The Neighborhood’s Night – Page 5

March 28, 2021March 25, 20214 Comments

Here’s the third illustration for the book project I just finished for Learning A-Z. Page 5 of The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine.

In this one, it’s a bedroom at night, but red and blue emergency lights from the window and a white light from the hall are lighting it up. The girl, Leena, is running across the room with her shoes and emergency bag while her mom and little brother wait for her at the door. They’re about to leave the house because they’ve been ordered to evacuate.

An illustration for page 5 of The Neighborhood's Night by Juliana Catherine. A girl runs across her bedroom to the doorway where her mother and little brother wait for her. They are about to evacuate the house. The room is lit by emergency lights from the window and white light from the hallway.

The Neighborhood’s Night – Page 4

March 27, 2021March 25, 20214 Comments

Here’s the second illustration for the book project I just finished for Learning A-Z. Page 4 of The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine. This scene is in a cloud to show that it’s a flashback to the previous day when they family had all packed their emergency supplies in preparation to evacuate if the fires got too near. You can see a collection of emergency supplies laid out on the floor ready to be packed into duffle bags, one per person. Mama is putting a tag on little Amir’s ankle so that he can be reunited with the family if he gets separated.

An illustration for page 4 of The Neighborhood's Night by Juliana Catherine.

The Neighborhood’s Night – Page 3

March 26, 2021March 25, 2021Leave a comment

Here’s the first illustration for the book project I just finished for Learning A-Z. Page 3 of The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine. Like with all the interior illustrations in this project, this one’s a spot illustration that will be the width of one page without any bleed. The image has a half inch on either side that will likely be cut off, but allows the publisher some room to shift the image left or right or to adjust the size a bit if they like. Like the cover image, the lighting was quite important on this one too. I rather like the swirling smoke.

An illustration for page 3 of The Neighborhood's Night by Juliana Catherine. The image shows an interior shot of a girl's bedroom. A worried girl in bed has the covers pulled up to her chin and is looking out the window. Outside, it is nighttime, but the sky is red and there is smoke swirling around a streetlight;

Project Complete! The Neighborhood’s Night

March 25, 2021March 25, 20214 Comments

I just finished illustrating a graded reader from Learning A-Z. The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine. It’s about a family who has to evacuate their home due to forest fires near their neighborhood. Here’s a mock-up of the cover. It was work-for-hire, so it’s copyright Learning A-Z.

A mock-up of the cover of the book The Neighborhood's Night by Juliana Catherine Illustrated by Karen B. Jones. The image includes text over an illustration of people and vehicles on a street during an evacuation due to a nighttime forest fire.

I sure got practice drawing vehicles on this one and the changing perspective along the curve was challenging, but the most important part of this illustration was the lighting. I wanted it bright enough to show what was going on and all the people and such, but still look like it’s actually nighttime. An argument could be made that maybe it should have been more smoky, but the haze would have obscured more of the background details, so I went light on the smoke. This image took longer than all the rest of the images in the book.

The full cover image actually wraps around the back. I’ll share that later.

I’m going to dole out the interior illustrations over the next few days here, so keep an eye out if that interests you.

Earth Day

March 9, 2021April 9, 20214 Comments

Here’s an image I created in response to a call for artists from the #OurOtherMother campaign by Parents for Future.

An cartoon illustration of the Earth seen from space. The planet has been distorted into a heart-shape. The sun is setting on the northwest/upper left and the moon is rising on the southeast/lower right. There are stars in the void.

Tentacles

January 15, 2021April 28, 20214 Comments

Here’s some random tentacles I drew yesterday.

Three tentacles drawn in black and white.

Poker Snake

December 22, 2020December 22, 20203 Comments

Here’s a snake playing cards. No idea why I drew this, really.

Dancer

December 21, 2020December 20, 20204 Comments

Over the last couple years, I’ve read several human interest stories about dancers or yoga instructors or whatnot that you might not think could excel at those skills because of their weight, or in one case because she had downs syndrome. But they do it anyway, and they do it well. So, I wanted to draw this lovely dancer who is clearly doing what she loves despite the challenge of her body size.

A fat ballerina stands in the spotlight, on pointe with one leg raised over her head.

Cute Octopus

December 18, 20202 Comments

So I was scrolling through tumblr today and I came across a post linking to this tweet. It’s a video of a truly adorable little umbrella octopus with little ear-like flaps on top of it’s head. I think it’s called a Dumbo Octopus. Anyway, I was inspired to draw it.