It takes a lot of practice.

Those are sketch journals: half writing, half art. I began to keep journals—the ones on the left side of the top shelf—when I was in middle school.

The kids who become writers and illustrators like to write, write, write, and draw, draw, draw.

That would be me. And maybe you?

Here are examples of illustrations I’ve done for books and magazines.

Sometimes I write the story, too. Sometimes I illustrate someone else’s story. Sometimes an illustration is almost a story in itself:

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This one illustrates a story I wrote about coyotes. The text will be added to the page:

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This page, from the same story, is waiting for text too:

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Here’s an example of text and illustration together:

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Black-and-white is fun, too. Great for snow!:

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There’s no black outline at all in this one from my book Tadpoles:

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Sometimes cartooning is the way to go:

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And sometimes it works best to be serious:

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Illustration is magic!

 

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All material on this site, both text and graphics, is © Betsy James, and may not be used commercially without her permission.