A Sneak Peek into the development of the first illustration for "Pennygirl's Rescue"

Hey, is anybody curious as to how this book about Penny became what you will see in just 4 weeks? Well, it was a true labor of love, starting with an idea and blooming into 28 skillfully developed illustrations for the finished book. After my manuscript was completed, it was professionally edited to become the final story for the book.

It now had to become a picture book so it was time to hire an illustrator. I quickly decided that watercolor painted illustrations would best compliment my story. When I found an illustrator with this style, I decided to see if we were going to be a good fit and asked her to draw a pencil sketch for one page(one scene) of my book. Would she be able to draw Penny the way I wanted and understand my vision? The scene was: "Along the pathway, Penny poked her snout into some tall reeds and out leapt a huge bullfrog bopping her square on the end of her snout!"

My illustrator drew the first pencil sketch which is shown on the left and I really liked the drawing but it wasn't quite right. I wanted Penny to look surprised and I thought her body should be in a crouched position to get this effect. After all, she was getting bopped on her snout by a giant bullfrog! I also wanted to make sure the vegetation in this scene, and in my book, was accurate because my story is based on a true story. It takes place in Texas, U.S.A. and I live in Southeastern Canada. I had no idea what the vegetation would be like but I wanted to find out. I researched 'vegetation around ponds and marshy areas in Texas', where this particular scene took place. I looked up 'bushes, flowers and trees in Texas farmland areas' as well, so I could give my illustrator a true sense of how the background plants and trees would need to be for the scene. I sent her 60 pictures to use as reference (for the entire book). She came up with a new sketch, which she hand painted as well and we loved it, except for one small edit- the frog was not a bullfrog, it was a tree frog! She edited the sketch, redrawing a bullfrog and the final sketch and painting is the one you will see on page 24 in my book!