Welcome to the Happy Kid Stories project!

(click on the title to see full post)

Hey guys! So my son (11 yrs old) and I have been working on a series of children’s stories for some time – we are actually self-publishing our first book soon! We have about a dozen various stories already, all with the same general cast of characters having different fun times and adventures. A few are close to being a final rough draft, and several are just still ideas with a few dialogues.

Initially I was going to see about hiring out the illustration, but being that this is really just a hobby at this point, we weren’t sure we could afford to spend the kind of money I saw being needed for the caliber of illustration I know I would want.

While pondering this problem, and telling my son how expensive it would be to hire an illustrator, he was like, “YOU can be the illustrator mom!”

And I was like, wooooaaaaa there pard’ner – he seemed so confident like it was a no brainer and I felt a bit overwhelmed at how natural and able he felt his mommy could be at the task. I’m a woman of mediocre stick-figure ability people!

But his stout statement made me pause long enough to consider the idea, and by July 2018 I began drawing everyday in my new pursuit to move away from stick figures. 😉

So far, I have definitely learned a lot, but have a looong way to go. I do hope to get there.

Here’s a few examples of my current level – much of the time I am drawing from reference which means I am either drawing someone else’s illustration freehand while looking at their drawing, or using an image I found online as a reference. I have learned a lot this way so far.