Dog Training For Kids Book!

Hello, sadly neglected blog. I've got some exciting news! The middle grade book I illustrated in roughly a month and a half is available starting Tuesday November 26th! The author Vanessa Estrada Marin is also from Queens and worked with the North Shore Animal League and my good friend L. Ryan Storms wrote an additional portion of the book.

Here's a direct link to the book at Penguin Random House's site, but it's available for pre-order on Amazon. It will also be at Barnes & Noble, Powell's, Hudson Booksellers, Target, Walmart and as an ebook. If you like it, positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are always helpful for authors!

I was obsessed with horses as a kid and spent an inordinate amount of time poring over the delightful drawings in "Happy Horsemanship" by Dorothy Henderson Pinch to convince my mom to let me take horseback riding lessons. I can only hope this book does for children who love dogs what that book did for me as a young reader. While working on this book, I also reminisced about my sister Kelly and her friend Devon taking dog training classes at the local kennel with their pups. I'm a proud aunt to three dogs: Luna, Aria and Auger. Though it's been a long time since I've had a dog of my own, according to my mom my first "words" were panting like our giant black dog Aspen. Drawing this book definitely scratched my dog itch, although I'm now following a problematic number of rescue sites on Instagram in the name of research.

Here's a look at one of my drawings from the initial rough sketch to final art. This was the first time I was using Procreate to draw on an iPad and I ended up doing most of the art in that program, only switching to Photoshop to compile everything and save the files as CMYK for final delivery. Thank you to Aimee Fleck at Penguin Random for the opportunity and her design input on this project!

Two books I illustrated are now for sale!

I've been waiting until it was at least the end of November to share the news of my latest work for sale. Two books that I illustrated earlier this year are now available exclusively at Barnes & Noble!

All Dog Wants for Christmas

All Cat Wants for Christmas

Because of my experience with drawing cats for The Collected Counter Attack!, my author friend Colleen AF recommended me as an illustrator to her author friend Lizz Brady. Lizz wrote and I drew the illustrations for two books that are now available at Barnes & Noble online and in their stores!

Lizz wrote the hilarious letters from pets to Santa and let me chose the letters I wanted to illustrate. It was a really fun project to work on with a super quick turnaround for publishing. I signed the contract in February (shout out to Thomas Crowell for his legal advice) and handed in the final jacket cover art at the end of June for both books. Lizz even included my cats Moe and Fidget as two of the pets who wrote letters which was very touching.

The folks at MJF books did a lovely job with the printing. Here are a few interior pages:

You can check the Barnes & Noble website to make sure they have the books in stock or you can order online. It seems like they may be able to ship internationally, but I'm not sure exactly how that works. They should be shelved on a table with stocking stuffers or at the bargain book table. If you like them and want to leave a review on the B&N website, that is always appreciated! Also if you take a picture with your pet and either of the books, I will definitely retweet it on Twitter or share on my Facebook page.

Here's Moe looking unimpressed next to the books: