Illustrating books is a chance to become someone (or something) else…if only for a short while. I imagine myself as each character depicted in the story I have been asked to illustrate, and place myself in their fantastic worlds. Who am I? How do I look? Where am I — and what do my surroundings look like? What am I feeling as the story progresses? How do I relate to the other characters in the story and to the series of unfolding events?

It is from these imaginings that I conceptualize the illustrations that will bring vivid life and motion to the written (and often spoken) words on the page. I am drawn to stories that are optimally conveyed by fanciful, dream-like illustrations that appeal to a universal sense of whimsy — and an ability to temporarily suspend disbelief.