illustrating

The 5th Book

I completed Kevin and His Grandma, my fifth book. My objective of writing, illustrating, and self-publishing this book was to be creative. I chuckle when my students ask me how much money I have made on my books. I do not even market them and am certainly not ready to get others to buy them! I am striving to write and illustrate well. Perhaps by my 25th book I will be satisfied. In the meantime, I am just enjoying the process. This book was purposely created with as little technology as possible. I cut pieces and made collages, drew freehand, and used watercolor. I love Arnold Loebel’s simple illustrative style in pursuit of graphically representing relationships.

Current Project

I am working on my 5th children’s book. It is about the death of a loved one: Kevin learns how to accept the inevitable loss of his grandmother. I am inspired to address this topic because of personal losses I’ve experienced in the past few years as well as seeing my students (ages 10-13) grieve the deaths of mothers, fathers, and other family members.

From “Kevin and His YouTube Channel

Kevin

Taking a course by Cecilia Varela (through Domestika). She’s really good, but I don’t like Kevin (Kevin and His YouTube Channel) the way she instructed. She suggested to make his eyes large to appeal to children. Maybe my book is not really for children (?) But I much prefer him to look like a 40-year old 5th-grade chameleon. I think it’s hilarious.

Varela’s-influence Kevin:

I do like her exercise in making body parts to show animation on the page. I’ll do more today.

Book 4 Illustrations

As I began illustrating “Kevin and His YouTube Channel,” I came across this Domestika course. The instructor is Felicie Haymoz, Character Designer and Illustrator. She was the designer for “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” This course is called “Anthropomorphic Character Creation” and I’m excited to learn a lot! I want to make this book a lot better than my last one. Oh, and having tons of fun on the road to the final product is always the objective.