I’m taking a four-week online workshop right now through SCAD that focuses on children’s book illustration. So far it’s been a blast! Last week we were supposed to do ten sketches of people, animals, and trees, and I randomly drew a little girl riding a turtle. We got individual emails with feedback, and the instructor said, “I want to know more about this!”

Our assignment this week was to come up with three characters (a hero/protagonist, friend of the hero, and villain/antagonist) and color them. Here are mine:

Meet Lise, Gerald, and Kim!

Lise is a little girl whose imaginary best friend is a giant tortoise named Gerald. Gerald is something of a philosopher and great thinker (and very much into Taoism); he can be slow to come to a point but when he has something to say it’s usually quite wise and well thought out. Lise is a quiet girl who’s often lost in her own imagination, likes reading and drawing, and is learning with Gerald’s help that speed isn’t everything. It’s very much a Tortoise and the Hare situation– her least favorite classmate is a girl named Kim; Kim very much personifies the hare in that story (and may actually have her own imaginary friend named Harvey), is very quick and impulsive, and is Lise’s opposite in every way. Plus she’s always first in line for the best playground stuff at recess– that wench.

(It’s kind of funny, because going into the class I already had a story and main character in mind. But it’s kind of a picture meets craft book, and there is no antagonist.)

I have this serious hangup where once I finish a pencil drawing I never ever want to ink over it. I really wanted to do this in watercolor, but it just didn’t work out that way. Long story short, I traced the sketch on vellum with pen and then used colored pencil. I have never done that before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! :D


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