✨and the next step was, inking! 🖋️
I hesitated to post the complete painting before I post the finished individual pieces in its final tiny frame homes. BUT, I want you all to feel my pain AND excitement of cutting and framing it this weekend. 🫣🫣🫣 IT MIGHT ALL FAIL, and this might be the best it will ever be ?!? At least we have photographs of its existence. 😱
Hm will I regret it?
Oh, I’m pretty sure these two won’t be together.
#traditionalIluustration #PictureBookIllustration #ChildrensBookIllustration
Tiny painting of one of the most beautiful views I have waken up to. It’s been so lovely working next to this outside the window. 🌱🥹✨ Gifted this painting to our host here in Trondheim.
#flowers #grass #green #whitepickedfence #tinypainting #pleinair
Discussions of A.I can be very tiring these days. One of the ways I have been thinking about it is - how do we want to choose to ‘think’ and practice it? 💭
A common behavior I have observed is the simple use of this shiny new toy to ask basic questions. I am sure there are ways in which it benefits one’s work flow and can seem useful on the surface. But at what cost?
I have been thinking about this long enough to make a comic about it. Maybe I can inspire you to pause and think about it at least for the duration it took to flip through these panels.
Ps: I have since switched my default search engine to Ecosia and it has felt very good. Genuinely observed a change of behaviors in myself with how I interact with basic links, and choosing the longer method of reading more detailed articles than summarized answers. It can be as basic as that as a start💕
#thoughts #comic #reflections
Thanks @masondking for being my muse and @joyocracy for being my editor 💕
I am trying to pause often these days, knowing things will be double speed ahead very soon. Ever so grateful for every small moment I can steal away😌❤️
#pregnancythoughts #slifeoflife #illustratedcomic #pregnancycomics
As I contemplate and imagine the being that is currently inside my belly while staring into the mirror, I had a silly thought. So I had to draw it. 🤣
Good luck to all the gachapon carrying mamas out there!! Shake it before opening. (Jk..)
#sillycomic #pregnancy #pregnancylife #sliceoflife
This Lunar Year is the fire horse, and this year is a special one for Mason and me. ☺️ In a month and a bit, we are expecting a little fire horse of our own. ❤️ For now, this horse is kicking all of my organs happily.
This little drawing of mine went up in our nursery, as I was not about to do the whole painting of the walls thing. Life is busy enough already. 🤣 We have been busy nesting and are eagerly anticipating meeting the little guy!
@masondking
Ps: If this drawing looks more like a sheep, that is fine, I am a sheep anyways and he can look like me. 😝 And yes, he is a rainbow baby. Though my first attempt was a bit too rainbow-ey and I went over it with some fire. 🔥
#pencilcrayon #firehorse #mixedmedia #panpastel #illustrationwork
Spread, spread, spreads! ✨I think this entire book was all spreads and no spot illustrations or single pages even 🤔 And that means large paintings that can take quite a long time to finish!
Enjoy a silly behind the scene video I had almost forgotten that our friend Patrick Carroll, actual film maker, shot while visiting the studio. Pt.2 of the video in stories 😝
Thank you to everyone who had picked up a copy or gave When the Clouds Came since it came out ❤️ It’s been lovely hearing how you have responded to it. @sarah_yi_mei definitely wrote a very touching story that encapsulates a very universal feeling🥹❤️
🎉Happy Pub Day “When the Clouds Came” ☁️written by @sarah_yi_mei and illustrated by me @tiny.clovers . Published by the wonderful team at @orcabook 💙
Covers are always the hardest, I went through many thumbnails and painting experiments before landing on this final design. It has to encapsulate so much with so little space.
Thank you for everyone that supported me in the making of this book 💙 Please pick it up and let me know when you have seen it in the wild!!
#tapereveal #bookbirthday #illustrationprocess #kidslit #picturebookillustration
Some pages never change from the vision you had in your head when you first read the manuscript to the end. But achieving the look requires several attempts, including starting the final large painting over. (P2 vs P3)
These are some of my pages from the up coming book When The Clouds Came, me trying to be loose and keeping things simple, but to the point 💙 I feel like you can get a feel of what the story is about now l, right? 🙏
To be published by @orcabook tomorrow 🥹🌧️ Stay tuned!!
#watercolour #kidslit #picturebookillustration #illustrationprocess
Things are getting moody up here 🌧️
One of the new things I started doing for this book was painting little test thumbnails for mood and colour (P2). The vision for this spread came pretty easily to me, but it was still difficult to paint it so big and making sure the wash is exactly how I envisioned it 😬 especially tha sky. So pre soaking the paper and gum tape is a must! (P3) (Is that what those tapes are called? 🤣 anyways.. )
You do have to cut the painting out afterwards (p4), and remove the tape residue from the board after. Which is the part I find the most annoying 🫠 Anybody got different method with them?
Enjoy another little behind the scenes peek from When the Clouds Came, releasing March 17 by @orcabook
#processshot #studiospace #watercolour #mixedmedia #kidslitart
Somewhere between painting spreads for When the Clouds Came last year, we also spontaneously decided to rent a new studio space! ✨ It was very difficult to contain my excitment of setting up the space every waking moment and prioritize working on my book deadline 😝
It was a great way to start warming up the space, actually using it! My studio mate @itsmaywa and @hollyrainbow ‘s son was a great painting companion too🥰
This is the first spread of the book, where I got to sneak in lots of fun details. Such as lookalike of my friends having picnics in the park, and community gardens of Vancouver. 👀
When the Clouds Came from @orcabook , coming to you March 17, 2026.
#behindthescene #studiospace #taperemoval #picturebookillustration #kidlitart
In January 2024, my grandma passed away suddenly but peacefully. And in February, @orcabook emailed me a manuscript about loss and grief. Of course, I jumped on the chance and poured all my heart and emotions into this one.
Two years later, I am happy to announce that “When the Clouds Came” will be published March 17, 2026, by Orca Book Publishers and written by Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang.
Guiding me through illustrating this story was one of the many photos I grabbed on my way back to Vancouver from the funeral (p2). There were also many other big event that happened in these two years, such as a second wedding in China that my grandma sadly missed by mere months.
In the coming days I will share more sneak peeks of some of my favourite spreads, and they may be sad. But for now, let’s start with a happy spread! ☀️ Fellow Vancouverites, can you tell where I set the location of this picnic?
#childrensbookillustration #picturebook #watercolour #mixedmedia #kidlit
