Illustrating a Picture Book: Nearly There

The deadline for posting my artwork is Thursday: so, what's left to do? You'll be pleased to hear that things have continued to go really well, I put in some time over the weekend, and all the artwork is now done. Hurray!! Whoo-whoo!


My final pieces were the sundry character vignettes for the title page and back cover, which I finished on Friday. I'm really pleased with the middle one in particular:


Then on Sunday I went back and sorted out odds and ends, mainly the penultimate 'running away' spread, which has been sitting three-quarters finished for simply ages:


Below is a detail which will enlarge further with a click (sorry - still can't get full-width pics to enlarge for you):

Today I've been going back through everything, comparing the artwork, checking colour continuity and touching up anything I'm not so happy about, now I'm seeing it afresh.

So... tomorrow I'll get it all mounted and posted off 2 whole days early - I can hardly believe it.

Just as well, because the saved time will be VERY handy. By Thursday night I also have to pay my VAT (gulp), buy all my train tickets for my first batch of school visits and get everything prepared for a day of storytelling at Brayton Infants in Selby, starting first thing Friday morning!

Plus, there's the vital last-minute check though recent emails and those event sheets, to make sure I have all the info I need from the schools. There's always one who emails a timetable the night before, and it's always the one that features ten 30 minute storytellings, end-to-end...