Inside the Illustration

Spread 1 : Dedication Page

This illustration was tricky because I knew it was going to be the most important page to me, but the least important page to everyone else who reads the book. Knowing that most people were  going to flip right by this page took some of the pressure off of making it “perfect.” But knowing that this may be my kids’ first memorable introduction to my mother made it highly important. 

My mom’s favorite place was on the beach (usually in NC) and with a book. She had piercing  blue eyes, which I chose to include in the illustration, even though none of the other illustrations show evidence of eye color.

I did the initial line drawing with a graphite pencil on white paper. I colored in the drawing with colored pencil, blended slightly with a Q-tip, and finally outlined with a Sharpie fine tip marker. The vertical lines that are present are from the texture of the paper. I scanned the illustration, did a little photoshop / post-processing work, and finally formatted bleeds and copy in Adobe illustrator. 

Hardest part: Getting the character to look like my mom, while maintaining the fun and youthful aesthetic of the rest of the people in the book

Easiest part: The ocean in the background

Favorite part: The accessories that make this person unequivocally “her” - the book, scarf, sun hat, jewelry, and wild hair :-)