An illustration career can have various defining moments, especially when the work is about getting paid to paint and draw for a living. This year has been filled with creative and personal achievements. I am happy to finally reveal one such moment, which stands out with distinct prominence. In early February, I received an email from Mela, my art rep, telling me that I had better be sitting down.

It was late afternoon and I was already seated and working at my design job. As I scrolled down to read the forwarded email, I started to stand up. The email she forwarded was from a person at Penguin Random House Publishing. 

The first words I caught were written in bold: My Little Golden about Barack Obama.

Bells and whistles were going off inside me and my legs gave way to jumping and then crying out to my husband, who happened to be at home working via telemedicine, and my daughter trailed in wondering what all the commotion was about. It was a job offer to illustrate a Golden Book about Barack Obama with all the terms listed. I started to relay the big news to them before I could even get to the bottom of the email which said, “Let me know if she’s interested.” 

After my resounding “yes,” so many questions rolled around my head. Usually projects like these require some spec work and a handful of illustrators are considered before there’s a go ahead. But this one got the big green light at the start. So what drew them to my work? Did they have the right artist? How will I approach this stylistically, since I was tweaking my work in the last year?

I will reveal some answers to these questions as months unfold to its official release and book birthday on August 2, 2022, but for now, I’m excited to announce my latest project, part of their distinguished Little Golden Book Biography series, Barack Obama: A Little Golden Book Biography, available for pre-order at your local bookseller and wherever books are sold.