I replied to Deborah's email, saying I would be delighted to work on the project and could start within a week — this is a fact, an illustrator working for an advertiser or retailer has to be able to start within a week if they hope to get the assignment. We worked out the financial agreement and then began the creative process.

Creative Process
My first step was to make pencil sketches for the illustration based on the design roughs provided by wfour (on left). Before starting the pencils, however, I decided it was time to have a telephone conversation with Deborah. I called and she explained the idea of using an 8 to 10 year old boy riding a bike with no hands to convey the feeling of "simple pleasures." After all, what could illustrate "pleasure" better than a young boy with no worries or problems pretending to fly while riding his bike on a bright summer day. Further, to help play up the "simple" aspect, the boy's clothing and bike should be old fashioned, and he should look like a farm boy. Deborah also sent me links to images that had the look and feel she was aiming at. She also explained that the rendering should resemble an old woodcut or wood engraving, and the drawing should have a hand drawn feel, as if drawn from life.

With this information in mind, I set off to find a model to pose for reference photos. OK, I know what you're thinking; If the drawing is supposed to look like it was drawn from life, why are you using reference photos? Because that's the way I work. As long as it looks like it was drawn from life, it doesn't matter how I get there.