Caricatures, Silhouettes and Illustrations by Leona Hosack

"Bats fly in the sky when the sun goes down" says Jamilla's mother....  "Zip, zip, the bat flies, in a shape like an '8'....." Challenge: How to find room in my little bitty but cute house to spread out my sketches as I work on my new illustration project- Jamilla Does Not Want A Bat In Her House, for the Baha'i Publishing Trust? I have some space in the office I share with my hubby, and I'm used to drawing on a drawing board on my lap, but in this case I need to spread out now and then, just to see the progression of things! Soooo, I cleared off my beautifully long kitchen counter and yahoo! I have a great space to work on! No problema! Also another question I've had is to how to illustrate a children's book that includes a bat, without making it look too halloweeny.   So I googled up images of bats and am working on it! How cute is my bat? Another challenge that I'm imposing on myself is that I want to...

Character Sketch for Jamila I'm on the verge of receiving hard copies of my book "Kamal's Day" from Bellwood Press!  Any day now! And my kickstarter project for my book Babysitter Blues is in the final stages of  tweeking before it goes live! So inspite of being busy, busy, busy, it is with great pleasure that I can announce that  I'm now working on a new illustration project! This is a picture book also for Bellwood Press! I'm having fun using pinterest as a holding place for reference pictures I want to use for ideas on how the furniture and decor looks in this girl's house.  http://www.pinterest.com/leesinterests/ (See some of the living room ideas I've used below.) One of my challenges is to make the character look the same throughout the book! Here are some character sketches I've done for the main character Jamilla. Nothing is set in stone yet! More character development for Jamila! A possible c...

I have written a book for middle readers, produced by One Voice Press, that's been available as an ebook on Amazon.com. Now we are just about ready to post our kickstarter Project to raise funds to produced Babysitter Blues in print form.  Cover For Babysitter Blues! Please take a look at my kickstarter Project. It's not live yet but we would love your imput! Check it out here!https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1822318942/561664929?token=139e1e1b

                                         Doesn't this dog silhouette look nice in my living room?                               That's my dulcimer to the left of it. I do still play it once in a while!                                  I was just looking through my files of silhouettes and I found these. Siena Autumn  These two girls are twins- can you tell? These were a commission I did last year.  New fantasy goal! to attend the Twin's Day Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio and do silhouettes of twins all day!                  Click here to learn more about Twins Day: http://www.twinsdays.org/ A Video of Twin's Day:

The Baha'i New Years Day (Naw-Ruz) is coming up on March 21st. Here's another chance to get a free download of my Naw-Ruz card design through my Etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/listing/182935211/free-download-naw-ruz-card For a more in depth background of Naw-Ruz click here:  http://bahaiblog.net/site/2012/03/spiritual-springtime/  Below is a video for Naw-Ruz, featuring the music of my friends Marty and Wendy Quinn.  

My latest submission to Illustration Friday- The theme this week is "Spark"! Practicing up my Caricaturing and Cartooning skills! http://illustrationfriday.com/

Violet Moira I was asked recently to draw these two girls for their respective birthday parties.Their moms used the drawings for a pin-the-tail like game, where the party goers were blind-folded(or just spun around with eyes closed) and then tried to pin paper hearts on the face of the birthday girl! What a neat idea! Fun was had by all! Epecially me, even though I wans't at the parties- I had so much fun doing the drawings!

I found a video by a Caricature artist who shares how he warms up before he does caricatures at an event! I found some helpful suggestions in this! My latest commissioned work-  a caricature of a music trio from South Carolina!

"Voice of Birds"- collage by Leona Hosack My latest submission to Illustration Friday! The theme this week is "Voice"! I thought it would be fun to decorate the forms in this peice with the "voice" of birds! Tweet, tweet...! http://illustrationfriday.com/

Here are some Silhouettes I cut yesterday for a program I did at a home for Seniors up in Portland. Me. I also shared a little about the history of Silhouettes and cut everyone's silhouette for them to keep. Everyone enjoyed it, including me! Soon I will be conducting a class on Silhouettes at an adult ed. program in my area so this was good practice for me! Add caption