From My Sketch Book

The kid's activities are great times for me to sketch. Here are some sketches from my daughter's ballet practice last week. That was my son playing GameBoy (yay Ninja Turtles!)

Be Quiet! - published by Happy House

This is the cover and one inside spread from the book "Be Quiet!" that I illustrated for the Korean publisher Happy House this summer. I really like how the whole book turned out.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy lunar new year, everyone! This is a piece I did for Time for Kids Magazine. Gung hay fat choy!

Graphic Novels for Kids

Last week, I got some comp copies of these graphic novels for kids I illustrated for Stone Arch Books.
T-Ball Trouble and Lily's Lucky Leotard, written by Carl Meister, Illustrated by Jannie Ho (Me!) They are now available on amazon.
Here are some shots of the interior pages. They are simple in style and layout, perfect for teaching kids to read in a comic/graphic novel form.
There has been a trend with the graphic novel format in children's publishing. Hopefully it is something here to stay!

From my sketchbook

I keep a sketchbook for drawings not related to work. Sometimes I don't draw in it for months, but other times I'm drawing something every day. I like to draw everyday objects for fun - something with a different look than my usual children's illustrations. Here's a drawing of a necklace from my sketchbook. I drew it with a pen and colored it with watercolors.

My Favorite Illustration From 2008 (Paula)

Honestly, I don't have a "favorite" illustration I produced in 2008, but I posted this one because it's one of the ones I have the least issues with. That might seem to be an odd way to put it, but that's how I was looking at it as I perused my illustrations done this year.

So this one never got published as I was asked by the client to illustrate this maze (you follow the mother hen to the chick by stepping on the items that begin with "ch") but was up against another illustrator who was doing this too. Their client was to pick the one they wanted, and the other illustrator's was chosen. I have no idea what theirs looked like so I can't make any comments on that but I was pleased with my results.

My favorite illustration from last year

This is the illustration I like best of all the pictures I painted last year. I like the colors and the happy children, and I also think I like it because this was a painting I did just for fun.

Goals for 2009

I love starting with a new list of goals each January - and I love looking back at them at the end of the year and feel proud when I can cross out the goals I reached. Here's some of my biggest goals for 2009:

* Get a book deal to publish one of the books I have written
* Illustrate at least 2 books
* Write a new picture book
* Finish the chapter book I'm writing
* Have an exhibition of my work