The Moose Project

Right after last year's SCBWI's summer conference, I received an offer to illustrate a childrens book - a leveled reader for Reading A-Z, called "Moose on the Move."

The book, published in November 2011, is about an inquisitive yet sensitive young moose - separated from his family, looking for friends he can live with. He just does not quite fit in. The first pages show the moose optimistically prancing through the forest, coming upon a squirrel that invites him to climb a tree. 

The moose’s eyebrows arch, his eyes widen while he studies his hooves, which are clearly not meant for climbing. As the story progresses, the frustrated moose receives an invitation from a bug-eyed bird to join him in the sky, but the moose has no wings. 

The moose sulks away, head down, eyebrows furrowed with a forlorn glance at the clueless bird.

 Later, when the same moose finds friendly deer he can relate to, our main character is illustrated with a smile of relief, ending a long day asleep with his new-found friends.


For this project, I started with rough sketches, then refined as clean pencils and painted. The story takes place in one long day, so I had fun showing the transition of morning light to nightfall in the color scheme. 

With my background as a photographer, I pay a great deal of attention to light source, saturation and hue when painting in value studies and color.

Coming up with the look and feel of the multiple animal characters in this book was exciting. The beaver was my favorite character - he deserves his own post, which is coming soon. 

Just published: Penny the Rude Penguin

It's always super exciting to have something published. I worked on this project, "Penny the Rude Penguin" this spring for Learning A-Z and now it's out. This was my second project for them - and there were no revisions which is always a miracle. They said they loved it, which makes me happy.
Here is the site where you can find a black and white and a color version:

http://www.readinga-z.com/book.php?id=1634.

Here is the synopsis:

Penny thinks it’s funny when other penguins fall down. Sometimes, she even knocks them over on purpose just to see them fall. She says she is sorry afterward, but she doesn’t really mean it. One day, Penny herself gets bumped and falls down—way down. Suddenly, it’s not so funny anymore!

It's about bullies and friendship - a theme that resonated with me since I was a bullied kid when I was little; I was small for my age, painfully shy and awkward. The audience is for first graders - it's a leveled reader.

Here are some sketches for the project:

   Here are some of the pages. After approval of final rough sketches (done in pencil) I used Pitt pens and Microns, then painted the project in "Digital Water" (Thank you, Prof. Cliff Cramp) then layering in textures with lots of transparency in Photoshop. Some painting was done in Corel Painter and some was done in Photoshop. I love to blend traditional media with digital media. Set in Antarctica, I favored a cooler palette, favoring complimentary colors in blues and oranges.

   The biggest challenge for me in this project, was to keep the characters consistent. Penny, the rude little snot of a penguin is identified by her little flippy red ribbon, her snarky smirk and her chubbiness. She still has her baby-penguin fat. Peter, her long-suffering friend is taller and leaner. He is identified by his wide eyes and long spikey top hairs (he uses hair gel). The characters always seem to come alive for me while working on a project.

  From start to finish, I like to show subtle changes in the time of day. You will see the color palette turning warmer as she finally "gets it" after being such a pain to her friend Peter, and his family.  The last panel shows the colors of sunset as she realizes her friend Peter could see behind her general rudeness. It was a cute project.

Look for more, coming soon. Next, I'll share the first project we did together that stars a moose! Love illustrating with animal characters!