Shadow Spider

Black and White Spread for 'Lily and the Shadow Spider'

This spread took me a while to get right, and even then I had to sleep on it. This is the first spread for one of the Lily Hope stories...and besides the top of Lily's head in the panels on the left side she cannot be seen. This was the thing I had to sleep on to decide whether it worked without her full apparition. But in the end I decided it was all about the shadow spider. 

This beautiful but scary spider is based on the black widow spider. I love this spider. I am, however, arachnophobic. I love the motif of the black widow and really wanted to play on the feel we have of spiders.

Colour Spread - dulled colours to represent night

Dinosaur Museum

Black and White Ink Drawing - 'Vincent and the Dinosaur Bones'

This is a 'thought' spread. Vincent is describing to his new dinosaur skeleton friend what a museum is like. It took me quite some time to select the correct dinosaur skeleton to have on show in the museum. I wanted a familiar and recognisable skeleton but I wanted to stray away from the cliche T-Rex. In the end I decided to go for the Triceratops, my husband's favourite of the dinosaurs (my favourite is the Leaellynasaura, but they are very small and not very recognisable). The decision to use the Triceratops, however, was not easy either. It has been argued that the Triceratops was not it's own species of dinosaur but actually a juvenile form of a Torosaurus. Yet, it still appears that even though Scientists are accidentally making species extinct (including the Brontosaurus) we all still acknowledge them. These dinosaurs are fun.

Full Colour Spread

Detail 1

Detail 2

Detail 3

Detail 4