phoneless and mute!

A little while ago, I completed a spot illo for Project Openbook—a wonderful organization that seeks to build a community-authored children's book to benefit girls in Nepal. Contributors post poems, and illustrators then create the pictures for the book. Then, people like you vote on which poems make it into the book. The poem I illustrated for, "A Phoneless Lament" by Marcia Schwartz is below, along with my art. Enjoy, and be sure to head over to Project Openbook to cast your vote or donate for the cause :)

A PHONELESS LAMENT

Oh, my poor little heart

would go flutter-flitter

if only someone could send me

a text or a twitter.

The other girls are so happy

with their little phones so cute

while I’m a social outcast

because I’m phoneless and mute!

I’m like a dog without a bone–

like a queen without a throne–

all because you’re so STUBBORN

and won’t buy me a phone!

It’ll be all your fault

when I’m sad and alone–

a spinster forever

because I have no telephone!

I work with art/copy tie-in on greeting cards all day, every day—and designing for children's book writing takes a little different approach. I went though multiple scenarios, sketches, and layouts before I reached this solution. The book will also likely be printed in black and white, so working with that in mind requires some foresight—it's not wise to work in color and just "convert to grayscale." Besides, working in b&w is an important part of the process. You really can't deal with color properly until you understand how your design will look in shades of gray, and it's always helpful to work this way when developing your layout. I actually had fun with this—going back to just b&w helped me use a different process :)

On to the next poem...I will post when it's finished!

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