Little Red Riding Hood

My entry for the Tomie dePaola Award.

The assignment is simply to illustrate a moment from the following passage from Philip Pullman’s version of “Little Red Riding Hood” from FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM (Viking, 2012). 

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was so sweet and kind that everyone loved her. Her grandmother, who loved her more than anyone, gave her a little cap made of red velvet, which suited her so well that she wanted to wear it all the time. Because of that everyone took to calling her Little Red Riding Hood.

One day her mother said to her: ‘Little Red Riding Hood, I’ve got a job for you. Your grandmother isn’t very well, and I want you to take her this cake and a bottle of wine. They’ll make her feel a lot better. You be polite when you go into her house, and give her a kiss from me. Be careful on the way there, and don’t step off the path or you might trip over and break the bottle and drop the cake, and then there’d be nothing for her. When you go into her parlour don’t forget to say, “Good morning, Granny,” and don’t go peering in all the corners.’

‘I’ll do everything right, don’t worry,’ said Little Red Riding Hood, and kissed her mother goodbye.

Her grandmother lived in the woods, about half an hour’s walk away. When Little Red Riding Hood had only been walking a few minutes, a wolf came up to her. She didn’t know what a wicked animal he was, so she wasn’t afraid of him.

Nerdy Chicks Rule Art Contest

Over at Kidlit Summer School, they are having a little art contest: to draw a new nerdy chick. Here is my entry. Look up #NerdyChicksDraw on Twitter or FB to see all the super cute chickies.

New Piece – Wombat Day

Here is a new piece done in my new style.

Happy Veteran's Day

New Illustration - Stealing Ideas

I've been experimenting with a new style that incorporates my pencil sketches into the final illustration, instead of creating it all digitally. This is a new piece done in that style, based on this quote from Mo Willems: 

"A lot of people think of ideas as objects or animals that you hunt. You go into the woods, you find an idea, you capture it, and you bring it home. And ideas really are more like gardens. And every day, you're planting lots and lots of ideas. Some of them get eaten by birds, and never go anywhere. Some of them grow up to be really horrible things. Some wither and die. Every now and then, over time, some idea grows up to be big and beautiful and filled with fruit."

Speaking of Books . . .

I have been exposed to a lot of new writers during the last month, and I want to share a book that I just fell in love with! It's not really a rhyming book, since it has only 2 words in the whole thing, but Boy, Howdy! is it adorable!

It's called Mine! by Shutta Crum. First, you gotta love her name (and it's her real name, too!) and second, Patrice Barton is  an illustration genius! The story she tells in the images are priceless! And that dog it so stinking cute! If you want a good does of charming, read this book!

My Entry for the 2013 SCBWI Tomie dePaola Award

This year’s Tomie dePaola Award task was to Illustrate this poem in full color for a book of poems that will be “pitched” to parents to read to their babies, toddlers, etc.
Sneeze
A sneeze
Is a breeze
In
Your
Nose.

I'm really excited to see everyone's entry on the gallery Diandra Mae set up 3 years ago. My favorite part of entering this is to see all the many interpretations on the same theme. Before Diandra set up the gallery, we could only see the winners on the SCBWI site - thanks Diandra! But we have to wait for the winner announcement in January before it goes live.

New Work for the NCCS (National Children's Cancer Society)

I just finished up working on these pieces for an activity book for the NCCS. They plan on distributing the books to kids that are in the hospital getting treated with cancer. I'm very proud to have been chosen to be the illustrator for this project!

The final product is a fun, colorful, book with lots of activities

Illustration Friday – Farewell

The word this week is farewell, and the first thing I thought of was the movie "The Sound of Music" and the brilliant way the von Trapps escaped Austria after performing the song "So Long, Farewell."

If you haven't heard, the founder of Illustration Friday, Penelope Dullaghan, is stepping down after 10 years of running IF. I am so grateful to her for starting IF – it was one of the catalysts for getting me to illustrate after not doing so in about 12 years. Good luck Penelope and THANK YOU for sharing this great site with the world!

New Postcard

Just sent this off to the printer last week. A goal of my whole critique group this year is to send out 4 promo mailings - Hopefully, they'll keep me accountable! One down, three to go!
I'll probably have extras, so if you would like one in the mail, email me your snail mail address.

"Little Women" Illustration for SCBWI Tomie dePaola Award

Here is my entry to the annual Tomie dePaola Award.

He gave us all the challenge to produce an illustration in black & white – something I don't normally do. But I'm always up for a challenge!

