Go Girl 11: Birthday Girl

 

A rather a late post on the May release of 11th book in the Go Girl Relaunch series "Birthday Girl" written by Meredith Badger and published by Hardie Grant Egmont. Today is MY BIRTHDAY so maybe today is the perfect day to be posting about this???? :)

Big 30th for me! Feeling very old.....

Go Girl relaunch series are re-release of the old Go Girl series, which has been a really successful hit by the young girls. So Hardie Grant Egmont decided to republish the series with a totally new look, ie. re-illustrated by ME, and they have been releasing new titles since 2011. Above was the original illustration used for the cover of this book.

 

Using the original image as a reference, reading through the book and with the guidance of the lovely editor  here are the work process for the new cover illustration.

Once the cover is approved I moved onto the internal illustrations. Below are some roughs.

SCRS 2nd Anniversary Hop

 Welcome to the Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps 2nd Anniversary Hop! I can't believe that it has already been two years since Sparkle has selected me to illustrate for her stamp company. I love illustrating the 8 characters we've came up with together, seeing them being released monthly and used to create wonderful cards and crafts by the talented stampers!

Not only are we here to help Sparkle celebrate 2 years of SCRS, but we are also officially releasing 4 new SCRS images this month -- Birthday Cake Emily, Festive Rin, Party Time Oliver, and Your Highness Lucy. They are ALL available in the store NOW!

We have assembled an all-star lineup consisting of our Current Design Team, DT Alumni and Guest Designers. If you happened here by chance, you are in the right place...the hop starts HERE -- please see the complete list below.

What's a hop without prizes? We've hidden TEN single stamp prizes along the way and one lucky winner will win the ENTIRE July release! All you need to do is leave some love at every stop along the hop. You have until 11:59 PM EST on Sunday to leave comments for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on the SCRS blog on Monday. Good luck to all and Happy Hopping!

Lastly, above is a little "Happy 2nd Anniversary" illustration I came up with using the four new releases. Below are their rough stages!  

Lily Chases Lost Dreams

I have been putting blogging off a bit now I have so many books that has been released during the past months to announce! Today I'm featuring the 5th book in the "Lily the Littlest Angel" series "Lily Chases Lost Dreams", written by Elizabeth Pulford and published by Scholastic.

I enjoy illustrating the Lily series as I can bring in more elements of fantasy into my illustrations, unlike the "real" worlds of Billie B Brown or the Go Girl series. Of course I enjoy working on all series, but it's nice to get variety of themes, even within the young girls series, as I can poke into different parts of my creative mind to come up with images.

 

 Like for almost all the series books the covers are completed and sent to 

the publishers before I actually get to read the manuscript. 

For this cover I was briefed for "Image featuring Lily and the box of dreams". 

Above are two roughs I came up with.

 Inked and coloured! 

This was sent through to Scholastic and their talented designer put the 

rest of the cover together :)

 Usually about a month later I receive the manuscript and brief for the internal illustrations.

 

Meet Ella and Bella. The mischievous twins!

And couple more images I enjoyed doing :)

Especially Angel Freddy Fingaling. 

He appeared in the 3rd book as a bus driver. 

Check out his funky flower phone! 

Lastly I am happy to announce that Scholastic has released two Bind ups for Lily books 1 & 2 and 3&4!