Squirrel’s New Friend
In this emotional journey Squirrel meets a new friend, Bird! They become fast friends and fill their days with mischief and joy together. That is, until Bird tells Squirrel something that changes everything...
Join Squirrel as he experiences joy and hardship through the seasons of his new friendship with Bird.
This story came from a very personal place for me, as it was based on feelings I went through as a child when I had to move away from my childhood house that I spent my entire life in, to a whole new state hours away from my best friend. These are feelings that I know are familiar to lots of children, feeling like you have no control, experiencing loss, and learning how to grieve your routine.Life can be a lot like the seasons of nature, that concept leads my book through it’s narrative. Winter may feel endless but spring will always come.
Process
This project started as an extensive Pinterest board full of reference and inspiration images, from there I began exploring style and character design through pages and pages of my sketchbook. The ideation process was a lot of back and forth on what i wanted from the visuals of my concept, always with a focus on a soft watercolor feel.When laying out my pages I worked simultaneously with the manuscript and a thumbnail layout of my spreads. This allowed me the freedom to shift and adjust the writing as well as imagery as felt right. When i was happy with my draft, and the manuscript was complete I moved onto making more detailed sketches of each page. The sketching process was done digitally in procreate, however each page was painted traditionally. I found the digital sketching much quicker to achieve a result i was happy with, but i still wanted a traditional book so I decided to print my clean sketch at a 15% opacity on bristol board. From this point I stretched the paper onto gatorboard with staples and painted directly over my printed sketch.
