Sharks and Kangaroos and Koala Bears, Oh My!

Illustrations by Kevin Mastin

Fall is always my busiest time of the year, so keeping the blog up to date is difficult. This month I’m going to be a bit lazy on the writing but show you some of my recent art.

Sharks and Tikis

This drawing was used in a children’s playroom at a resort in Hawaii. I had originally drawn this shark in 1986 when I was at the Colorado Institute of Art, but had never found a use for him. I freshened him up a bit, added the tiki man, beach scene and border. (This is a marker drawing with the color added in PhotoShop).

Tiki Shark © Kevin Mastin

Adventures of Carrie the Koala and Karl the Kangaroo

I got the great opportunity to paint a cover illustration a youth novel.

The final type is going to be laid out by the publishing house, but this is the general direction.
The book will be available soon, I’ll update this link when it is published, until then you can contact the author, Doug Mendel, via his website

Adventures Cover Idea

The painting is gouache on cold press illustration board approx. 12” x 12” I over-painted top-to-bottom and left-to-right to give the book designer lots of room to work.

Karl & Carrie © Kevin Mastin

Chapter Title Pages

As I was sketching the characters I gained an affinity for them and suggested we use some of the sketches on the title pages to help animate the story along. These are simply soft pencil on paper.