What's Wrong, Cattle Drive?

On the back cover of the November Highlights is one of my favorite What's Wrong? illustrations to date. It was so much fun to research and put together. My wife and daughter can be seen on the horse to the back left.

Below is the line art. Sometimes I don't complete the background because I want to keep it free of line, that way it stays in the back. When I get the time I do finish up the line art just in case anyone ever decides to buy it.

The sketch is below. You'll probably note the major difference of the adding of the horns to that cattle but what you may look over is the removal of all of the udders. Ha ha!

What's Wrong, Southwest Ranch?

Yee-haw! This is my latest What's Wrong? to be published by those wonderful folks at Highlights for Children! It can be seen on the back cover of the September issue which should be available now.

This one really had me missing the Southwest. My alter ego, Ranger Kent, can be seen teaching some kids how to lasso, and my wife's alter ego, Cowgirl Pearl, is riding a reindeer. As previously posted, the famous racehorse, Secretariat, is on the lower right.

The first sketch is posted below. You can see some of the major changes that needed to done to complete this one. Most notably the switching of Pearl and the Ostrich which really did improve the composition. The funniest correction I thought was that the sunbathing roadrunner because he looked like he was dead. I couldn't make myself get rid of him entirely so I moved him next to the birds listening to the boom box in the final art.

Click here if you'd like to get your kids a subscription to Highlights for Children. Don't subject them to only seeing Highlights when they are sick or about to get their teeth drilled. That's not very nice, is it? Be a good parent.

3rd Wedding Anniversary.

Believe it or not the traditional Third Wedding Anniversary gift is leather because it is durable, long lasting, and strong. Rather than buy Daisy some boring leather passport holder I decided to make her a little portrait of our family (starring Kent, Pearl and Virginia, of course) made entirely of leather. Initially I was going to actually draw/stain the leather but I couldn't find smooth enough leather and I was limited with time. Instead I just cut simple pieces which was still equally tricky to do.