Radio silence on here usually means I’m busy working on something. This time I’m illustrating a picture book for Entrepreneur Media Inc. The story is about two kids’ basketball teams, the Jack Rabbits and the Sea Turtles. Sports teams always need logos, so here’s a little sneak peek of that detail.
Here’s some progress on my Claudette Colvin illustration. Lines are more-or-less final and I’ve done the colors and shading on Miss Colvin there in the middle.
More to come…
I was out of town last week, but now I’m back and here’s what I was working on today. You’ll recognize the same scene from my last post, but I’ve added a bit of highlights and shading and I sketched in all the characters.
This scene is to be an illustration of Claudette Colvin’s March 2, 1955 refusal to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus. You can see Miss Colvin there in the middle, with her schoolbooks and her righteous defiance.
I’ll post more as I work on it.
Here’s Hitch, the bully in the anti-bullying book I’m starting work on for Learning A-Z. This is the second version where he’s in regular clothes and blonde.
Here’s Hitch, the bully in the anti-bullying book I’m starting work on for Learning A-Z. This is the first version where he was supposed to be wearing army fatigues.
Here’s Marcus, the main character in the anti-bullying book I’m starting work on for Learning A-Z. He’s the bully’s victim.
I’m starting work on an anti-bullying book for Learning A-Z. The first step is to work out how that main characters are going to look. Here’s Evan, the bully’s friend.
Here’s a bit more of the piece I’m working on. I think the scene is more-or-less complete, but no characters yet. It already looks exciting, doesn’t it?
Here’s just part of a background I’m working on.
Now consider this. If we assume that these are rocket ships rather than missiles, this almost has to be an emergency evacuation. My logic is that those rockets are blasting off at nearly the same time and way too close together to be anything any prudent space program would approve of. Therefore, I think this depicts a, “Oh, holy crap! Everyone get the hell off the planet, now, now, now, NOW!” situation going on here.
And we can assume these are rocket ships rather than missiles because I drew them and I’m telling you those are ships.
What, do you ask, might be the emergency?
Guess you’ll have to wait and see the finished piece.
Here’s the scene with a few more leaves and the characters roughed in. I’ll adjust the placement a bit and work on the proportions a little. Need to figure out how to do the folds on the lower girl’s shirt. Then comes final lines and coloring. 
Karen B. Jones - Illustrator 