Windy Picnic

I recently completed a project for Utah-based Fish for Garbage, a nonprofit organization that mobilizes communities through waterway cleanups and watershed education. They commissioned me to create a series of illustrations for a children’s activity book.

This image depicts four children on the shore of a river or lake. They were trying to have a picnic, but it’s too windy. The wind blows trash from their lunch along the shore. One boy chases a plastic bag. This illustration is meant to show another way that trash can get loose and into the environment. It was fun to draw all that mischief the wind got up to.

A Basketball Story – Interior 9

Oh, I’m sorry. I got a bit distracted over Thanksgiving and didn’t get around to posting the rest of this series. Here’s the 9th interior.

From A Basketball Story, a picture book I illustrated for Entrepreneur Media Inc.

The Sea Turtles have heard that the Jackrabbits get a trip to FUNZone if they win all their regular season games. They’re determined to stop that. I intentionally chose to depict the two huddles, essentially the same pose but with different characters, from two different views.

A three panel comic strip illustration.  The first panel shows 5 members of the Sea Turtles team huddled together with a speech bubble saying, "NO FUNZone FOR THEM!"  The second shows a view from inside the jackrabbit's huddle, looking up.  Five members of that team are saying, "FUNZone!"  The last panel shows after the game with the Jackrabbits victorious and the Sea Turtles defeated.  The Jackrabbits are mostly all standing with fists raised in triumph, but with one hugging another player and another actually leaping in the air.  One of the Sea Turtles has their head in their hands, crying.  One comforts another teammate.  And another walks away.

A Basketball Story – Interior 8

Here’s a two-page spread. You can see the kids are goofing off. Not really doing any harm, but not doing what they’re supposed to be doing either. In the story, at this point, they’re starting to think they’re undefeatable and they don’t have to work at it anymore. This will cause problems later.

Again, this is from the latest illustration project I finished, A Basketball Story, for Entrepreneur Media Inc.

An illustration of the corner of a school gymnasium.  A kids' basketball team lounges around and goofs off.  The scoreboard shows that they won the last game by 20 to 7.  The coach looks on in disapproval.

A Basketball Story – Interior 6, Left Side

The next interior has two images, one on either side. Here’s the first one. Someone taking the team picture. This same picture is also used on the cover.

An illustration of someone taking a team photo using a cell phone.  Only the picture-taker's hands and phone are visible, with the team visible on the screen.  The actual team is out of focus in the distance.

A Basketball Story – Interior 5

A wide view of the team’s first game for the picture book project I just finished. The text for this page fits in the white space over the bleachers on the left side. This image gives you a good view of the logo I designed for the Jackrabbits. This image took longer than you’d think because, even though the people are tiny figures there are 28 of them and most of them had to be drawn and colored consistently with the depictions of those same characters on other pages. Uniforms do save time on coloring, though.

A wide view of a children's basketball game in a school gymnasium.  A few spectators and the players on the bench cheer from the bleachers while players from both teams hustle on the court.

A Basketball Story – Interior 3

Here’s the next interior for Entrepreneur Media, Inc.’s picture book. Another two-page spread, with text to be overlaid on the blank spot to the upper left. The children are eagerly gathering around Coach Miles.

Children dressed in shorts and T-shirts eagerly gather around their basketball coach.

A Basketball Story – Interior 2

Here’s the next interior image of the picture book I just finished for Entrepreneur Media, Inc. This one’s a two-page spread, with text overlaid on the blank wall on the upper left. The children are excited about basketball tryouts!

A cartoon illustration of a classroom of children raising their hands for Basketball Tryouts.

A Basketball Story – Interior 1

Here’s the first interior page of the picture book I just finished for Entrepreneur Media, Inc. This image will have text overlaid over the sky and maybe the tops of the buildings. This is a nice spring day.

A Basketball Story – Cover

This week I finished illustrations for a new picture book for Entrepreneur Media Inc. Here’s a mock-up of the cover. The final text will be formatted a little different, probably a different font, but this gives you the idea.

A cover mock-up for a picture book titled A Basketball Story:  Always be Humble, based on a true story by:  Miles Davis-Majors and Illustrated by:  Karen B. Jones.  

The cover is divided into four quadrants.  The upper left shows a team picture of the Jackrabbits team, a youth basketball team consisting of players around 10 years old.  The upper right has the same sort of team picture for the Sea Turtles team.  The lower left is a close-up of three Jackrabbit players' faces in profile, receding from the viewer.  The lower right is the same for the Sea Turtles.  The center has a basketball with the title text and bylines overlaid.

A little behind-the-scenes detail: I originally had a different cover design concept in mind (below) but the client wanted this one (above) because they wanted to show everyone on both teams and didn’t want them to look aggressive.

A rough cover mock-up for a picture book titled A Basketball Story:  Always be Humble, based on a true story by:  Miles Davis-Majors and Illustrated by:  Karen B. Jones.  

Two basketball players, both around 10 years old, hold a basketball between them with one hand each.  The other hand for each is a fist.  The Jackrabbit player on the left is frowning with eyes narrowed and eyebrows down.  The Sea Turtles player on the right has a similar aggressive expression, but with his teeth showing.  The Jackrabbits player is an African American boy with his hair bleached blonde on the top.  The Sea Turtles player is an East Asian boy with thick, shaggy hair.  A crowd seated on bleachers is out of focus behind them.

The Neighborhood’s Night – Page 12

Here’s the 10th illustration for the book project I just finished for Learning A-Z. Page 12 of The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine.

In the gym again, this time all crowded around a new character, Juana, who is covered in ash.

An illustration for page 12 of The Neighborhood's Night by Juliana Catherine.  Everyone is crowded around  Juana as she tells them the news of the wildfire.