Mixed Media Drawings for Children's Book

Last year, shortly after moving back to Seattle, I took an LGBTQ friendly children's book writing course at the Hugo House. My friend was teaching the class, and it had been a long time dream of mine to write and illustrate my own stories. The outcome was a working draft of a story that I based off of two paintings that I did in 2011 called I Think I'll Stay Where it's Quiet for a While & Let Me Apologize for my Absence of Late. A friend of my mothers' who had looked at the paintings commented that they felt very narrative--and he was curious of the story behind them. This, in turn, made me curious. I knew there was a story of nature, of heartbreak, friendship, and a little bit of magic. So I went from there.

Having never illustrated a book I've felt very timid to begin the process, and have put it on the back burner for about 9 months. What intimidates me most is the fact that the two main characters need to look relatively consistent throughout the book, from different angles and in different situations. This is a challenge I've never faced before.

These are the first few drawings of "Solo", a creature who lives in the forest... who appears to be mostly human and part owl. He is lonely because he is different that anyone he's ever met. His first and only love left him because of his differences, and he has been broken hearted ever since. The broken heart is rendered as an actual red wound on his chest... which fades throughout the book and ultimately heals as he relearns how to connect with someone, to trust, to be a friend.

Ryan and Julia "save the date"

A wonderful couple I know is getting married this summer and I just finished their save the date cards! They wanted a Tolkien theme... so the map of orcas island I drew, the handwritten font I used, as well as the phrase written on the backside of the postcard are all meant to recall images from the original Hobbit book. Fun project! And congratulations to Ryan and Julia on their upcoming wedding :)

Fight for Social Security!

Here's the cartoon I did for PSARA's march issue. Enjoy :)

I Don't Know Where to Put My Hands (When I Get Nervous)

ink and watercolor pencil on paper

The Edible Typeface

So here's how my first 3D design turned out! I showed the original sketch on an earlier post... but for those of you who didn't catch that one this is a cereal box I designed to hold the contents of my notes and classwork for my Typography1 class... so if you check out the graphic on the front you can see my name "Deva" and also "Type1" hidden in the pile of illustrated letters. It was the first large scale project that I used adobe illustrator for... and I'm self taught on that program... so a struggle and a learning process for sure! This quarter I enrolled in the software class so I have a real live instructor (Maria Nelson... I highly recommend her for anyone interested in taking a class with her at SVC) helping me with illustrator... and wow... she's awesome. Also, the concept for the drawing and the design on this project were mine but my wonderful boyfriend Evan Hetrick re-worked the cover illustration. It was out first design collaboration and it was tons of fun. Many more to come! 

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guitar playing hangout/Kauai

Wooops, forgot to post for a little while there. But hey, it's a new year now, and to make up for it I'm gonna post a drawing every single day for a while! I have a bunch of drawings/projects from the past month that I haven't put up. Here's one from my recent trip to Hawaii. We were there with an amazing guitar player so we sat around a lot listening to him, drinking, relaxin... and water coloring.

makin a cereal box!

I'm making a cereal box! It's gonna be the real deal, but here's a sketch planning the whole layout. On the back there's gonna be collectible bookmarks that you can cut out. Any idea what should go in em? So far I'm just thinking of three more little drawings of me swimming in some letters... trying to eat them.