Monday, July 23, 2012

Cappy Hampers


These happy campers appeared in Highlights for Children magazine earlier this year. The "Campfire Bait" rebus was written by Aline Alexander Newman and illustrated by yours truly.

High priced, big-time professional modeling types.
Generally, when I start a drawing I work from my imagination. But there's usually a point where I feel I need to look at some reference. For this illustration I borrowed my brother and my nephew. My goal wasn't to create a likeness of this dynamic duo; rather, I used their photos to help me draw more convincing poses, camp chairs, and folds in clothing.

It's been a while, but I'd guess I also looked at photos of bark, pine needles on a branch, fishing poles, tackle boxes, raccoons and probably even hot dogs!

I've done some camping in my day and my experiences crept into this illustration. That's my tent and my cooler in the background. There is one camping detail that I left out of this illustration – mosquitoes!