Happy Spring! I feel pollination coming on.....

Happy Spring! We're not doing monthly themes any longer, but I thought I'd post from a book I'm currently illustrating. It's Meet The Minibeasts and is scheduled to come out fall 2023 with Schiffer Kids Publishing.  It's been a fun book to work on, especially researching night time pollinators.

Please check out my Studio With A View blog for more information and updates.

Cathy

Animal Puppets

 What do you do when you receive a snarky review from Kirkus? Make puppets and paper-doll clothes for them, of course! I admit all in my latest video:

Thanks for watching! 

Shennen

www.Shennen.com

www.achoowhypollencounts.com

Watercolor, The Unicorn and the Little Princess

 Taking a break in the middle of a picture book project to paint this “ fantasy scene”. Detail and full image of a recent non book piece I created for a line of children’s products. Prior to this one was a scene of African animals, next up, dinosaurs.  Daniel Smith, Schmincke, Holbein watercolors on Arches 140# Hot Press 

Working with Watercolors

I’ve always considered myself a colored pencil artist. Most, though not all, of my children’s book illustrations have been created with colored pencils. Being things as they are, this year I felt drawn to work in watercolors. Love them! I am currently illustrating my 34th picture book - using colored pencils, but I’m looking forward to a future book where I use only watercolors. 

Here I’m sharing a colored pencil portrait I did of my daughter in 1990.

And here is a recent portrait I created in watercolor of her boy, my grandson.

The watercolors I used were Nicholson’s Peerless, and they were recommended to me by PBAA’s own Betsy James. Thank you, Betsy. 

You can learn more about me on my YouTube channel drawerofmanythings https://youtube.com/user/drawerofmanythings

My blog: Shennen Bersani

My book’s website: Achoo! Why Pollen Counts

In case you are interested, Peerless watercolors

Pop on over to see Betsy: Betsy James

Shennen xx

Flying Foxes!

I've been busy drawing pollinators these days. My favorites are bats, more specfically fruit bats or flying foxes. These are larger bats and they live on nectar, pollen and fruit. Now you know the rest of the story.

Thanks for taking a look. Please check out my Studio With A View Blog for more work.

Happy September,

 Cathy

The Little Cookie & Fox

 In this retelling of The Gingerbread Man, the cookie still gets into the same situation. 

It was fun to put my own stylistic spin on things.

The Little Cookie

illustrated by

STEVEN JAMES PETRUCCIO

John Nez Illustration. - Stella Stopped

 

John Nez - A page from my book 'Stella Almost'.

Here's a page I can totally relate to... Stella is giving up on writing since no one even bothers to look at her work.  But I'm sure Stella will find that even with all that rejection, she still had ideas that need to be written down! Poor little Stella... 

John Nez

www.johnnez.com

English music Fox

 A spread from The House of the World, a picture book I wrote and illustrated for Japanese publisher Benesse, commissioned as part of their picture book reading scheme for English language learners. The book is in English (though published in Japan), and was my last commission before I left Japan in late 2007 - I remember painting the artwork for this in my father's spare room in the UK while coming to terms with all the sudden changes, so it was a somewhat cathartic experience - painting was a refuge, and this spread, symbolising images conjured by English folk music on an accordion, to some degree helped to re-set being back in the old country.

John Shelley

johnshelley.com