Thursday, June 21, 2012

Charlotte's Halloween

In a manner that befits a puppy or a breathless 5 year old, I am pretty much excited to present a book that I have illustrated for Jessica Smith, an author friend of mine. It is now available for purchase on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com, and I know it's only June but, well, it's never too early to get excited about Halloween!


This project swallowed up a good few months for me while Forrest was deployed in Afghanistan and the fun and charming nature of the story kept a smile on my face all the while. As a child, I was always a huge fan of 'Where's Wally?' (yes, that'd be Waldo here in America!), and loved having little details to search for whilst pawing through the pages of a book. As such, we developed a little game, where spiders are hiding on every page, waiting to be sought out by an eagle-eyed young (or old!) reader.

As an illustrator, I feast upon the details of other peoples processes. I love the scribbles, photos of studios, paint splatters and happy accidents. As such I thought I would share with you a few of the scribblings from my sketchbooks as the project progressed.


Rudy the Dog, possessing a winning mix of good-looks, charming clumsiness and an instinct for fun  made the cut as one of our characters. Here he is in his Halloween dinosaur costume! Jessica's cat (Halo) also features. The sleeping spider cannot be claimed as a family member by either of us, but I must admit, he looks cute enough for a little squeeze.

Soon I will share with you some pages from the story. Thanks for stopping by!

8 comments:

  1. The dinosaur costume on your puppy just cracked me up. I can't wait to see more.
    Tell your hubby that I said thank you for all he is doing for us.

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  2. The book illustrations look fantastic!!

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  3. Thank you Patsy, I will definitely pass that on to Forrest. And I could not resist the dinosaur costume either! Halo the cat is dressed as a princess....sometimes it's the little things that keep us most amused! Linda, thank you so much....I appreciate it!

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  4. Please thank your husband, Forrest and all in his unit for their service...very much appreciated for the sacrifice they make being away from loved ones. I love our military men and women.

    Congratulations on your illustrations for this book...the drawings are adorable, funny, cute! Way to go! Hope to see more.

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  5. Congratulations - your illustrations are wonderful!

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  6. How exciting!! I am excited for you. I love the picture of the sleeping dog in the dinosaur costume and the sleeping spider. If every page is like that one, this is going to be a wonderful book! (I am a sucker for children's books, myself).

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  7. I'm sure our grandsons will love this book ... I'll definitely be ordering it! Your illustrations are charming and fun! Congratulations!! nancy

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  8. Thank you all for you kind comments! Nancy...it means a lot to me that you are going to order it! I really hope that your Grandsons enjoy it! Thanks a million :)

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