Alice in Wonderland!

I recently had the great honor of illustrating the cover for a re-issue of Alice in Wonderland for Scholastic Book Clubs. This really was a dream job for me, since it combined both illustration and hand lettering, plus it was such an awesome subject. Not only am I a big Alice fan, this year marks the 150th anniversary of its first publication, making it all the more special to have the opportunity to work on.

I don't normally show my process but I thought I'd show my initial thumbnails I submitted. The parameters were pretty open other than that the book would come packaged with a mini pocket watch, so that needed to be featured alongside the white rabbit and Alice, of course. 

The bottom left option was the one that was selected, which was a favorite of mine along with the top left. I was pretty surprised that it was chosen, mainly since I had taken the typographic liberty of line breaking up "wonderland." The revisions were only to flop Alice and make her look older and more tween/teen looking. Basically, I just lengthened her torso, cinched in her waist and slimmed down her face and there you go! 

Because these titles for the book clubs are reproduced at a tiny thumbnail size, it need to be readable at a reduced size, so I went with a dark background to make the title pop. It worked pretty well, since Alice's descent is kind of mysterious anyway. The best part was adding some angry flowers!

new stuff

hey, now that all the hullabaloo of surtex is over, I can share some of my new stuff I took. Well, I guess it wasn't exactly a state secret before, but, everyone always seems to keep surtex stuff all hush hush, beforehand, so what do I know? Anyhow, here's some of what I took and no, you can never make enough stuff. Check out my site for lots more... (ok, that may be an exaggeration... some more?!)

happy happy alphabet R!

I was happy that I got assigned the letter R in our ongoing group alphabet project over at happy happy, because, that's right…I got to do a bunny (rabbit…) Kinda made up for the sulkiness that was the letter "I", ha. Don't ask me why I thought of a rickshaw and I seriously have no idea if they are used in Rampur, but it sounded kinda exotic, so, with no further research, I went for it! Of course, someone has to be a passenger, so I thought a snooty, uppity raccoon lady was the perfect answer. Rico reminds me of some character that Indiana Jones might bump into on the streets right before some boulder starts chasing him down. Be sure to check out the rest of the alphabet here!

happy mother's day!!

a little late to the game, but HMD wishes to all you wonderful moms! If you want to see some more mother's day goodness, head on over to happy happy art collective!

I was kinda proud of myself with this piece. Not because I think it's so great, but I actually used a dip pen! Highly unusual for me, but also kinda nice to do one step without a mouse in my hand! The lack of control and no command z was kinda scary (don't kid yourself, I still fixed/altered in AI once I vectorized it, but hey, it was a first step...) 

happy mother's day!!

free easter printable!

yup, you heard that right! The girls at happy happy art collective decided to make our April group project fun and free printables, just in time for spring! Head on over here to check out the goodies that Denise, Muffin and Lauren came up with!

For my piece, I decided I wanted to do some sort of activity type placemat. You've been there... it's easter dinner and old Uncle Joe is taking forever and a day to eat that fancy spring green salad that your kids all hate. They're getting antsy waiting for the ham (and bunny cake...keepin' it real, here) to arrive. This after getting super hyper with a bag of jelly beans and chocolate eggs in their system, right? What to do? Well, time to hand out the crayons and this fun placemat. When they're done finding the eggs, they can turn it over for some quality doodle time!

Growing up at my house, the old bunny gentleman was a rather heartless fellow. I'm sure most kids have an egg hunt or two to fill out the day, but the bunny that visited our house also hid the baskets! And hid them well. So well, it was not uncommon to still be searching looong after sundown. I can still picture my dad sitting in the living room, smoking his pipe (which he often did on Sundays) reading the paper, while thoroughly enjoying our angst and total misery as bedtime approached and we STILL had not found our baskets. Cruel, right? As the youngest of five, it was also common practice for my older brothers to rub it in, claiming that they had found mine hours ago, and couldn't believe how stupid I was for not having found it already. One of best places he ever used was in the waste basket. Yeah. Imagine this... your basket (somewhat hermetically sealed) in the bottom of the trash can with a "clean" liner on top. Kinda twisted, right? But the all-time winner, would have to be what he pulled on my oldest brother... the basket was tied to a string, dangled below his bedroom window on the back of the house. Who thinks like that??

Like all family traditions, I carried this one on with my own kids, much to the dismay of my husband. However, I usually cave and start giving hints by mid afternoon or when they start crying in utter frustration. Good Easter fun! 

Happy Easter!!