Pierre le chien
Besides picture books, I’ve done a couple of chapter books that were lots of fun for me. Chapter books are for an older audience (9-12) and the ratio of words to pictures is very different! There is typically one black & white image per chapter, plus a color image for the cover.
Pete and Fremont and Pete’s Disappearing Act, are both circus yarns starring Pete the poodle (or Pierre le chien, as he’s billed on the posters). Both are written by Jenny Tripp. Jenny is a fantastically good author and it was a treat to work on her stories. She creates engaging characters and writes dialogue that perfectly expresses those characters—which shouldn’t be a surprise since she’s a screenwriter.
Here are some sketches and final images from Pete’s Disappearing Act.
Rough sketch of Pete—who finds himself far from the circus— dancing on a barrel in a barn. To the left are the lady who owns the farm and her menacing dog, Buck.
Samantha McFerrin, my art director, decided the image was too crowded. Here’s a revise:
Yes, this works better. That’s Quackers the duck on the left. Now I do the finished drawing, which is linework in black Prismacolor pencil and tones done with brush and India ink washes.
Here is one of Pete’s new friends he meets while trying to get back to the circus—El Jefe, the one-eyed military macaw who is slightly dotty from having spent too much time with ‘humming beans.’ He suffers delusions of revolución.
Love the sketches!