The Whole Crew

Here is an upclose shot of the book cover illustration with the whole crew! (Wouldn’t this make a great fabric wall hanging for your kid’s room?)

I thought I would share a how this little illustration came to be. I had this picture in my mind of the animals poking their heads out of holes in a wedge of cheese. It would be the perfect house for all the animals, but a big block of cheese and my milk allergy would be a bad combination, so buying expensive cheese really wasn’t a smart option. So I went to a local cheese shop, asked to photograph their holey cheese and set up a little photo studio in the window:

The photos turned out great and then it was time to fit the animals in the cheese:

I had to move the holes around to fit all the animals in the right spot. It’s not easy to fit 8 animals in a wedge of cheese! But I am pretty pleased with how it all turned out, and the animals seem to be enjoying themselves too. A big thanks to Jennifer at Teddington Cheese for being so nice to let me shoot the Emmental.