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Lately I've been exploring my darker side in my development pieces, but that doesn't mean I've quit doing the lighter work. I've had several assignments for Highlights lately and have used my digital technique with a great deal more fluency. I'll do a quick tutorial on one image from a series I did for the upcoming June issue.

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For the last four years I have been trying to bolster my children's illustration work by doing samples that are more and more mainstream, more cute. I have now mastered adorable. But it didn't really help my career as much as I hoped it would.

At the beginning of the year I sat down with several abandoned stories to reassess whether they were worth pursuing. I kept a few for further revisions, shelved one indefinitely. A few weeks ago I did the Zombie Tea Party piece as a parody of all the cute stuff I've been doing. I was reluctant to show it, but I did, because that's what artists do. I had no idea that it would resonate with people (and by people I mean editors at big publishing houses) the way it did, and almost instantly.

So the story I put away is now quite active. This is a sample spread that is being submitted, like now. Like for real. Was all that time pursuing cute a detour? I don't think so. I'd like to think that I have come full circle. This art is not something I could have done four years ago when I wrote the story. And I think I needed to be a bit desperate to take the risks necessary to allow myself to do this.

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I've gone to the dark side....

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My gal Maggie pitched some of her artists for a chapter book series and I didn't have much of anything appropriate for the project, so I whipped one out over the weekend.

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In this month's issue of Highlights For Children, some of the art for How I Became a Halloween Hero by Sandra Breswetherick.

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Here's a few new pieces for my favorite - Highlights For Children!

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I've been expanding my portfolio and my skills lately. Here's another anthropomorphic animal image in the new style. It is a pencil drawing, scanned, digitally colored in Photoshop. This is just the bottom portion of the image; I'm still fooling around with the top. I love doing these though still insecure about where exactly I am going. Tim is building a new portfolio site for me - just a splash page so far but I love it: www.karenleeillustration.com

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No, not me. Another sample: pencil with Photoshop.

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I'm going to call this one a success. It flowed a bit - it was painless, almost entirely fun to do, and super quick - start to finish in about ten hours. But come to think of it - shouldn't start have been on the left, finish on the right? Aggh, back to the drawing board (thank goodness for Photoshop)

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The kids are back to school and I totally needed some fun in my life today. Found some in Photoshop.

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I've been busy - 95 pieces of art in 50 days! Still not much that I can show, though. These are both for Highlights For Children. Traditional watercolor with Photoshop.

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From my bud Ian Sands' story The Top Ten Essential Items For Surviving Fourth Grade. I'm not sure I'm done but it is suddenly less fun. Thinking I might add a bit more pattern to the foreground characters.

On to the next thing! My Play! Yes, I wrote a play. It will be performed Halloween. It's a Halloween play. I will share more later!

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Really so much more of a fall than a leap. From My Half Day, Sylvan Dell Publishing 2008
Karen Lee / Karen's News

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The Excelsior File recently located an article from 2005 that I happened to find particularly interesting. Called Has Childhood Gone AWOL? it's a remarkable little trip back in time to a scant 2 years ago. I didn't check the date at first and then all these references started to catch my eye. Aw. Remember when Britney Spears rather than Bratz was the greatest threat to our youth? Or how that book by Clive Barker was gonna be some kind of big deal? How quaint.

Anyone with half an interest in the genre could write something identical to this article today and, Chuck Dugan is AWOL aside, no one would question it. In the course of the discussion, this piece looks at picture books vs. YA novels in terms of price, marketability, and popularity. YA novels, you see, "are cheaper to produce than picture books, appeal to a larger audience, and are more profitable." I might quibble with the "larger audience" part of that statement, but otherwise we're in agreement.

The good news? As of two years ago author Don Gillmor wasn't going to give up on picture books quite yet.

"While announcing the death of the picture book is premature, its decline has certain consequences. It is unlikely that the genre will produce another Seuss, for one. The era of having your picture book become a cultural phenomena, read by children, discussed by adults, may be over. As reality is becoming grimmer, as innocence evaporates, those places where Sneetches stroll and Flummoxes shuffle will become more and more valuable."

Mmm. Mr. Gillmor doesn't think we've another Seuss in the works? Another cultural icon that reaches millions? Mr. Gillmor should glance on a bookshelf or two today. I've a reckoning as to who might end up a "classic" in the future. It just may not be the immediately obvious suspects.

Thanks to The Excelsior File for the link.

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