We were to choose a passage, line or description from one of the following classic books to illustrate: “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, or “The Yearling” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I chose this passage from "Little Women":
As Christmas apporached, the usual mysteries began to hunt the house, and Jo frequently convulsed the family by proposing utterly impossible, or magnificently absurd ceremonies, in honor of this unusally merry Christmas. Laurie was equally impracticable, and would have had bonfires, sky-rockets, and triumphal arches, if he had had his own way. After many skirmishes and snubbings, the ambitious pair were considered effectually quenched, and went about with forlon faces, shich were rather belied by explosions of laughter when the two got together. Several days of unusually mild weather fitly ushered in a splendid Christmas-day. Hannah “felt in her bones that it was going to be an uncommonly plummy day,” and she proved herself a true prophetess, for everybody and everything seemed bound to produce a grand success. To begin with: Mr. March wote that he should soon be with them; then Beth felt uncommonly well that morning, and, being dressed in her mother’s gift, – a soft merino wrapper, – was bourne in triumph to the window, to behold the offering of Jo and Laurie. The Unquenchables had done their best to be worthy of the name, for, like elves, they had worked by night, and conjured up a comical surprise. Out in the garden steed a stately snow-maiden, crowned with holly, bearing a basket of fruit and flowers in one hand, a great roll of new music in the other, a perfect rainbow of an Afghan round her chilly shoulders, and a Christmas carol issuing from her lips, on a pink paper streamer: – 

“THE JANGFRAU TO BETH. 
“God bess you, dear Queen Bess! 
May nothing you dismay; 
But health, and peace, and happiness, 
Be yours, this Christmas-day. 

“Here’s fruit to feed our busy bee, 
And flowers for her nose; 
Here’s music for her pianee,–
 An Afghan for her toes. 

“A portrait of Joanna, see, 
By Raphael No. 2, 
Who labored with great industry, 
To make it fair and true. 

“Accept a ribbon red I beg, 
For Madam Purrer’s tail; 
And ice cream made by lovely Peg,– 
A Mont Blanc in a pail. 

Their dearest love my makers laid 
Within my breast of snow. 
Accept it, and the Alpine maid, 
From Laurie and from Jo.” 

How Beth laughed when she saw it! How Laurie ran up and down to bring in the gifts, and what ridiculous speeches Jo made as she presented them!

New Work – Teacher's Pet

Zoe thought she could get on the teacher's good side by bringing her an apple. It sure burst her bubble when she saw what Carl brought. There's always at least one suck-up in the class!

Will Terry's "How To Design A Drawing"

I'm so excited to have won a free copy of Will Terry's "How To Design A Drawing" video tutorial. Even though I've been a graphic designer my whole life, I still struggle with integrating characters into backgrounds in my illustrations, and I'm sure this will help me with that.

Having been taught by Will for a week at the Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers Conference in 2009, I know I will come away with some great insights. I love the way Will teaches - he just talks about different aspects of illustration based on his experiences - not some hard and fast rules read out of a textbook.

Check out his tutorials - he has a new series of 8 videos. You can find them on folioacademy.com I'll let you know how it goes - but I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it!

Happy Holidays!

 

I hope you all have a great holiday full of fun, food and family!

Chicken Licken Illustration for SCBWI Tomie dePaola Contest

I created this piece for the SCBWI Tomie dePaola contest. He selects an excerpt from a classic picture book to illustrate and the winner gets a free trip to New York for the winter conference. He wants to see something different, so I thought I would give all those birds alternative means of transport. I've never drawn so much poultry in my life!

He chose this excerpt from "Chicken Licken" for us to illustrate:

So they went along and went along until they met Turkey Lurkey
“Good morning, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Daddles, Cocky Locky, Henny Penny,
and Chicken Licken,” said Turkey Lurkey, “where are you going?”
“Oh, Turkey Lurkey, the sky is falling and we are going to tell the King!”
“How do you know the sky is falling?” asked Turkey Lurkey.
“Ducky Daddles told me,” said Goosey Loosey.
“Cocky Locky told me,” said Ducky Daddles.
“Henny Penny told me,” said Cocky Locky.
“Chicken Licken told me,” said Henny Penny
“I saw it with my own eyes, I heard it with my own ears,
and a piece of it fell on my tail!” said Chicken Licken.
“Then I will go with you,” said Turkey Lurkey, “and we will tell the King!”

The Perfect Holiday Gift Idea

One of my favorite websites is theydrawandcook.com where artists create and post illustrated recipes. I've posted 2 recipes on it so far:
Balsamic Strawberry Salsa and Chocolate Eclair Cake. They published a book with some of the hundreds of awesomely illustrated recipes – I've drooled over it at the book store – it's gorgeous! Food and art at its best! Buy one for everyone on your list!

Redheaded Stepchild Wishes You a Happy Halloween!

New Recipe for They Draw and Cook

EDIT ON SEPT. 13
After turning this in to the contest, the background color kept bugging me, so I tweaked it some. I like it much better. And I moved some stuff around a bit. What do you think? I wonder if I could update it on the website?

My latest project for the website They Draw and Cook's kid-friendly recipe contest. This dessert is so easy to make and really tasty!

14 Cool Things to Do in St. Louis

My latest project is an illustrated map of my home town that I've submitted to the site They Draw and Travel. I love that site – check it out!

New Work for My Children's Illustration Portfolio

I'm trying to get more interaction and storytelling in my images and I've been working on this image (posted on Easter). I think it fits more into the children's book arena than it did before - what do you think?