Hello! Welcome to my site!
A bit about me:
I love to introduce children to science and nature and encourage them to stay creative and curious about the world around them. I grew up living all over the world from South America to Southeast Asia with backyards full of insects the size of small aircraft, mischievous monkeys, giant fruit bats, iguanas and other wildlife that were enchanting and sometimes unpredictable. My favorite things to do as a kid were fishing for antlions using small twigs, collecting crawdads in buckets and raising frogs from tadpoles. At age 9, I discovered ladybug larvae on a summer trip back to the US. These encounters captivated my fascination with the natural world and my eagerness to share it with others.
Against the advice of my high school art teacher, who thought I should illustrate textbooks, I pursued the sciences earning a bachelor’s degree in marine science and biology. I had aspired to be the next Jacques Cousteau until I realized I wasn’t real fond of the sea, sand, or being in the sun for extended periods of time. So, I turned to the microscopic world and worked in a laboratory.
During the pandemic, my family adopted a natural area near our home in Arkansas, which allowed us to adhere to social distancing guidelines and provided me with inspiration to dust off my paint brushes and scissors and create collages of the plants and animals that made the swamp special to us. My first published children’s book, Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees, was inspired by our discovery of the plants and animals that can be found in a swamp. It was released on Earth Day 2023.
How did I become an author and illustrator?
It all began with an idea, a national contest for K-8 students and an “A+” from Eric Carle!
When my son was in first grade, as a scientist I brought an experiment into the classroom to help further the students’ scientific investigation skills. I wanted to help the classroom tackle the question, “What bird seed do birds prefer?” During this discovery, in addition to determining which bird seed was preferred, we discovered many types of birds were visiting the feeder and found out that we had one hungry squirrel who was skewing our data! This was the making of a good story and one that needed to be told.
To tell the story, I suggested that the classroom could write and illustrate the story and submit the book to the Kids Are Authors contest and I agreed to be the project coordinator. The classroom teacher agreed it would be a great idea. So, the students worked as a classroom to write and illustrate the story. The process of working together to accomplish the finished book provided a natural environment to practice teamwork and communication skills. The creative process helped them develop writing and editing skills and of course they created ART, my favorite part! To help them hone their artistic abilities I brought collage as an art form into the classroom, explained the process of creating collage using painted paper and I helped unleash their inner Eric Carle. They painted paper, explored textures, learned to recognize shapes and used scissors to create mini masterpieces to illustrate each page of text. Their finished book received an Honorable Mention and earned books and other resources for the school.
The next year, a classroom of second graders grew milkweed and were inspired by the lifecycle of the Monarch butterfly. A second story needed to be told. Under the guidance of the classroom teacher and the project coordinator (that’s me!), the students were able to produce a compelling story of the milkweed and Monarch butterfly with colorful collage illustrations on each page. It was the winning entry for the year and was published! Since Eric Carle was a big influence on the art part because it was through studying his body of work that I could teach the process, I sent him a copy of the published book, autographed by all of the students. It was to let him know that we appreciate his influence on children’s literature and that we love his art form and books. He sent the book back with an A+!
Subsequent to the second book, four additional classrooms of students produced books of stories that had to be told. And well after the adoption of the swamp, I felt as though I had a story that had to be told. A story that introduces readers to the plants and animals that we came to know and love and one that I would hope would inspire readers to go and discover the natural world for themselves.