Jeanine Henderson

More sketchbook girls

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 03:35:48 +0000

Just sharing a few last black & white and another color image from my Sketchbook Project submission. I was excited to find out that the Sketchbook Project at the Brooklyn Library was featured last week in the New York Times!

Love is…

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:16:05 +0000

Been having fun with linework in my sketchbook with my “Girls in Love”, but been itching to play around with some of the drawings in color. Here’s one…

More sketchbook girls…

admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 21:15:16 +0000

Just sharing a few more pages from my sketchbook for the 2012 Art House Co-op Limited Edition Sketchbook Project. Having a lot of fun with this!

Girls in Love

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:22:30 +0000

I’m participating again in the Arthouse Co-op’s Sketchbook Project—this time for the 2012 “Limited Edition”, which will include publication in a book the Co-op will publish in the Fall of 2012.

This time around I choose the theme “Pictures and Descriptions”; Afterall, that’s pretty much what illustration is all about, right?

It also seemed that this theme would lend itself to a good opportunity to combine & experiment with lettering + images together. After a lot of thought about where to derive my content from, I decided I wanted to keep it light-hearted and fun. I found some really sweet and inspiring quotes on love, and felt they would be a perfect pairing with some of the dreamy girls I love to draw.

And on a personal level, this felt like an interesting concept to evolve to, considering I submitted a 2011 Sketchbook Project with the theme of “Great Hopes and Massive Failures”—based on the miserable (but funny!) experiences of dating in the pursuit of love. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to fall head-over-heels in love, so it’s been fun to make some pictures inspired by this wonderful side of it! :)

Here’s a few pages:

Mermaids on my mind

admin — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:45:30 +0000

I just finished a new painting commissioned for a personal collection. I jumped at the opportunity to do this, because the only real guideline was that it should be a mermaid—which definitely tops my list of favorite subject matter!

I also really enjoyed this project because with such a juggle of my digital illustration work + full-time design hours, I just haven’t been able to take these kinds of projects on much lately— and I do miss getting my hands on real brushes and paint!

I’ve included here a few images of the process—including sketches, color study, underpainting, and development of the final piece.

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Book cover character illustrations

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:03:12 +0000

I recently had a great opportunity to work with Scholastic on a really fun book cover job. It was for a sweet chapter book series, featuring a little girl with some big personality! So I was able to jump into some character development; Here’s some of the sketches and the color piece I submitted for final.

First character sketches

Rough sketches in layout

Revised character sketches with rough color

Final art

Unfortunately, they ultimately decided on a different look for the series, so my art was killed. But I really loved exploring this character, so I’m hoping to work on more projects like this! Thanks to the Art Director, Natalie, for thinking of me for this one!

The New Baby Food Rules

admin — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:29:15 +0000

I had the super fun opportunity to illustrate a feature article in the current issue of Babytalk Magazine. The content was about new “rules” for feeding your baby certain foods at certain ages, and the art director had some clear ideas about concept for these four pieces that allowed me to tackle some fun new subjects! I loved the 50s-diner theme, and always get excited for a chance to use new lettering styles.

Thanks Donna, for this fun project!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:00:19 +0000

Just sharing a little valentine cheer! :)

Children’s book illustration samples

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:21:55 +0000

I often have aspiring children’s book authors ask me to do sample illustrations that they can submit with their manuscripts. I’ve learned, though, that in many cases first-time authors don’t really understand the process of getting a book published, and so I don’t typically jump at these opportunities.

I’ve learned through my years in a children’s publishing house that publishers prefer to pair the manuscripts they acquire with their own vision for art style so almost never will take in art submitted with a proposal. Therefore, unless it’s a well-known author or a big budget is offered—these kinds of projects can be a lot of work with no real benefit for an illustrator.

But, I recently had a woman approach me with a book idea so fun & unique & fantastic…it really spoke to me, and she had a good understanding of the process and realistic expectations for her budget—so I took it on and created a few tight sketches and one finished piece to accompany her proposals. I can’t divulge too many details, but I love her character and her story—I had a blast creating these and she didn’t mind if I share.

These are 2 of the sketches; I inked the one she liked best, and the other I would love to revisit for a personal piece at some point.

Here’s the piece I did as a final; the story lends itself to a limited palette-so this was kind of a fun and different way for me to work…has a bit of a looser, more washy-feel to it.

I don’t expect much more to happen with these-though she did say her literary agent recognized and really liked my work. So we’ll see! :)

Mermaids with a twist

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:35:52 +0000

A few months ago, I had a super fun YA book cover project with Sourcebooks for a villainous mermaid-adventure tale set in Coney Island. Given my love of Coney Island & it’s annual Mermaid Parade—plus anything generally creepy and/or scary—I can’t think of a project that could be more perfect for me! There were a ton of fun ideas to explore for this one, because the story is jam-packed full of amazing imagery. I worked with the art director to ultimately come up with this cover, which focused on the story’s evil predatory mermaid and includes hand-lettered title type.

This cover was well-received, but before it went to print, the publisher decided to change it to reflect more of the epic adventure aspect of the story & appeal more to boys (especially since the main character is a boy). The final cover that they developed is similar to one of the initial concepts I had submitted, and I think what they ended up with looks fantastic! The book is a really great, super exciting read! I def. recommend checking it out!