My First Hidden Pictures: The Patient Turtle

 I love getting hidden pictures assignments.  Especially when I'm given the freedom to interpret the text.  You can see The Patient Turtle, in the August issue of High Five Magazine.
Enjoy!

The Patient Turtle
A big turtle sat
On the end of a log,
Watching a tadpole
Turn into a frog.

Published Version:


















My Portfolio Version (includes two scruffy flies):


















 Original Sketch:

 

New Hidden Pictures: October Issue of High FIve

The October Issue of High Five Magazine is out and I had the good fortune of illustrating the hidden picture page. When you receive a hidden pictures assignment from High Five you get a nursery rhyme to illustrate. When I read the nursery rhyme for this I thought this should be easy and fun. Turns out I was over confident... I received some serious revisions. I've included the original sketch that was rejected. The lesson that I learned is that humility is more than a likable attribute, it's an essential skill. Enjoy.

P.S. Sorry about the ice cream cone... apparently it is very tough to find and I've been getting a lot of complaints. It follows a different visual logic than the rest of the items. Happy hunting.

Slightly different version than the one published... can you see the changes?


Original Sketch Submitted to High Five

The Three Little Worms Spell it Out

This is the third story to feature the Three Little Worms (it's the second to feature Bucky Bug) and I'm told there are more stories to come. I absolutely love illustrating these characters. You can read the full story and see the rest of the illustrations in the current issue of High Five Magazine (January 2010).

Here's a sample of the final sketches (p. 3 & 4) that were approved by Highlights High Five Magazine, along with the final art for the same images... enjoy.




In order to get the child-like look for Bucky's drawing I created a separate work of art using oil crayons on charcoal paper. I scanned the image and then warped it in Photoshop, according to the perspective of each scene. Take a look.

Cheer Up Scarecrow

Here's some work that can be seen in the current October issue of Highlights High Five magazine.
I really put the scanner to work with these illustrations. For the backgrounds I created a variety of stains and washes using brown ink, scanned them, and then experimented with a lot of different color variations in Photoshop. I thought this would create a great autumnal effect that would be fairly simple to pull off... I spent hours (too many hours) trying to get something that looked good but didn't compete with the character illustrations. As always, less is more.

Enjoy

Old Mother Goose - Hidden Pictures

This was just published in Highlights Highfive magazine... I've included the original file so you can see the difference. The magazine is limited in the quality of paper that it can use, so the color can sometimes suffers as a result. All things considered... this one reproduced fairly well.




This was a digitally colored pen & ink drawing.