It’s release day for Mouseboat!

Here’s some more bits and pieces of the book making process: thumbnails, sketches, reference images and very early character ideas.

As an illustrator, I think there’s a danger in getting too close to a story: a certain amount of objectivity always helps, in my experience. But sometimes that line blurred for me while working on Mouseboat. Over the course of the book, I lost my grandmother, my uncle and attended funerals for other friends and family. While I couldn’t relate to Faye’s untimely loss of her mother, I could relate to the wave of emotions that grief hits you with: anger, guilt and sorrow, crashing over your head.

This past fall, I heard the Polish expression that in a shipwreck, all you need is a plank. Not two. Not three. A plank is all you need to keep afloat and survive. Looking at the illustrations for Mouseboat, I hope that sentiment comes through. It’s impossible to sweep away all the turmoil that grief brings and it can often feel like a storm from which there’s no possibility of relief. But sometimes it just takes one small thing to hold onto, as you stick your head above the waves. One plank.

And if there’s anything that comes through in the art for Mouseboat, I hope it’s that small bit of hope.