Hello world. I’m starting out illustrating children’s books. But one day I hope to be writing them as well. 

I love how images and words interact, taking turns to do the work. Like in this piece, since we write the word mouse, just a drawing of two eyes let’s you know that you are looking at a careful mouse. And the picture of Vinny tells you so much about his character, like how he devises plans sometimes, at other times he rushes in.

That information gets to you bypassing the need for language. It’s writing with pictures which is really what illustration is.

This is a redrawing of a piece I did before. I did it in black and white this time, to practice my black and white chops. In the second piece the sitting posture is informed by my own kid who’s just learning to sit.

In the past I used to be very literal about drawing everything in a scene, from perspective to every little object. Now I see it a bit more like forming a sentence.

We choose the icons to represent what we are trying g to convey instead of words . We arrange them in a way that is interactive, like a moment waiting to happen.  By putting some space around it we’ve created something like a sentence. We can always add words, but when adding words to a picture story, you are using them in a very specific way.

It’s the language of comics, that heartful under appreciated medium that generates so much of our culture!