Published Illustrations and Photos

The "Supergranny" Mystery Series

Beverly Van Hook (in the photo with the sheepdog) wrote the mystery series that features a gray-haired detective who drives a red Ferrari. Van Hook based her books in places she has lived or visited. For example, the book Supergranny 2: The Case of the Riverboat Belle was based on a bicycle ride that's held on Father's Day in the Quad Cities area of northwestern IL where Van Hook lived. On the other hand, Supergranny 5: The Character Who Came to Life, had its origins at the Brookfield Zoo (IL), where Van Hook watched poisonous arrow frogs. But what about the character Supergranny herself? Van Hook combined all the warm, wonderful and high-spirited women that she knew into this one very super granny.

One of Supergranny's sidekicks is Chesterton, a mini-robot who gets his power from gumdrops. Another pal is the sheepdog Shackleford, patterned after Van Hook's real-life pet. (She and Shackleford are shown in a photo.) The children in the stories (Supergranny's next door neighbors) are based on Van Hook's own children.

Bev also wrote several adult mysteries. I illustrated the first one called "Fiction, Fact, & Murder. She also wrote a book called "Boss Supergranny" which explain her process in writing children's books. My contribution is described in that book. Sadly Beverly Van Hook passed away in 2008 and all her mysteries are now out of print.

How I Got the Job

I met the author, Beverly Van Hook, and prepared some sketches in the hope of getting the job of illustrating her new Supergranny mystery series. I thought Bev was a very cute lady so I based Supergranny's appearance on how Bev might look in about 30 years. I never told her that. She went for it and I agreed to do the illustrations for the mystery series for kids 8 to 12 years old. Then I move 900 miles away which made working together a bit more difficult. After reading a draft of each book, I submitted sketches to the author/art director for the book covers and spot illustrations inside via fax. (This was before email and the Internet)

When the drawings were approved, I airbrushed the cover paintings using a "realistic cartoon" style. The spot illustrations were done with pen and ink. Bev and I worked together really well but the only thing I couldn't convince her of was that on a book cover less is more. She wanted ALL the characters on most of the covers so that was what we did. My favorite was the simple one with only Supergranny and Shackleford on the cover.