The book of Flannery O'Connor short stories that I'd been working on all last year for The Folio Society was published last summer, but because I had just had Sebastian at the time and was kind of out of my mind for a while, I never posted about it. I hate loose ends, so here's a look at the final product:

These are a few of the final 11 chosen interior illustrations, as well as the cover. The cover was drawn digitally in photoshop and the interior images were drawn in graphite.  I'll post the others and maybe some of the rejected cover ideas later this week. This was really a dream project for me. The Folio Society is one of my all time favorite clients and the source material was dark and moody and perfect for coming up with (hopefully) intriguing images. I'm really happy with how it all came together in the end.

I didn't mean to make the last post such a tease, but the last few weeks have really gotten the best of me. My deadline for the Flannery O'Connor short story illustration project came and went this past week, so I've been scrambling to finish everything up on time. Here is a little sneak peak of some, but not all of the illustrations I've been working on for the past couple of months, and not including the cover.

There will probably still be plenty of changes to be made and possibly even some completely new illustrations in the next few weeks. I don't expect the project to completely wrap up until early February. Once it does, I'd love to share some of these with you in more detail, especially since a few  are different versions for the same story, meaning some of these definitely won't make it into the book at all.

On top of keeping busy with that project, Jesse and I both caught terrible colds around New Year's Eve due to holiday travel. Mine lasted a week and really set me back and Jesse caught his cold twice (!!) and is finally starting to feel better now.

One reason my cold seemed especially bad is because I'm not taking any medication and am already having trouble sleeping.....


....due to being 5 months pregnant! That's the big news I'd hinted at in my last post. Jesse and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in very early June! We are very, very excited.

Although I'm sure I'll be talking about the baby somewhat on the blog (after all it is attached to me right now and I'm having a hard time not thinking about it) I don't plan to turn this into a "mom blog", not that there's anything wrong with those. When I do update this blog, and hopefully I will be a lot more this year even after this rocky start, the focus will still be on illustration, design, film, and all of the other things that inspire me.

I'll be posting some much delayed photos from our holidays soon as well as showing off a big project that Jesse just finished! Hope you've had a wonderful 2013 so far!

Remember the sketches I worked on a while back for the Flannery O'Connor short story "A Circle in the Fire"? I've been meaning to post the final illustration for a while, but this semester has been keeping me so busy ever since it started.

The client thought the black and white sketches could actually work as the final, but there was also talk of taking two of them to a color final treatment. Since I was curious to see how the sketches would look in color anyway, I offered to finalize whichever ones they wanted in color with the option to use the black and white sketches as the final if they were  preferred in the end.

The two sketches were decided upon, and these are my color versions below:

I think they are a nice experiment for me in terms of trying to work with a little closer to my sketchbook work (more limited color palette, leaving things a little bit looser and more atmospheric) but I don't think that they are 100% there yet. I have this idea that I have in my head of how I'd like to be working, but just can't quite get on paper yet. The client was very positive about the two finals, but decided to go with black and white original sketches as the final, which I am completely fine with since I think I prefer them a bit more myself.

The good news is that this one assignment has been approved to continue for a whole book of Flannery O'Connor short stories! I'll get to work on 11-12 black and white interior illustrations and a cover design through the end of the year, which I am very excited about. Unfortunately, I won't post any of the other illustrations until the book is published and complete, but I'll try to keep posting other work in the meantime.

I do want to keep working on this idea of looser, limited color personal pieces on my own time to try to achieve this look that I have in my head. Maybe I'll get it, maybe I won't, but I've got to keep trying or it will continue to bug me.

I might try to post some of the inspiration photos I looked at while working on this series of illustrations, since I think they're pretty interesting.