First Spread of "And"

Here is the first spread in the children's book And that I illustrated in 2021. I painted the book by hand with a combination of watercolor and gouache, and then touched it up on photoshop. I wanted the book to have multiple scenes per page with dialogue boxes like a comic book. I added the grassy border to give it a classic children's book feel. The border also has ants hidden in the grass in different places throughout the book, because I always enjoyed looking for hidden details like this as a kid. I also created a font out of my handwriting for the dialogue boxes. I enjoyed making up my own back stories for the 2 main characters as a way to chose their clothing styles. For example, I gave Bobby a Tie Dye T-shirt because I imagined his parents as new age hippies who love jam-bands. I based the architecture of the elementary school off of a school in my neighborhood in Asheville, North Carolina. The school is called Claxton Elementary. I chose it because I felt the design was inspired by greek architecture. I wanted the school to have an uplifting and inspiring look.