New Book Illustration Project, Chapter 2

Here is Chapter 2 of my original illustration work for author Karen Meyer.

I'm illustrating her children's book, titled, The Young Man From India.

You can see Chapter 1 here.

This is what the book is about, according to the author's intro:

Wishing for a young boy his age to move to the ranch next door, Spencer is delighted to know this has happened. Quincy and Spencer become best friends.

As time passes, Spencer has second thoughts about Quincy. Is he really such a good friend? Spencer feels Quincy has tricked him twice. Will there even be a third time?

As they enter their junior year of high school, Prithvi, a young man from India, moves close with his family, adding yet another culture.

And now, Chapter 2 with my freehand drawing (pencil on paper, 5.5" x 7")...

Chapter Two – Quincy

The boy who moved in next door was perfect. He was slim and looked strong enough to handle a horse in any situation – even a runaway.

“What grade are you in?” Quincy asked as soon as Spencer hitched up his horse.

This pleased Spencer, because he was anxious to ask Quincy the same question.

“I’m in eighth grade. What about you?”

“I’m turning thirteen in a few days and in eighth grade, too,” Quincy proudly claimed.

“Great!” Spencer said. “I thought it would be fun to ride around my ranch together.

“That would be great! You can show me the ropes,” he laughed.

Spencer was happy that Quincy had a sense of humor. Maybe they would laugh together a lot, and he wouldn’t miss Mr. Thorton so much.

Spencer remembered to politely introduce himself to Quincy’s parents, and the one he thought might be a girl, was Quincy’s mother. She was short, laughed a lot, and seemed too young to be the mother of a twelve-year-old boy, soon to turn thirteen. Her laugh was the same as Quincy’s.

Families were all different. Spencer started thinking about his own family. He was the only child. He liked it that way. There was no competition for his parent’s attention. They were both very fond of him and treated him as one of them. He knew families where the parents were not involved with their children, and others who were involved in activities with their children every day. Spencer’s parents were somewhere in between. When there was time for them to be involved, they were. When there wasn’t time, he was called to be an adult and work with them to keep everything going smoothly on the ranch. He was happy, though. He was fine with both ways.

Quincy’s parents were friendly.

“Thanks for the dinner offer. We appreciate it, but Corinne has brought some food that can’t be put on hold. Maybe another time,” the father told Spencer.

“We’re glad you came over,” Quincy’s father said. “I’m sure we’ll be unpacked enough that you and Quincy can get together tomorrow afternoon. We’ll come over in a few days and meet your parents, too. We would like to take you up on that dinner offer sometime. Ask your parents if we can have a rain check.”

“I’m glad to have met you, Mr. Th . . . Oh, wait--it’s not Thorton is it?”

“No, it’s Clifford – Jim Clifford’s the name. I’ll have some work to do to change the sign at the road. I’m not good at carving wood.”

“Oh, I can work on that for you. Mr. Thorton showed me a few things when he made that sign,” Spencer announced proudly. Do you have a specific kind of wood you want used?

Otherwise, I might be able to find something around and start work on it already tomorrow morning. That would be fun for me!” Spencer assured him.

“Well, if you want to try your hand at it, I’ll take a look at what you can do and see if that works for us. I appreciate your offer,” Mr. Clifford told Spencer.

“Thanks, Mr. Clifford.”

“Jim is okay. You can call me Jim. And Corinne won’t mind if you call her Corinne.”

“Okay. Thanks, Jim. I’ll start on it as soon as chores are finished tomorrow morning. I’m sure we have extra wood around that we don’t need.”

“Bye, Quincy.”

“So glad you came over. See you tomorrow, Spencer,” Quincy responded.

End of Chapter 2

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That's it for now. My goal was to bring the characters alive--to make Mr. Thorton look like a nice, jovial guy and his wife, short and young-looking. She'll have some spark to her too, which comes out later in the story. And Quincy is supposed to look like a nice friendly cowboy teenager (whatever that normally looks like.) It's a lot of fun bringing these characters alive.

I'll keep this story going and share the next chapter soon. Let me know your thoughts on this, and have a blessed day,

If you like this post, please comment, upvote, follow me ( @mattphilleo ) and resteem. I post regularly on art, tips on painting and drawing, and encouraging thoughts. You are helping me to do art full-time and support a family. Thank you so much!--Matt

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