Yes, I've illustrated a children's book...

... it's a mock-up of work from my Summer 2010 MFA endeavor at Marywood University's  'Art of Children's Book Illustration' class.

I was hesitant about taking on the daunting task of illustrating a children's book, but my wonderful professors, Megan Halsey and Melanie Hall were so positive and supportive during our initial meeting, I felt energized about completing this project.

Everyone in the class was assigned a manuscript and I believe they picked the perfect one which allowed me to explore my artistic strengths. I have crafted a style of art where I use the xerography process (photocopy words and sometimes images) and hand-tear the resulting paper palette to create my imagery. I created several (political) pieces of artwork using  this collage technique prior to this class (my first piece was in 2004). but I believe by spending almost a year + on perfecting these illustrations (I did several versions of each spread) has allowed me to successfully showcase my style of illustration and offer this service to my clients (Thank you M & M!)

The slideshow below is the final project, a complete 32 page illustrated book of her manuscript. I sent numerous copies to publishing houses for review and have received wonderful feedback from many of them, but no one has officially agreed to publish this version. Even though I did receive approval from Miriam's estate to solicit prospective publisher's with my version of 'Lazy Day', I believe because this was previously published (and is not in public domain) I am wrestling with an additional obstacle of having a prospective publisher weed through attaining her estate's publishing credits. However, I am still soliciting, but mainly as a  portfolio piece which showcases my illustration capabilities. For this reason, I figured I'd just post the entire book as a part of my portfolio.

I am working on writing and illustrating my own book, but I realize, even as an illustrator with a specific style, breaking into children's book publishing  is not only a crap shoot, but if someone decides to pick up your book, it's also a mighty long process until the work is published. It may be a long journey, but I am set for the challenge and will keep everyone posted of my progress.

Until then, I am happy to share with you and hope you enjoy my version of Miriam Schlein's 'Lazy Day'!

-CG

(As of 2012, all imagery below is for educational use only, not for print publication Credits: Artwork © Christina Galbiati; words © Miriam Schlein).