HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE ON AN AFRICAN FIDDLE

It's amazing how quickly things can change. Last week I felt hopelessly buried under an ever growing to-do list. Now I'm caught up and have time for things I didn't think I'd be able to participate in this month, like the Nevada SCBWI Postcard Project. The idea of the project is to take on assignments that are presented and create children's illustrations that will serve as promotional postcards. Through each stage of the assignment, illustrators post their work online for critique and discussions. Cynthia Kremsner and Dinh Chau-Kieckhafer, illustrator coordinators for the Nevada SCBWI, have set up the project to mimic the Art Director/Illustrator relationship as closely as possible. They've done a great job. The first assignment is Mother Goose's Hey Diddle Diddle. In keeping with the cultural themes of my work, my illustration will take place on a vast African Savanna. A young goge (African fiddle) player, has scampered up a tree to get away from the animals that have wreaked havoc on the picnic scene below. (His friends have run off and left their instruments behind.) Unfortunately his fiddle has become a chew toy for a leopard cub (the cat), that sent some other items down the river (like a dish and spoon from the picnic spread). A nearby hyena pup (little dog) thinks this is very entertaining and can't wait to join in. Off in the distance one can see an elephant (a cow because she is female) jumping over the moon. Here are the rough preliminary sketches for the characters in my scene:

The cat (foreground) The little dog (foreground) The cow (less detail because she is off in the distance)  

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