My picture book, Melody, follows the journey of a girl through a playful, abstract instrument world. I wanted to create a completely joyful musical expression by crafting a surreal environment that builds instruments into the landscape.

My process combined detailed observational pencil drawings with hand-dyed cut paper collages. I used lithography to print my observational instrument drawings onto cut paper collages I had already created. This helped me to generate ideas of composition and enabled me to distinguish what each collage could resemble. I then took these prints into Photoshop to play with scale, layout, and the placement of Melody herself.

Melody was created to be a celebration of music and all that goes along with that. I wanted the story to encourage children to consider taking up an instrument, as the world always needs more music.