Illustration Friday: Multiple

My "multiple" is MULTIPLE BOOKS. This is the cover I just finished (without the title of course...and red stitched edging...the graphics team does that) for the second Annie McRae picture book I'm finishing up. I think it'll be out this Fall. I really like how it turned out. Author and illustrator names go in the lasso. The book is called "There's Always a Way, Annie McRae!" (my flatbed scanner isn't quite big enough so it cropped in tight and cut off some edge decoration)

Doodles on notebook paper

Well, I haven't posted a ton of ACTUAL drawings or art recently because I'm trying to finish up the sequel to the first Annie McRae book I illustrated. I'm about 2 weeks away from finishing. I also illustrated 2 workbooks on the side during this last month of the painting palooza. But the other night I went to a little lecture at my church which was supposed to teach us how to help gather information for Family History records across the world so it can be accessible to everyone (via the internet at www.familysearchindexing.org). They need people to read the old manifests and records and enter the data in a searchable database. Well, there wasn't much instruction, just inspiration to do it instead (which was great and inspiring as it was meant to be...just not so informative as I had hoped it'd be). So, I doodled. Here's the result.

Already Asleep Video Trailer

So I just found out this cool new advertising thing from another illustrator...a video trailer to promote your book. I put it on Youtube too. But here it is for you...



This is for "Already Asleep" by A.D. Tarbox, illustrated by me and published by Moo Press (Keene Publishing).

Speaking to Kids

Part of being an author or an illustrator in the publishing world is speaking engagements and book signings. This past Saturday I spoke to a great group of kids and a few adults at the Nebo Young Writers Conference. It was for aspiring authors etc. ages 9-17 and a few of their parents tagged along. I spoke along with 2 YA writers and an editor. I taught the kids the process of making their own dummy picture book. It went over well and I enjoyed it. I only had trouble with the resolution of my images on the projector but nothing too detrimental. After the conference I signed books and sold all that I brought. Here's a picture one of the kids took of us together after the signing. It was fun for all and I hope I helped to inspire a new generation of artists and authors. (notice how short I am compared to this 7th grader, and she was average height of them all...it was kind of funny)