Snow White (in color)

Here is the Snow White piece with color added, and some fixes made to the sketch.

Snow White (In Progress)

In-progress assignment for an upcoming conference: Illustrate a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, focusing on character and setting. Illustration Friday on hold for a bit, while I finish this image and get my portfolio ready to show.

Illustration Friday: SEARCH

This week's Illustration Friday theme: SEARCH! Winter, the time when squirrels are perhaps scratching their big heads wondering -- WHERE did I put those early fall acorns? And chipmunk, with cheeks bulging, tries to beg off  -- What acorns?

Illustration Friday: TIME

This week's Illustration Friday topic was TIME. I feel like I was kinda short on it this week to come up with and finish a piece, but here it is! I'm imagining a story where these kids are trying to help out/save the world and their first task was to find the giant TIME clock and stop it for a while.

When I was a kid, I remember wanting time to go by more slowly; I was afraid it was going by too fast and I was going to wake up one day and be an adult too soon!

Illustration Friday: REFLECT

Crispin had never seen a mirror like this one before. Look at those paws! Who was that squirrel? Suddenly, tryouts for the basketball team seemed much less scary.

I missed the deadline for Illustraiton Friday this week, but finished the sketch today and decided to post it. The word for the week was REFLECT, and while working on it, I was thinking about how we can look into mirrors and see outsized flaws that oftentimes others never notice.

But mirrors can also provide a slightly different take on things, let you see a self with different strengths. Weird huge Hulk paws! Dainty mouse feet! Slim swan-like neck! Sometimes that mirror is a person, a friend, who reminds you of what your strengths really are, or shows you how they see you.

The inspiration to sketch an animal came from a book on the NYPL list of 2013 best children's books: Herman and Rosie, about an animal duo that finds each other in the jazz scene in NYC. Sometimes, animal characters can be more like us than we are!