To Tell the Toof

Some handle "home alone" better than others.

The Day Job

I recently started a new job at the publishing company.

One of the first requests I received from the team leader? 

 Create an illustration for the rollout meeting.

Ugh. If you insist.

(Completed in a quick all-nighter because procrastination is real.)

12th Day of Procrastinators

Christmas Card 2014

On the Fifth Year of Cardmas...

2010

 

2011

 2012

 2013

Fly-nally Drawing Again

Some in-progress sketches from my recent plane rides this past week, 

drawn on itty bitty, tiny paper.

Images borrowed from my instagram: @kelcroyillustrations

Hanging with my bestie, J. Law.

The air's hottest club this weekend was Delta.

You Do You

A drawing I did today for no other reason than I wanted to.

Because no one is better at it than you.

Let's Get Some Shoes

Hello, All!

Sorry for the radio silence. 

But I'm about to start making up for it - lots of projects in the works!

First, a just for fun (joke) sketch I did for a friend.

They're launching a great new shoe company soon.

You should check them out here!

Which one is your favorite?

Princess by Design

I was recently commissioned to design and create a Disney inspired princess

version of a spunky, spirited birthday girl.

Um, YES. Yes, I will do that.

It was a blast.

Meet Clara.

Here is the original sketch, done in a Starbucks in Cambridge on a gloriously lovely day.

I don't usually do the middle step, but I wanted to make sure I liked the color concept I'd chosen.

Thought it might be fun to line them up side by side.

Here are some other color experiments. 

 This is my favorite of the color schemes I tried. 

I would wear this all the time, always, forever.

Here are some funky, in-between stages that I thought had kind of an interesting look to them.

New Neighbors

Keeping professionalism alive and well in my new office.

(He and I have a copy of this hanging in our cubicles).

They'll Hough and They'll Puff...

And they'll blow your mind!

In preparation for my trip to NYC this month to see Julianne and Derek Hough's 

MOVE LIVE on TOUR

I created my third installment of goofy celebrity drawings, this time a "selfie"

with the talented sibs (since I can't afford VIP tickets to take a real photo).

The following photos are from my Instagram account.

@kelcroyillustrations

The drawing is 2.5" x 2.5"

I added this last one for scale.

Resurfacing At Last!

Before the recent, big move to Boston, I made some parting gifts for my coworkers.

Detail - porcelain paint

Lettering detail

Mug #2

Chalk paint, chalk and some fixative spray.

And now, meet some of the new coworkers. 

Working my way through the Wiley-Blackwell SSH Editorial team:

We're Moving!!

The fuzz kids and I are relocating to Boston!

It's been a crazy month! Once we're settled, I'll post more work!

Countdown to Breakfast

The latest installment of my MilkRings comic strip!

There's No Place Like Holmes

Sometimes when I need a break from juggling projects I have some tea...

 with Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch).

The following are just some iPhone pictures I took while working on 

this silly, for-fun project.

Here's the first in-progress shot that I posted on Instagram.

I asked people if they could guess who it was.

For more pictures, please follow me @kelcroyillustrations !!

Benedict is underway. I put my pencil in for scale.

The full, finished drawing is about 3"x4"

Finished! 

3"x4" pencil

Another post from Instagram

@kelcroyillustrations

Robots

I'm having a blast deciding on robot looks for William and the Robot Game!

Below are a couple snapshots of my sketches so far!

Happy, Merry

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

-Kelsey, Amelie & Pontoof

Fairly Tales

My on-going, self-amusement project. Disneying my friends. 

Newest to the party: Merlin. Welcome.

Coming soon: Rapunzel 

Some Fresh Ayres

I was asked by the University of Tennessee College Scholars Honors Program 

to design some artwork for their 40th anniversary this year.

As a graduate from the program it was touching

to be approached with this project.

Mixed media: watercolor & digital

Square Button Books

Below is some of the final artwork I created as the fake Designer/Art Director

for our fake children's publishing house, Square Button Books in the very real

Columbia Publishing Course book workshop.

In eight days, we divided into 'houses', decided on our job positions/areas: 

Publisher, Editor(s), Sales, Business Manager, Designer, Production, 

Marketing, Publicity, and Subsidiary Rights

We have to develop almost 30 book ideas, whittling it down to six final titles.

With these books, each person has specific tasks to perform and include in the

final product: A Prospectus of our house's Fall 2014 list.

The horizontal version of our logo.

The cover design for our final prospectus.

**My cover design for our (fake) Mindy Kaling book for teen girls,

complete with my handwriting! 

I wish this book were real. I'd totally read it.

Our editors got to contact her agent to get permission to make our fake title.

**This book went through so many changes, my whole group (including myself)

were ready to scream. I'm relatively pleased with how this turned out

even though it is different from our original look.

Shakespeare meets Gossip Girl...

My cover for the first book of our Middle Grade boys' series, Pegleg Academy.

The final cover does not include the series title and instead just says

the individual book's final title: 

Sticks and Stones, Skulls and Bones

I had fun making the skull out of paper from my notebook and snapping

pictures of it on my phone in my dorm room late at night.

Harry Potter meets Treasure Island.

I illustrated this cover myself roughly in the style of the wonderful Brian Biggs.

We were allowed to use existing illustrations for our fake book covers 

during this workshop, but I thought this one needed

an original image (because there was nothing available to fit this particular title).

I thoroughly enjoyed getting so use my illustration background during

the book workshop.

Our editors contacted Helen Ketteman, who was very enthusiastic about

our proposed project!

**Now, this is a preexisting illustration done by the talented Sara Palacios. 

I borrowed it for this project and doctored it slightly, deleting, moving

 and adding things so that it will better suit the cover.

This was a picture book idea based around Sandra Cisneros' poem.

**Here is my cover design for our (fake) picture book based on the Instagram sensations: 

Tasuku and his best friend, Muu. 

Our resource team - a group of publishing professionals who graciously

donated their time to instruct us during our workshop -

suggested that I "brand" Tasuku & Muu, so the above title is how I interpreted that.

Thankfully, they liked it!

Thank you for looking through all of these!

Now, below are some of the earlier versions of the above titles:

The design supervisors and I fought for this cover for a long time.

Several of the people upstairs (literally upstairs) did not agree that it fit the

developing concept of the book. I appreciated that they did say it was a very good

cover before asking that it be changed 10000 times.

So, we went more modern, as was requested.

I actually didn't hate this as much as I thought I would.

It grew on me quite a bit.

Then, in an effort to try a different feel entirely, I tried a Playbill style

to allude to the Shakespeare aspect of the series. The buyer from

Barnes & Noble liked my Playbill cover a lot, but

she ultimately liked the original cover best, as did I.

That yellow is rough.

This was used in one of our sales packets. 

My teammate asked me to make a coloring book page of Tasuku & Muu.

This was one of my brainstorming results for a logo design. Way too corporate. 

I disliked it instantly. I found a happy medium between this

design and another, resulting in the final logo.

**I do not own the rights to this photo. As this was merely

an educational exercise, I made no financial profits from the image(s).