Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day! This is week four of my 52-week illustration challenge. My little bee has found a leprechaun sleeping next to his pot of gold among the shamrocks. Lucky for the leprechaun, bees don’t need gold.
Tag: children’s
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Sleeping Bee
Cute bee spends the night sleeping on a flower under the glow of flickering fireflies. Week three of my 52-week drawing challenge finds a sleeping bee nestled in a flower as lightning bugs float lazily by. Fun fact: bees sometimes stay out too long to fly home safely, so they sleep on flowers overnight. I’m sure it looks exactly like this when they do!
Below you can check out some progress photos. The first is a shot of the image in Photoshop. The second is of the finished inked drawing, which I do traditionally by hand.
Adding color and texture in Photoshop. 
Inking done using a crow quill pen. -
There Is No Planet Bee | #KidLit4Climate
There Is No Planet Bee | #kidlit4climate I was very happy to dedicate this week’s Drawing Challenge illustration to #kidlit4climate. Not only does it support a cause that is very important to me, but it also has given me an opportunity to continue my now-ongoing bee series with There Is No Planet Bee.
UK children’s book illustrator Emma Reynolds is asking the
kidlit community to help support Greta Thunberg, a sixteen-year-old climate activist who has been striking from school every Friday. She has inspired young people all over the world to organize their own strikes and call for climate action, and on March 15th there will be the biggest strike yet. The aim of the #kidlit4climate campaign is to amplify their message. You can learn more about it all here: https://emmareynoldsillustration.com/kidlit4climate
52-Week Drawing Challenge| Week 02 | #kidlit4climate -
Kissing Bees
Two cute bees sharing a kiss inside a Spring flower. What better way to get into the springtime spirit than with two cute kissing bees? This marks week one of my 52-week drawing
challenge . I started planning for this earlier in the month when I was in a bit of a Valentines Day mood. It’s actually my second bee illustration in this style (You can see the first one here.) and I’m starting to really feel like I could happily come up with many more.
Kissing Bees WIP | 52 Week Drawing Challenge UPDATE: My wife pointed out that I accidentally gave the bees and even the ladybug eight legs instead of six! This is the sort of thing I usually am very careful about (my parents were scientists) so of course I had to make some quick edits. Happy, everyone now has the correct number of appendages! You can see horrible spider-bee hybrid monsters in the progress image above.
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Viking | SCBWI Highlighter
Viking spot illustration for Winter 2019 issue of the SCBWI Highlighter. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is using my Viking spot illustration for the SCBWI Highlighter Winter 2019 issue of their newsletter for the Mid-Atlantic. This was a fun little self-promotional piece I did awhile back, and I am very happy to see it in print. It was one of the first illustrations I did after purchasing the Megapack, my first set of digital brushes from the awesome Kyle T. Webster. You can see a larger version below:
Viking -
Inktober 2018: Week 4
Here are the last of my Inktober illustrations. I had such a great time doing these and am a little bit sorry to see this year’s challenge come to a close. Drawing challenges are a great way to improve as an illustrator, as I learned awhile back when I did my first 365 Drawing Challenge. I’m already looking forward to next year’s Inktober! Until then, here’s a couple of my favorites from week four:
You can see the rest of these in my Inktober 2018 Gallery.
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Inktober 2018: Week 3
Happy Halloween! Even as October comes to a close, I still have plenty of Inktober illustrations to share. Here are a couple of favorites from week 3. You can check out the rest in my Inktober 2018 gallery.
Dad can’t stop himself from eating all his child’s Halloween candy. -
Inktober 2018: Week 1
Here are a couple of my favorites from Inktober 2018: Week 1. This marks my first time participating in the yearly Inktober drawing challenge, and so far I am having a real blast! I am sticking with a standard, kid-friendly Halloween theme, working from the daily word prompts compiled for this years’ challenge. You can learn more about the challenge and its originator, Jake Parker, at inktober.com. Be sure to check out all of my Inktober illustrations in my Inktober 2018 gallery.
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Read Local Bookmark | Client: SCBWI
Here is a bookmark I created for the Read Local Challenge, hosted by the SCBWI MD/DE/WV/VA. It’s one of several that were created by illustrators whose books are part of the reading challenge. The bookmarks are all black and white so that kids can color them in, but I figured “why should they have all the fun?” and colored one myself.
If you live in Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, or Virginia, and are interested in your kids or their school participating, you can learn all about it at the SCBWI MD/DE/WV/VA Read Local Challenge webpage. They have a great selection of fantastic children’s books that range from picture books (Like my very own Short Pump Bump!) to middle grade to young adult.
If you want to download a printable version of my bookmark or any of the other awesome bookmarks so you can color it yourself, go here.
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Blissful Bumblebee
Here’s a chubby, little, blissful bumblebee wallowing in a bed of fresh pollen. I wanted the bee to look like a fat cat getting its head scratched. My dad used to say that every living thing just wants its head scratched. One day a bumblebee landed in front of him while he was gardening and looked, to my dad at least, like it wanted its head scratched. So he reached out with a finger and scratched the bee’s head. Rather than sting my dad, it just sat there and happily got its head scratched. I like to imagine that this is what that bee looked like. Just a fat, cute, blissful bumblebee.
Below are a few images of my work in progress. I usually start with a digital sketch and once I’m happy with it, I’ll print it out. From there I’ll trace it, refining the drawing as I go. Next, I ink the drawing using a crow quill pen. Lastly, I scan the finished drawing into Photoshop and add the color digitally.
