The Monster Cafe

The Monster Cafe includes illustrations for a children’s book that tells the story of a kid raised by the owners of a cafe catering to monsters, open 24/7. Turns out that Monsters can be like family the more you get to know them.

I created these as part of my class, “Composition as Story,” that I took with artist-instructor Greg Manchess in the Spring of 2023. The class was part of the SmART School online, a collaboration between illustrators allowing them to offer classes directly to illustrators. The class was paid for as part of a Individual Artist’s Grant I received from Culture Works and Montgomery County. The class was teaching us how to compose illustrations before you commit to larger paintings. But the drawings I did in this class seemed to have a life of their own, and I was reluctant to color them. The black and white sketchiness of them felt very Chris Van Allsburg-ish to me.

I’m writing a narrative to go with this set of illustrations inspired in part by The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer, Allsburg, and Maurice Sendak’s The Night Kitchen. In the end, I’m not sure if it will only be a children’s book, or if it might speak to other audiences.