LonEricCraven.com

Something came up during the football season about something else entirely: Progress in a couple of suburban communities. The stories will stay on that theme, so they needed an anchor illustration.

My colleague at The Kansas City Star, Randy Smith, just published his account of a recent journey to Kenya. It was dedicated to a boy named Tevin, whose portrait I sketched for the book. Throughout the book the boy asks Randy questions any child might ask about the world. The book is points to the beauty and dangers in East Africa, and is a fascinating, honestly-told account from an observant journalist. If you're interested in learning more about the book, follow this link to  TheKansasCityStore.com.

A whimsical illustration accompany an op-ed about one of our columnists playing chess with the mayor of Kansas City, Mark Funkhouser. The actual mayor is much taller — about 6-foot-8.

The next couple of days will be pretty tough, wrapping up a couple of bread-and-butter illustrations while preparing for a more involved project. So far the timing is working out, and we're able to do the work in the cool overnights. We're enduring a heat wave right now, so the heat is on in more ways than one.

For the fall publishing season I've designed a quilting calendar, and I'm putting the final patterns together for around six quilt books....I've kind of lost count. Hence the coffee.  Keep the mind alert and push through to the end.  Be faithful to  the designers of the patterns,  and enable the readers to make their own works of art. It runs in the family, so I'm happy to do my part to keep it going. I'm not ready to try my own hand at it yet, however. I'll stick to what I know.

The illustration project in the wings is not yet certain, but the plan is taking off in my imagination already. When these books are off to the publisher I'll be able to focus on where that creative process will take us next. – lec