Sophie's Garden

My very first job as an illustrator, years ago now, was a project for the San Antonio Water Systems for their H2O Heroes series.  They did 7 books in the series and I illustrated one of them. Sophie's Garden - a story about a little girl who learns how to plant a water saving garden. 

Well today at our SCBWI critiquenic my friend Bill, who did 2 of the books in the series, had a copy of each.  I thought the books were never going to be published and was thrilled to see them in person! 

I can't even remember what year it was, but we are talking the dark ages of my Humblearts career here.  But I thought I'd show the book cover, because a book is a book - isn't it?  And they are aways exciting.  These are paperback and given out in the school system here in San Antonio.  I would love to do more work on green themes, maybe I will create some new samples on the subject later this summer.

A few of the images are in of my black & white portfolio.

Let's Get Crafty!

You may not know that I'm a well published designer in the jewelry/bead magazine world.  In fact, I have a jewelry how-to book proposal out in the publishing world at the moment awaiting it's fate.  (Fingers crossed, knock on wood.) 

I've had the idea for a kid's craft book in the back of mind for a while and have often been told I should write one. Something just clicked this week and I ended up writing up the outline and possible projects for one.  Yeah!    So while I work on sending out submissions and marketing my work, I will sneak in a few minutes here and there to work on this project too.  Fortunately after a few years of publishing credits, writing crafty directions is as easy as pie. 

So here is tip for illustrators, want work but don't have art directors beating down your door just yet?  Create your own!  If you aren't up for writing a book, kids magazines are always looking for illustrated puzzles & games.