Are You My Lover? - Illustrations

This is perhaps my favorite story to illustrate so far, for several reasons. When it came to creating the illustrations, I wanted it to relate to the old-school feel of the PD Eastman book this story is loosely based on. I first read Are You My Mother? in the mid to late '60's. In my version, the dog, Hump-Pug, is attracted to legs. I was thinking of legs and the '60's and the image from the t.v. show My Three Sons popped into my head.

 

I thought it would be fun to have a series of legs across the background of the text - the world from Hump-Pugs perspective.   So here are the legs I created for this story.  The first three are a direct riff on the My Three Sons legs.  I changed the color to match the colors form the PD Eastman story. The next set of legs are people Hump-Pug runs into.

I went with the brown color with pencil lines over it because that is the style of illustration from the original book  PD Eastman also used red and yellow in his illustrations, but that was the extent of his palette. Below you will also see an illustration of Hump-Pug.  She might look a little crazed, but that's because she is.

I hope you enjoy reading Are You My Lover? as much as I did making it.  It will be published on April 19, 2013 at The Book of Bartholomew.