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Bonus Art!

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It finally happened – I had an excuse to do a finished drawing of these characters. But not for a reason I would have expected.

I volunteered to be a guest reader at my daughter's class, and asked the teacher what I should read. She said I ought to read something from the lunch note stories I write. I was completely surprised, as not only did I assume that I wouldn't read something that I had written, but I didn't even think she even knew that I had written anything. She also asked if I could talk about working as an illustrator, and tell the kids how I work when I'm doing drawings for a text.

I gladly agreed to both. For the reading, I took in all of these snailephant pages – it's a nice, contained part within the larger story, so it was good for a short reading. And to talk about illustrating professionally, I figured I ought to take in a finished illustration, so I drew this. I made print-outs so I could give them something to take home as well.

It went really well – the kids seemed to enjoy the story. And they especially liked the drawing! When I went to pass them out after, they got so excited that the teacher asked if she could give them out at the end of the day, to avoid pandemonium. We children's illustrators live for praise like that!