Magic Bookcase

This is set to be the month of November in my calendar. The leaves will disappear. 

The world turns cold and gray. What better time for the magic of books?

This piece started in my 2012 Sketch-A-Day book (heaven's sakes I loved that book and why haven't I got myself another?) to illustrate the word - EXPLORE.

I went on to do this next piece a few years later:

And the one at the top is just me saying (as per usual) "I can do better."

I Love September

     This is my newest version of September and it has come a long way.

The originals were on my blog in September of 2015. You can click HERE to give them a peek.

I wanted to rework it for my calendar into a piece more related to children's illustration.

The first day I pulled it back out to work on I ended up with this:

Then this:

There were things about it I liked, but all in all I considered it a hot mess. I stewed on it for a couple of weeks, then had the idea to add the sunshine. Since this is digital and was in several layers I added the sunburst over the background layer but behind the tree layer and it all just popped! I scrapped the first girl and puppy and started over, eventually giving up all the work I had put into the picnic items. It's not an easy thing to throw work away but if it's not working, you just have to let it go.