Portrait of my grandfather

This is a sketch I did of my grandfather, Alexander Hickey, in August of 1993, when I was 17. He and my grandmother were visiting my family in Maine, and one morning during breakfast (he was eating bacon and eggs, as he did every single morning), Papa asked me if I could draw him.

So I got a sketchbook and a pencil, and right there at the breakfast table, I sketched my grandfather. I had done plenty of life drawing at that point, but this may have been the first time that I drew a person who was just sitting there looking right at me. I drew quickly, since I wasn't sure how long he wanted to sit there. I think it took about 20-30 minutes. I didn't worry about how it would come out. I didn't even think about it. Looking back at this picture 14 years later, I still really like it.

Now that I'm an illustrator, and I spend hours on every picture- researching, sketching, revising, editing, trying to make deadlines, etc., I like to take a break every now and then and draw someone (usually my wife or daughter). It's always good practice to draw from life, and it reminds me that sometimes it helps to just relax and draw, and not worry about how it's going to come out.

But if I were going to edit this one, I'd zoom out and draw the whole scene, bacon and eggs and all.

Merry Christmas

Here's a watercolor sketch I did of Santa Claus while I was working on 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. I was thinking of doing the book in watercolor, but in the end, I decided it looker better in pencil.

Happy Holidays!

Giant sketches

Here are a couple character sketches I did while I was working on Jack and the Beanstalk. I had looked at several versions of the story, and found that some Giants were just too nightmarishly scary, and some were too cartoonish and silly. I thought the Giant should be a little bit of both- scary enough to make the story exciting, but not so scary that little kids will have nightmares after reading my book. So I gave him a big round nose, and pointy ears, and armpit stains, and food stains, and way-too-small crown, and a bad comb-over...