Number 48 of 150

March 28, 2023March 20, 2023Leave a comment

Moving on to age 7-9. A girl with a starry blue dress.

A cartoon of an Indigenous American girl standing with her hands behind her back. She is aged 7-9 with long black hair worn loose. She has a small smile that reaches her eyes. She's wearing a dark blue dress with white stars, earrings, and silver sandals.

Number 47 of 150

March 26, 2023March 20, 2023Leave a comment

Here’s a little boy with glasses and a missing tooth. If I did it right, he should look to be somewhere in the 4-6 age range.

A cartoon illustration of an Indigenous American boy aged 4-6. He is wearing glasses and is missing a bottom tooth. He is wearing black shorts, a yellow t-shirt with a black and red stripe over a white long-sleeved undershirt, and white sneakers. He is standing with both hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.

Number 46 of 150

March 24, 2023March 6, 2023Leave a comment

Back to this Learning A-Z project. As a reminder, this is a set of 150 diverse characters of various ages and body types, isolated on white. Here we’re starting back on batch 4. (There are 10 batches, total.) This batch are all Indigenous Americans.

This little girl is wearing a sweater with a traditional pattern.

A Native American girl stands with one hand propped on her hip. Her long hair is in two braids and she's wearing a sweater with a traditional pattern. She's also wearing black leggings and pink sneakers.

Squirrel Book Back Cover

March 22, 2023March 6, 2023Leave a comment

I have one last thing to share on this book project. The back cover is a drawing of squirrel tracks in the snow with a couple of acorns. The back cover text and barcode go in the blank areas.

A cartoon illustration of four sets of squirrel prints in the snow along with two acorns.

Squirrel Book 10 of 10

March 20, 2023March 6, 2023Leave a comment

The last interior illustration in this project is a happy ending illustration. We’ve got the sun setting over a fictionalized version of the author’s house. She and her husband are working in the yard. She’s waving at Rocky and Sylvia up in a tree overlooking everything. Everything is as it should be. A happy ending.

A cartoon illustration of two squirrels hugging on a tree branch in the foreground. One of the squirrels is winking at the viewer. The pair are overlooking a backyard, the back of a ranch-style house, a country road lined with telephone poles, some farm fields, and distant hills. Behind all that is a dramatic sunset. In the backyard, the tiny figures of two people are doing yardwork. One is waving at the squirrels.

Squirrel Book 9 of 10

March 18, 2023March 6, 2023Leave a comment

The second illustration for chapter 7. Supposedly this also really happened.

This is an illustration of a fight involving a Doberman and a stray cat which, among other things, clung to the dog’s head before attacking him. This is the only illustration in the book that doesn’t directly involve Rocky the squirrel.

A cartoon illustration of an angry cat perched on a dog's head, one front paw raised, poised to scratch the dog in the face. The dog has a lip raised in an annoyed, warning snarl.

Squirrel Book 8 of 10

March 16, 2023March 6, 2023Leave a comment

Chapter 7 has two illustrations. This one is when an owl scoops up one of the family dogs. Rocky runs out to make a loud commotion, which startles the owl into dropping the dog. The author says it’s a true story.

She paid for a half page illustration for this one. When designing the layout, I realized that the image would benefit from as much height as possible. I thought, well, it’s supposed to be a half page, but we didn’t specify which half. Usually half pages are landscape (horizontal) format top or bottom half pages. But a left or right half page would meet the requirements also. I was proud of how it turned out.