Picture Book

This is Madeline. 

“Madeline” is a shy little 5 year old who’s afraid of, well, everything. From ghosts in the attic to her family dog, to her own birthday present, she always expects the worst.

However, when she finally works up the nerve to open her scary birthday gift it turns out to be magical cowgirl boots and when Madeline puts them on she turns into Wild and Crazy Maddie MacGee the bravest cowgirl there ever could be...

Maddie’s Boots is a story I’ve developed over several years. I was originally inspired by my neighbor who I babysat for. This little girl was teeny tiny and incredibly shy around groups of people. However, once we were alone, her gigantic personality would come thundering out of her tiny body in a rush, as if she couldn't possibly contain all the imagination and activity she had going on inside. She was rowdy, she was sassy, she was crazy and cool and I immediately wanted to be her friend and hang out in the awesome world she created for herself.

I think most people know little girls like this. A girl who looks at the world around her as one big adventure. She's usually wearing a smirk along with polka dots and a tu-tu. These girls are writers of their own journeys, and generally have a pair of cowgirl boots handy because, well, you never know when you might need to kick some...dust...and take some names.

Maddie lives in our world, and she reflects the girls of today, the ones who seek adventure in their own backyard and the ones who might need the help of a pair of magical boots to wrangle it.

I feel like a picture book is really just a selection of the best frames of a short film. With that in mind, I work to create my illustrations with forced perspectives that add action and movement into each picture. I want everything in Maddie's world to be large and loud and appealing, and almost tangible.

Add a little attitude...and hopefully you will want to be Maddie's friend too...

This is how I typically approach most of my artwork:

Step 1. Hand drawn main sketch with pencil and paper.

Step 2. Scan sketch into Photoshop, remove all but pencil outline, begin layering textures (the lace frame is a scanned doily).

Step 3. Remove the pencil outline.

Step 4. In photoshop, I hand draw a dark, thick, black outline to refine the detail of the drawing (I use black boxes like the one at bottom to create the proper framing I want after the drawing is complete).