If you’re a parent, you know sometimes by the time your kid is ready for bed, you’re ready to crash, too. AND they want a story. AND you can’t read this one EVERY night. If you’re like me, most of the time you love reading to your child – it’s been one of my favourite things about being a mom and now that my daughter’s 7.5 I can see it’s helped her grow into an enthusiastic dedicated reader, which is awesome… but when I’m the one doing the reading TO her, sometimes it’s nice to have a quick go-to 5-minute story. Which is why my lovely U.K. client Miles Kelly’s series of 5- and 10-minute story anthologies are so handy-dandy to have on the bookshelf.
It was fun and VERY challenging to create this intricate book cover illustration. It had to form a distinct number 5, all made up of images from a long list of fairy and traditional tales. Pulling it all together was a tricky puzzle, so I made a wee stop motion video to show the process. Complete with reluctant piggy!
And here’s the completed number 5, along with a few of my favourite details. Not sure when this one is going to be available for sale, but I will post an update when it is 🙂
If you’d like to see more of my portfolio, you’re always welcome at www.w-illo.com. xoxo
Last fall I had the fun job of creating illustrations for a series of four books for toddlers – each with an “unexpected story” about a cute and goofy animal character: a bear, a tiger, a dog and an elephant. This was a huge lot of work but the client, Yoyo Books, was a dream to work with, leaving the creative wide open. The stories have very little text so rely upon facial expressions and changing environments to show how the characters are reacting to their wacky adventures. Here’s a small selection of my fave illustrations from the series.
As always, you can see more on my website. Hope your day has been the GOOD kind of “unexpected story”!
I was thrilled to be included in illustration site the Ispot’s Year in Review! In their “Design” section, they chose to highlight my very fun project from early last year for Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. Read all about it here. Thanks, Ispot team!
This fall I had a really fun project to work on – a book called Big and Small, God Made Them All, by a new author, Benjamin Wilder. The text is fun and zippy and manages to sum up all the wonder of this world for a child in just a handful of rhyming couplets. The brief was wide open, so it was just a blast to come up with images to complement the words and play on the idea of big things and small things. The book launches early in the new year, but I’ve been given the go ahead to show a few of the illustrations a bit early – so, here you go!
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Well, this is my first post in quite some time – I’ve just finished up my busiest year yet, and the fall was a jumble of overlapping deadlines (I still can’t believe I hit them all!) I feel very, very fortunate to have worked on so many super fun projects with lovely clients in 2015. So, that’s the delay in posting about this little cutie, which arrived in September.
It’s SO MANY BABIES!!! Loveable, cuddly animal babies and their parents, set to a catchy rhyme by well-known Canadian poet Lorna Crozier. I had worked with BC publisher Orca Books before, and it’s always a great experience. It’s pretty much a dream job to create and look at pictures of cute baby animals all day! (If you’ve never seen a pic of a baby wombat, just google it – you won’t be disappointed. Goofy-looking little things so full of character!)
Earlier this spring, I was asked by Chirp Magazine to create some cute illustrations for a spread in their “Baby Animals” issue. This was fun! There are two puzzles – one asks kids to put the life stages of frogs, butterflies and dogs in order, and one has them count the eggs in the nests of various birds. I think they turned out great!
Chirp’s colourful issues contain tons of innovative stories, puzzles and activities for 3- to 6-year-olds. As I grew up with Owl Magazine (Chirp’s older sister), it was very cool to see my illustrations in this magazine!
If you’d like to see more of my illustrations, have a peek at my website!
Just a few of the newest designs for sale in my shop on BoomBoom Prints… and they also did a really nice Mother’s Day feature on me! Happy Mama’s Day to all the Mamas… xoxo
I love this project so much and it’s really great to see it get some recognition! The National Parenting Publications Awards is one of the longest running and most respected awards programs in the US. They enlist a team of independent expert judges and family testers to review each submission and select the most entertaining, appealing, safe, educational, age-appropriate and enduring products as winners.
Teeth Fairies is a book and doll set that provides a fun interactive experience for children, motivating them to take care of their dental health and helping them through the time when they lose their baby teeth. Children name their own fairy and add personalized details throughout the book. NAPPA says: “What a wonderful new tradition in our home. Allows us to document this often neglected milestone!”
And I did all the illustrations, and designed the doll! Woo-hoo! You can see more of my illustrations on my site.
You can find out more about Teeth Fairies on their website, and purchase the Teeth Fairies set here.
If you’re fond of octopussies (the regular kind, not the ballet dancing kind) and are curious about how they hook up, check out the Seattle Aquarium’s Valentine’s Day event tomorrow: An octopus blind date! Hope it goes well for those two crazy kids.
If you’d like to see more of my illustrations of goofy animals and other things, please visit www.w-illo.com/portfolio
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