Illustrating Love You From Right Here

This past year I had the amazing opportunity to work with foster-mom and author Jamie Sandefer, illustrating her book Love You From Right Here, published by Lucid Books in May. Love You From Right Here is a sweet story about a foster daughter and mother relationship and all the different emotions a child experiences in foster care or adoption. I felt so honored to work on this project because of the lack of picture books out there for foster kids, and the need that families have for this kind of book. It has already made such a huge impact on this community (we've sold 1,300 books so far!) and I hope it continues!

Purchase your copy on Amazon, 

or buy a signed copy from me the illustrator, here on my website

Here's a peek into my process with some early storyboards, sketches, and finished artwork. The total time it took to complete the illustrations from start to finish was 8 months!

character studies of the two main characters exploring their gestures and size relationship 

this set of sketches is called a turn-around showing the main character from different angles

some initial storyboard thumbnail sketches to get ideas down

initial rough sketch

Then I refine the drawing in more detail with any necessary changes. I had to move the Mom over to the right since she was falling into the center gutter.

The finished artwork! Watercolor and colored pencil on Strathmore 500 Illustration board.

rough sketch

refined drawing with changes

finished artwork

Cover art in progress. I use a light tack/ washi tape for clean borders, then start with watercolor washes over my drawing.

The finished cover illustration!

I hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of my process creating the illustrations for Love You From Right Here! For more daily updates of what I'm working on follow me on instagram @pamelagoodmanart.

My art featured on the MATS blog!

I can't believe it has already been a year since I last blogged (whoops)! This past year has brought some really great projects my way, namely a picture book which I will share next. But I just found out that my artwork was featured on the Make Art That Sells (MATS) blog showcasing some of the student work from the Assignment  Bootcamp I participated in last year (2016). 

I LOVED the Assignment Bootcamp! It's one pro-level assignment every month for 5 months, and because of it I was able to push myself to develop more personal work to add to my portfolio. And this particular assignment, creating holiday ornaments in the "lumberjack" theme, actually led me to make the real ornaments that I have for sale in my Etsy shop here! I would recommend this course if you're looking to push yourself further and learn about yourself as an artist. There were certainly assignments that I got really excited about, and others that pushed me outside my comfort zone, but that's where I learned the most about myself. Yay MATS!

"lumber jack" themed ornament designs for Assignment Bootcamp

Ornaments in my Etsy shop