More Mummy cover sketches
book promotion, illustration processBack cover of Where's My Mummy?—working out some sketch ideas, followed by the layout for the entire jacket. When an art director sends me a layout (sketch & text together in one piece of art) she's telling me to go ahead and start …
Putting words into the Mummy pictures
book promotion, illustration processOne of the challenges for a picture book illustrator is to find ways to include the text in the illustrations. In older books, the practice was to run the words along the bottom of the page and leave the illustrations free of any text. Nowadays,…
Where’s My Mummy? jacket sketches
book promotion, illustration process.
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Only 2 weeks til Hallowe'en! How about we take a look at the thumbnail and tight sketches for the Where's My Mummy? jacket art?
The first five are thumbnail—very rough and small—sketches. The last 2 are refined—what…
You asked for it
book promotion, illustration processAudrey, a school librarian, asked me for coloring pages from Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians.
The best I can come up with are these sketches for the front and back cover art. I illustrated this story a few years ago, before it was my…
Turkey Day
book promotion, illustration process.
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One of my favorite books as a kid was P.D. Eastman's Go Dog. Go! I still think it's one of the best—a pared-down, simple idea with bold, direct illustrations to match. The story: dogs of a dizzying variety all travel…
My dad’s caricature—cont’d
illustration processBecause I'm an idiot, I forgot to take a photo of the finished caricature I did of my dad for his eightieth birthday (here it is in progress). Luckily, my talented friend Sarah Rossborough was there and she got a shot of it with everyone's…
Storyboard
illustration processWhen I begin a new book project, one of the early steps is to create a storyboard—a series of small, rough thumbnail sketches that shows all the action of the story. Here's one for a project that got canceled early this year.
Painting my dad
illustration processMy pop turned 80 last Saturday! Relatives traveled from all four corners of the globe to convene at my sister's house. I painted a caricature for everyone to sign. Here are the early stages:
Character designs
book promotion, illustration processA few character designs from Pete and Fremont, showing the reference and inspiration. I also include the first versions of Pete (the poodle) and Rita (the chimp). Rita especially gained more depth after art director Samantha McFerrin asked…
Another Pete cover
book promotion, illustration processHere are rough sketches for the jacket of Jenny Tripp's Pete & Fremont. This is a wonderful circus tale told from the point-of-view of the animals.
