean into life so hard! So, whenever I'm out where kids are to be found, I try to capture those exaggerated expressions, improper crayon holds, awkward reaches, etc. Try, mind you. I find it pretty hard to draw people who don't sit still for long. When I am planning illustrations, I generally end up looking for photos on the internet that match my plan, and that works okay, but is that even ethical? It's a conundrum. Help?
