Illustrating Le Page

Ashley LePage, an RHS junior, has been working diligently over the past 10 months illustrating two children’s books. The first book she illustrated is called “Willie’s Wheelchair” and she has since finished it. The book she is currently working on is “Cyrus the Cyberbully”.

LePage illustrates both the front and back covers, the binding, and the pages from the opening to the closing of the book. She has been drawing for nine years and has had this job with Harry Pacheco since November 2017.

Illustrating these books and having a client has taught LePage some things about being an artist.  “…I find it important to know how to maintain an original style and adapt to what a client wants. Consistency has been the biggest thing I’ve learned with these books,” LePage states.

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Consistency has been the biggest thing I’ve learned with these books.

— LePage

She has put countless hours and late nights into the books while combatting pages of homework. She has done many redraws and restarts to make sure the books are to the greatest they could possibly be.

“It was exciting to see my work actually printed with my name on it,” she replies in response to when “Willie’s Wheelchair” was finished and she got her physical copy.

There is going to be an interview to promote “Willie’s Wheelchair” and it will be on Nov. 27, 2018, with LePage and Pacheco for NBC Bay Area. Getting interviewed on such a big platform will help get LePage’s name out into the world and to people who write books and need an illustrator.

“The more my name is exposed, the more I’ll have potential clients consider me as an artist they might hire,” says LePage.

After LePage finishes these books, she would “absolutely” take an illustration job that is not a children’s book in the future.

“Children tend to not take the art into considerations, but you can’t tell me you’ve never been in a young adult section of a bookstore and didn’t use the cover art as part of how to pick a new novel to read.”