It’s funny how you don’t consider until later in life how little things from your childhood have influenced you in big ways!

My mother loved to collect children’s books, particularly if they were about animals, and particularly if they were from her own childhood era – the 1940s and ’50s. Of course, she had these books on her own shelf when I was a kid, so I often read them and looked at the pictures.

Now that I’m older, it hits me – of course, the illustrations in those books probably influenced me a lot. The lives of animals are colorful and incident-filled, especially when we are not asking them to look into a camera.

More recently, I have been doing more work in pen and ink, and once again I think I’m remembering the often simple ink illustrations in my mom’s old storybooks.

One of my own favorite books was “The Patchwork Cat” by Nicola Bayley. This illustration from her story has such a great detail with Tabby worried about her favorite blanket and her claws are out!