the cover for Bye, Bye, Butterflies!

I just received an e-mail containing the final cover of my soon-to-be-released picture book, Bye, Bye, Butterflies! and I thought it would be a good time to share the process behind that cover.


I felt that the cover needed to show the main character, Charlie, interacting with butterflies and I had some initial ideas of how that that could go.

My editor liked the idea of the butterfly on Charlie's hand because it also looked like Charlie was waving.

Because I had some ideas about how I wanted to do the background, I painted Charlie and the butterfly separately so that I could experiment without overworking my painting and then combine the 2 layers (foreground and background) digitally.

My initial vision involved a chaotic cloud of butterflies.  I thought it would look really good to have the title of the book in white type on top of the chaos.

However, once the image was painted, I realized that my idea wasn't working so I simplified the background.  I really enjoyed all the experimentation with butterflies and patterns that I did at this stage.

It still wasn't working so I simplified it some more.

And then some more.

At this stage my first thought was that we could have the title of the book arc across the top.  However, it still wasn't looking right.  My editor suggested that I try adding a banner that the title could sit on and I loved that idea.  Here were a couple mock ups:

We agreed on the second version, so I painted the banner and then added red stripes to Charlie's shirt to bring more color into the image.

I sent just the artwork to my publisher and this is one of the earlier mock ups that the designer came up with:

At this time, my original paintings were being properly scanned and color corrected.  When I got the scans back I made a few small changes and this is what the final cover art looked like:

And this is what the final front and back cover design looks like:

'cloud nine' in uppercase magazine

You can find one of my illustrations in issue 13 of Uppercase Magazine.

what I've been up to...

Last week I finished doing the final touches to my illustrations for the picture book Bye, Bye, Butterflies! Now the art is completely finished and I'm eagerly waiting for June, when the book is expected to be released :)

I was also part of a roundtable discussion about picture book illustration last week at the Alberta College of Art and Design. It was a really great experience - lots of good questions and interesting conversations about picture books. I enjoyed getting out and talking about something I'm so passionate about. It was especially validating for me to be included among illustrators I really admire, such as Renata Liwska, Carolyn Fisher and Dave Whamond. Dave even used to be one of my instructors back in my college days. Thank you so much to Mike Kerr and Tivadar Bote for inviting me.

I also have some fun new illustration projects on the go. I'm working on some gift card packaging as well as an illustration for a children's magazine. More on those later.

recent doodles

latest promo + updated website

A couple weeks ago I sent out my latest promo.  This one was mostly sent to potential editorial, advertising and design clients as opposed to potential clients in the children's market.  I'll put out a promo targeted to those clients in a month or two.

I also did a small update to my website.  You can check it out here.

warren hellman portrait for swerve magazine

Here's an illustration that I did for this past weekend's edition of Swerve Magazine.  It's a portrait of Warren Hellman, a millionaire in San Francisco who put on a music festival so that he could play the banjo on stage with his musical idols. Here's a link to the article if anyone is interested.

back matter

The picture book that I've been illustrating is part of a series called 'Tell-Me-More'. The books in this series have a 2 page spread at the back of the book (back matter) where one can find educational information about the subject of the book. Because the story that I illustrated is about butterflies, the back matter in my picture book contains information about butterflies. I made several spot drawings for the back matter and I thought I'd share a few of them on here today. 

I approached the illustrations for the actual story in a playful way, but because the back matter is facts, I was much more representational with those images. I haven't painted realistically in ages as I find it much more enjoyable to be loose and playful with my illustration work, but this was a nice little change. I also proved to myself that I'm still capable of painting more realistically if ever I want or need to.

Although I'm waiting to share the full color illustrations for the story, there's one painting in particular that I did for the back matter that I spent a lot of time on. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out and decided to share it today as well.  It depicts a butterfly with eye spots on its wings.

double spread of charlie and his dad walking

Things got a bit chaotic around here as soon as I finished up the art for the book, but I think they've calmed down now and I should be able to resume posting more regularly.  I've been meaning to post this spread for a couple of weeks now, so here it is:

This scene takes place near the beginning of the book.  Charlie and his dad are walking home from getting groceries and having a conversation. I added some interest by putting things in the windows of the buildings that line the street.

finished!

Those of you who follow me on twitter or facebook already know, but for the rest of you, I finished painting the art for the picture book a couple of weeks ago.  I packaged it up and shipped it off to the publisher right away.  They're currently scanning everything and colour correcting printouts to match the colours on the original paintings.  Once they're finished, I'll get the digital files back so that I can do some touch ups and then the artwork for the book will be done.

It's been so exciting to see the images come together.  I can hardly wait to hold the printed, bound book in my hands.  It's slated for release this June.

'the children get a package' spread

Happy New Year everyone!

Although I was able to take a much needed short break over Christmas to spend some time with my family, I've been hard at work in my studio ever since.  I'm so happy to announce that I'm almost finished the artwork for the picture book that I'm illustrating: Bye, Bye, Butterflies.

Today I'd like to share another sketch from the book.  It's one of my favorites because I really enjoyed drawing all the little faces.  In this scene, Charlie and his classmates have just returned to school from spring break and have found a package waiting for them.  I thought it would be fun to show all the kids excitedly huddled together, looking down over the package.  On the facing page, I drew the actual box.

The thumbnail:

The sketch of the children:

Other than a few adjustments, this image really didn't change that much.
The final spread looks like this:

I decided that since the children were looking down at the package, that it made more sense to show a top view of it.  I also gave it a more dynamic placement.