An Illustrator's Process -- Preliminary Sketching for a Magazine Story

I recently illustrated a story for Spider Magazine which will run in the February issue of the magazine. I love the ‘bug’ magazines—Babybug, Ladybug, Spider and Cricket.  And I really enjoyed the story by J.S. Webster Jessica Van Dessel, which is about Quakers, a family thought to be run-away-slaves, and spiders.

The deadline for the assignment was short, and a considerable amount of the time was spent in research and preliminary sketches. Thanks to my agent Abigail’s husband supplying the name of the type of spider I needed, the spider research was considerably shortened. With library books, my own private supply of books, my file of research clippings -- and, of course, the internet -- my research was accomplished!

Here are some of my sketches..........