Aaron Renier

With illustration work I've done in the past, I would never be in contact with the author. But working with Dave on this project was very different. We were in phone contact almost every day I was drawing it. 

Initially he wanted me to draw the whole book in ink, like Walker Bean, but I had recently been doing more and more drawings with pencil, and I wanted to give it a try. He was up for anything. So I sent him this proposal drawing:

He liked it, but he wanted it to feel less like a comic. He also had the idea that the faces in the book would be mostly obscured, or in silhouette, an idea I really liked. 

So I sent him this:

He showed it to Knopf, and then I got the go ahead to continue. 

In the end the illustration ended up looking a little more realistically proportioned...

 

Here are the two main characters zoomed in a little.

Gran:

 

and Catalina:

I hope the book does really well. I loved it before I added my drawings to it. I only hope my illustrations add a sort of sooty depth to Dave's story, and help some reluctant readers enter its world, and see the magic for themselves.