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Below is a recent spread I did for the June 2012 issue of Clubhouse Jr. magazine. The colors came out so vibrant on the printed page! Everything is digital. I’m always amazed at how “real” it looks in the end.

Below: Some roughs for the layout. The woman went through a lot of tweaking to get her right. Some last minute things were to add squirrels hanging off the lettering. Gotta love that you can do that when you work digitally. : )

Below is a spot illustration I did a few months back that is recently in print. It’s for a Christian magazine so this is a story about kind of letting go and not sweating the chaos that can occur if you give children some part of the church service. It’s a sweet story if you have time to read it. All the ones I do for this magazine are like that. So I feel I get a blessing each time I do the illustration to accompany it.

As for the illustration, this project gives me opportunity to stretch my illustration style. In this case, I did the characters loosely and quickly (though that actually takes a lot of time to do!) and kept the color scheme somewhat monochromatic. Below, I have the spread in the article, and then half the illustration as a closeup.

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Remember diving in a pool for coins? I miss these types of games. But I always got water up my nose and made my sinuses burn. Good memories. : )

Oh…And the fence is an after-thought. I was thinking how an art director would probably say, “Great illo, but we need to see a fence around the pool.” Safety first.

Just part of something I’ve been working on…

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This week’s Illustration Friday prompt is “Faded”. And I took the opportunity here to play around with my style and some lettering. It’s hard for me to not want to bump the colors up or mess with the saturation of this piece!

Another good prompt for warm-up drawings. Have a good Monday, everyone. : )

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Something for Illustration Friday and the word prompt “kernel”.

Each drawing is a learning experience, in this case, how to personify a wheat kernel…a PENSIVE wheat kernel, at that. And then how I might, in general, go about illustrating this little mention of wheat in one of Jesus’ parables. Should I put legs on the kernel..? Should I show a whole wheat field verses one stalk..? The simpler the better, I think.

Since I was looking at  images of wheat kernels via Google, I also saw a number of photos of foods using whole wheat or the grain of a particular wheat.  I love bread–and all kinds of baked goods. And seeing photos of  these and these Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies made my moment. Yum.

I love doing spreads like this for my clients! It’s like a puzzle within a puzzle for me, to work out the fun activities for the kiddos to interact with! I took a photo this time, but have the art specs from the AD, my rough, and some pull-outs from the final to show you. The designer made a good call to drop the color background on the pavement in the end. It really made the game pop out!

Below: specs from designer.

Below: my rough.

Below: my final.

Below: some pull-outs.

(c) Owlkids

Thank you, Chirp!

Using Illustration Friday this week for my warm-up drawings. This is #3.

This week’s Illustration Friday’s prompt “Jump” lends itself to lots of ideas, so I might just use it as a warm-up for the week.

Below is an illustration where I played around with type and a painterly style.

There’s a lot of leaping and jumping around here! Just a little drawing for Illustration Friday’s prompt “Jump”.

JUMP!!!

Here’s another fun spread I created is in the May 2012 issue of Highlights’ High Five magazine (story by Marianne Mitchell)! So many other fine authors and illustrators contributed their work to this issue, too. Thanks, Highlights!

(c) Highlights For Children

An Illustration Friday submission for the word “return”.  Duck is all nice and tanned from his stay in the sunny south!

An excuse to draw an alligator…who tends to live in a swamp. This one’s having a hard time getting a phone signal. You know how swamps can be.

Refreshing part of an old drawing as a warm-up exercise.

Here’s a spot I did in the recent issue of Highlights magazine (March ’12). Part of it even made the cover (speaking of, nice cover there by Tim Foley!). I’m being silly with the “Lookity!” comment, but it is cool to see it displayed on the cover.

Below is the final spread. I knew the AD planned to drop it on a color background so I had to think about that.

Below: The first round of roughs I sent of the kids with NO instruments! Not sure what I was (or wasn’t thinking) at this point. I was more concerned with how I wanted to show the kid-conductor and the orchestra. I think I thought I was doing a choir. Silly me.

Below: After the AD kindly pointed out the need for instruments and notes, I went back and reworked it. Much better, yes?

Below: The above rough was approved and I didn’t deviate much from the rough. Only a few changes to the kids and cleaned it up. But I wanted the line work to be loose and easy and not over-worked, which I think I achieved. It’s usually something I feel inside me as other people can never tell when I over-work a project.  My thanks again to Cindy for the project, her patience and the fine job she does/did with the magazine!

Yellow Bunny is wondering what Pink Bunny’s intentions are. Good?  not good?

To see other Illustration Friday ideas, click here.

Happy Monday, all! Just a quick posting to thank Highlights for Children for selecting me for “Illustrator of the Month”. That was the month of February, so I’m a little late in posting this. : )

Highlights is the only magazine (rather, publishing company) I know of that expresses such great appreciation like they do to illustration, illustrators, and the illustrators that they contract. These platters and letters are just a part of their way of conveying the value they have for illustrators. The party they throw each year is amazing (I attended two years ago. Wow!), not to mention the relationship they build with their contractors. It’s got a family-feel to it all.

So thank you, Christine, Cynthia, Kelley and staff, for choosing me for the month of February! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you guys, too!

And, below, is the spread that they are talking about…”The Champion Of Quiet”, a cute story written by Tracy Stewart.

Below: A pull-out of the first spot from the spread.

I’m struggling today to get on task concerning certain stuff and I decided a creative diversion to mentally/emotionally refuel was in order. So I took the IF prompt to task and created 2 more. The Easter Bunny thing is the focal point again, but in a different style.

And then back in the cartoon style:

My quickie of a contribution to this week’s Illustration Friday prompt: “capable”. Be sure and check out the other fabulous entries at Illustration Friday!

These guys are a snippet from a project I just finished up. I love drawing squirrels.  And beavers. and birds. Those seem to be my most favored animals to draw. What are your favorite animals to draw?

Just a real quick little pink bear-guy to remember the day.

Some recent editorial work for a magazine. These are a nice diversion from children’s illustration.