Spay and Neuter Coloring Book

A few months ago the St. Louis PetLover Coalition in partnership with the American Veterinary Medical Foundation and Nestle Purina asked me to make a coloring book about the importance of spaying and neutering pets. The book is for their No Unwanted Litters initiative and the goal is to cut the euthanasia of dogs and cats in half in our region by 2014. The books are printed and are at several locations in St. Louis. I was to draw 16 pages (including a cover) that went with text given to me. Here are some of the pages.

During the making of the book I had to keep reminding myself that this was a coloring book. Usually when I make images not only do I use line, but I also think about color, and how I can use shapes . Here, I relied only on lines so they had to be just right! I also had to make sure that I kept the illustrations simple enough to so that kids would be able to color them. I had to keep simplifying my sketches because I was getting carried away with details that were making spaces to small to fill in.

I got really used to drawing cats and dogs by the end of the project. Cleo, my cat, served as an excellent model. She appears in the book a few times.
The coloring book was a challenging, but enjoyable. The No Unwanted Litters initiative is such an important campaign and I really hope that their goal is able to be met.

Chicago Music Festivals

I have a few illustrations in Time Out Chicago this week. Carrie Ferris gave me this fun assignment to draw festival goers of all kinds. "Can you draw hipsters, ravers, and metal heads in a crowd?" "Yes, please!"

The one at the top is about how people from north Chicago are coming to the south side for the Dave Matthews Band Caravan.