I have finally finished illustrating Snakes! Long, Longer, Longest published by Scholastic. It will be out in the spring of 2006. Before I start on my next assignment - my fourth book cover in the NSTA Safety series - I thought I'd give you a sneak peek into Snakes!
And because people always ask; I did illustrate all of these with colored pencils, then I scanned them into my wonderful Mac G4, and I hold the copyright to them.
While working on this book, I became very obsessed with the details of the scales. When Jerry first mentioned the book, I inwardly groaned thinking that I'd go blind drawing them. Well, no, I didn't loose any eyesight over this project - I just lost lots of sleep working long hours into the night!
Well, now, for all of you who have enjoyed Sharks! Big, Bigger, Biggest - my dear mascots are back!!!
These Angelfish appear on six pages of Sharks! and I admit, a couple of them are very challenging to find! The inspiration for them comes from a pair of nuns who also happen to be blood sisters, Sister Paulina Yurgel, SJC and Sister Baptista Yurgel, SJC. Sister Paulina wears a full traditional black habit and Sister Baptista wears an all white habit. I see them together often, usually shopping at my local grocery store.
Sister Paulina was my daughter Karlene's third and fourth grade teacher. She didn't realize that I had dedicated my book to her, so she got a big surprise the day I came to visit her classroom! Not only was she surprised by the book, but she was equally delighted that I brought Karlene with me! Karlene's now all grown up and a second year student at Northeastern University.
Well, back to those Angelfish and the Snakes! When I visited her, Sister did tell me that she doesn't travel too far or too often - so I couldn't resist including her and her sister in Snakes! Who wouldn't want to spend some leisure time at a warm tropical locale? Look closely, those Angelfish are swimming just above the coral!
Certainly not the last of the book's 32 illustrations, but the last one I'll show you (you'll have to buy the book to see the rest!), I leave you with the snake colors page. I can tell you that much of the inspiration for the crayon box came from the literally thousand or so colored pencils that surround my work area!
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