Here’s a little ol’ sketch i’m re-visiting for another of my children’s illustrations. The idea is there, but i have copious changes i’d like to make in addition to the ones on the post-it. Overall, i think the piece needs to be a bit more bold with scale and surreal elements. Of course, adding color won’t hurt either. i’m thinking i’ll do this one as a very sketchy ink drawing on a white page. Then there’ll be some messy watercolor washes and finally some colored pencil detail and overlays using gel pen. i love the skinny, saturated lines that gel pen can add in a final layer. So that’s the thought for now. Only time will tell what the final outcome will be on the drawing board. i’ll post the finished piece when i’m done!

As browse through my “vault” of images to post this “looking back” entry, i am realizing i really wrote and story-boarded quite a few children’s tales when i was a new mom. That doesn’t seem weird to me. That’s where my head was after all. But i just don’t remember doing it! HA! Not remembering stuff is, strangely, the thing i remember best from those sleep-deprived days.

Anyway, upon seeing this artwork, i do instantly remember the premise of the story. It was based on my son, who was a gold-medal drooler back then…. (Seriously, he drooled more than 10 babies and i kept him in rotating bibs constantly!) and his favorite blue monkey toy who, sadly, caught the lions share of said drool and who had a little rattle thingy in his belly that sounded like a hiccup. i came up with a story about how Dr Drool was a superhero and Hiccup was his trusty sidekick. They saved the world by slaying bad guys with SWACKS on the hiney with soaking wet drool bibs. Yowch! Totally believable. i also had an angle where the bad guys would always scare Hiccup’s hiccups away at the end of the mission… but they’d always come back. You know how it is. They always do.

If you think this story is silly, you’re probably right. But if you try thinking about it at 3am while in your 4th month of round-the-clock feedings and very little sleep…..trust me – IT IS HI-LAR-IOUS!