While cleaning out my office this past week in preparation for a yard sale, I stumbled upon my original story and was reminded just how long of a road it has been. I came up with the story of “Henry the Green Zebra-Pig” when I was in college. Studying art education we occasionally had to present lessons to our fellow classmates as if they were our students. We as the ‘students’ for one lesson had to pull nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. from brown paper bags, assemble them into a sentence and illustrate it. My sentence turned out to be, “The green zebra-pig eats grass slowly.” I set to drawing my little mixed up animal. Thus, Henry was born! As soon as I was finished with my work I knew he would make an adorable children’s book character. After that I slowly imagined the story and the illustrations that would show off Henry’s cuteness! It was those sketches that I stumbled upon this week, as well as the original text that followed.
Many authors create a text first, however I am an artist and a very visual person, so my sketches drove the story line. Looking back from my original version of “Henry,” it’s amazing to see the changes and shifts that the story, characters and illustrations have taken. I am so happy with the path that brought me to this point; not only with my finished project, but also with where my life is at this moment. If “Henry the Green Zebra-Pig” had been published even just five years earlier, I would have missed out on the opportunity to dedicate the book to my husband and my daughter. It makes me so happy that I can share this accomplishment with them and that “Henry” can be added to all the other wonderful books in her little library.