To make interesting art you have to try new things. You have to push yourself. Experiment with new ideas. Some of the experiments turn out great and make your art and writing more interesting. Some even get published. Others, while they might be fine ideas, don’t work out for a myriad of reasons. A lot of time can be spent on these false starts and it can sometimes feels like a waste. But really it’s all part of developing as an artist or writer. This page is dedicated to those ideas and false starts. I’ll start out with the bossy moose to the left. Bossy Moose was a character I designed for another author’s story. The publisher bought the story but selected another illustrator!

When I handed in the final paintings for WOOLBUR (above left) I depicted Woolbur’s paint experiments as involving many crazy colors. HarperCollins felt it looked too psychedelic so I re-painted the entire scene in blue.

In the original dummy for TURKEY TROUBLE, I drew Farmer Jake entering the barn with an axe. “It’s not supposed to be a horror”, said my art director at Marshal Cavendish. She was smart.

The painting for SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! (above left) wasn’t working, so my editor at Simon and Schuster suggested I  bring the entire scene outdoors. I thought it was a great idea.

In this scene from LOOKING FOR THE EASY LIFE (above left) I originally imagined many more hippos. My art director at HarperCollins said ‘simplify’. I love my art director at HarperCollins.

My original idea for the cover of THE EMPEROR’S COOL CLOTHES is on the left. Marshall Cavendish wanted the one in the middle. Years later Marshal Cavendish was bought by Two Lions. Years after that Two Lions re-released the book in paperback using the cover on the right, and everything went full circle!

Terrible Stories (and botched art)

I did more revisions for WOOLBUR than any of my other books, probably because it was my first. The image above left is how I first imagined one of the scenes, the painting below it is the one that ended up in the book.

To the right you’ll see something I sent to an editor before I was ever published. I sent him a story I wrote titled RIP BUMPKUS. I followed up with an email accompanied by the above sketch reminding the him to look in the slush pile for my brilliant story. The editor DID look in the slush pile, read RIP BUMPKUS and did NOT think it was brilliant. Now RIP BUMPKUS rests in peace on Terrible stories and Botched Art.

My all-time favorite rejection letter was a hand-written note from Sam Viviano. (above left)

Another rejected story now resting in peace on Terrible Stories and Botched Art is GLEN’S ORIGINAL SQUOGGLENUTS. I proposed illustrating it in clay. (Above center)

And finally, my latest addition to Terrible Stories and Botched Art (but certainly not my last) as of November, 2018 is THE SLOTH WHO HAD TO GO. (Above right) I wrote THE SLOTH WHO HAD TO GO ten years ago. Not a terrible story but nevertheless it was submitted and rejected by numerous publishers. Now someone else has published a story with a very similar concept, which pretty much means this story is now officially dead. I’m told this kind of thing happens more than you would think in this industry.

You can see the complete dummy by clicking on the above image. At least this way I figure SOMEBODY can enjoy it!

Hopefully it will be a long time before I have another entry to Terrible Stories And Botched Art. But I doubt it. It’s all part of the often wonderful, but sometimes maddening world of creating.

I finished the above scene from TURKEY CLAUS, but the Santa didn’t exactly match the the Santa on the next page, so I painted a new Santa and pasted him in with Photoshop. Thank god for Photoshop.