Cambridge, MA (2023)

Rising Up

“Before dawn, Tom walked past houses whose windows still had stars in them.”

So begins Rising Up, an anti-capitalist children’s book about bread. The story follows a lion baker named Tom as he steers his village through the ethical conundrums brought forth by a magical bread box.

The book was illustrated in watercolor by hand, then digitized using Adobe Illustrator.

My decade of work as an educator instilled a deep belief in children’s ability to understand hard things presented simply. This book was written with gratitude to the young people who inspire me to speak more straightforwardly.

Political Literature for Children

Page from a children's book illustration featuring a lion walking past three blue, star-decorated palace-like structures connected by winding lines, with accompanying text about a baker lion.
Illustration of a bird wearing glasses and a suit next to a piece of bread.
Illustration of a seagull wearing a yellow jacket, striped shirt, and yellow cap, surrounded by blue ocean waves and a small orange sun or moon in the sky.

It’s a process!

In celebration of the flux behind finished works, I share a few half-baked sketches, inspirations, and generative AI experiments.

A black and white poster for 'The Bread and Puppet Theater' featuring puppet faces and hands surrounding the theater's name.
A colorful watercolor illustration of a penguin wearing sunglasses and a suit with an orange tie, inside a bakery or pastry shop with cakes, cupcakes, and fruit decorations.
A hand-drawn comic-style sketch featuring a dog behind a window with an 'OPEN' sign. Inside the store, a person is tending to a large, fluffy animal lying on a bed, with a child nearby looking surprised or confused.
A doodle page with various sketches and notes. There is a lion wearing glasses with a note about checking the spirit feral for standing lion reference, a cartoon owl, a young rabbit boy, a bird with outstretched wings and a cap, two round sunglasses with a note about sunglasses being cool, a container with what looks like a sandwich, and two lions with glasses and hairstyles. Additional notes include questions about realism, scale, character prototypes, business license, and what one might be called in a cartoon or anime style.