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Illustration contest submission for Jane Yolen's "Infirm Pachyderm". As one can see, I have been heavily involved with elephants lately. Nothing wrong with that! The New England SCBWI Conference (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) is only a couple weeks away. I had to pause portfolio preparations to submit to this year's poster illustration contest: Jane Yolen's poem "Infirm Pachyderm". My gut reaction to the first 30 or so reads were all somber. I wanted to gauge other illustrator's responses, so I preformed an image search... same reactions there. Since the poem is written for an audience that's Middle Grade age group at max, I wanted to illustrate a positive spin on the poem's outcome. Construction the illustration was a little less positive. I'm going to admit I have a weakness with Black & White drawing, so naturally I wanted to cut TONS of grey-scale images! Since my technique dwells on paper tex...

Sketching tortoise's shell. The past couple weeks, I've been steadily working on my own picture book. Some questions which keep appearing in my head consist of: Can a tortoise REALLY balance like that? If a giraffe could move like that, how would his legs bend? Should the tortoise have a top hat? I want my characters to look playful, but have some realistic value, so the top hat is a no-go. As for movement questions, I cannot rely on image searches, nor do I have regular interactions with these animals, so I'm making my own models: Giraffe skeleton doodle (left) and giraffe wire armature. I'm still working on this little guy (above). So far, I've bulked up his torso to help me with scale. Ideally, the giraffe will serve as a resource for consistent spot placement... same with the tortoise, who's still in the works - currently just a paper shell form. I am looking for some assistance with one of my animal studies. The giraffe has been V...