Sneak Peek Illustration of Aah! Blown Away, Crash!

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We are already almost two weeks in to 2020. It’s time for a sneak peek of one of my most recent projects – Aah! Blown Away, Crash!

Aah! Blown Away, Crash! actually started a few years ago after a meeting I had with my writer’s group about nontraditional children’s books. One of the book styles we discussed was alphabet books that tell a story in alphabetical order with only one to two words per page. Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run by Mike Twohy and D is for Duck by David Melling are two examples of books that follow this pattern.

My alphabetical story follows a Bird who Crashes on a Deserted island and the comical drama that ensues. I obviously don’t want to give all of the letters away just yet, so stay tuned for more information.

My daughters and I had a lot of fun creating a book dummy when I first came up with the story. My daughters thought it would be funny if the bird crashed in the sand head first, so that’s what they drew. Here is the page from the book dummy for the letter C – Crash!

I have since decided to work with one of my daughters on illustrating the book, which we hope to publish some time this year. My daughter may be young (12 years old), but she has recently shown an interest in drawing and graphic design. Here are a couple of pictures she drew of a hummingbird and a feather last summer.

I can barely draw a stick figure and don’t necessarily enjoy drawing, so I would not be a great illustrator.

We decided the illustrations for Aah! Blown Away, Crash! should look cartoonish, and we chose to not have them hand drawn. Instead, my daughter has been learning how to use a program called Affinity Designer, which we just purchased last month.

Here is what she came up with for “Crash!”

It’s been fun working with her on this project- watching her learn how to use the program, researching palm trees, birds, and beaches as references, etc. It’s definitely still a work-in-progress, but I’m excited to see it all done and put together!

Do you have any projects you hope to finish this year?