Waiting For Wings

This is the newest addition to my portfolio, although I've had the idea for quite a while. I've always enjoyed drawing bugs of different kinds, which have made their way into several sketches and illustrations. I illustrated the first version of a girl riding on a butterfly a few years ago:


I loved the energy of the illustration, and I wanted to do more with it in terms of storytelling. Because my interest is in children's books it's important that every piece in my portfolio not just be pleasing to look at but also show a story, one that would make a viewer curious to turn the page and find out more.


So I sketched out a world where the caterpillars are waiting for the day when they'll have their wings and their small companions will be able to soar in the sky with them like the older children they are watching from the flower garden.

Illustration Friday: Edge

I'm busy getting my portfolio ready for the SCBWI conference in New York with a few new pieces, but I decided to take a couple of minutes with my sketchbook and ink pen to participate in illustrationfriday.com's word of the week, "Edge". Here are two people having a nice little boat ride, blissfully ignorant of the little birds trying to warn them about the danger ahead. It seemed to me like the kind of scene that would have been in an old silent movie, and it reminded me of a story my grandmother told me about going to the movies growing up and spontaneously bursting into laughter when a horse and stagecoach plummeted over the edge of a deep canyon. She and her friend then slid far down in their seats as grown-ups who didn't find it so funny turned around to give them disapproving looks.




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