Across the Ocean, a book series was born.

Detective Dimple and the Colourless Coral Mystery; published by Tiny Tree. Available on Amazon: https://a.co/d/5egSXJL

It's official! I've worked with international and award-winning author Peter Woolrich on a new children's book, coming out in July 2025.

Okay, where do I start with this unlikely story?

Well, it started at a little coffee shop as I was chatting with a client. An otherwise straightforward afternoon in Bluffton, South Carolina. However, at the same time, a couple from the UK were in town on vacation, and overheard me discussing illustration work. By luck they decided to come over and ask about what I do, and introduced themselves as Tracy Tannenbaum and Peter Woolrich, editor and writer. They've worked hard on making a beautiful manuscript about a little crab named Dimple who wants to help her friend Yeehaw the seahorse as they go on wild escapades to save the environment.

Over time and rough draft sketches, Peter was able to get signed on with Tiny Tree Children's Books and we're so thrilled to see this work come to life, across the ocean, which is what the stories are about! I can say that I never expected an opportunity like this, to meet someone from across the ocean to work on a book series.

The journey of developing crab drawings was one of the most interesting creative aspects of this project for me, as they're very different in creature joints/parts than the average fish or mammal. Oh, those little crab legs! This will be the first non-land animal I've designed and illustrated so the chance to play with all the water scenes while still keeping each page interesting and fresh was a fun challenge. The story begins with murky tidal pool colors, sea snails and urchins clambering about. It then quickly transitions into a deep sea dive as Yeehaw carries Dimple into the coral reef. The water turns bright blue, the ripples of light and little bubbles became the vibrant background for the rest of the story. Bleached white coral reflects an emptiness when Dimple and Yeehaw see, so I kept it as muted and simple as possible. I think the most challenging part of these spreads was finding a way to keep the characters engaged with all the white coral branches, but not get too carried away with the light and beauty of coral so that it stayed more serious in tone.

Peter gave some wonderful feedback and we refined these illustrations - a process many people don't realize is vital to a great book. It can take (and usually does!) months to get a children's book artwork to a finished, polished version where the details and characters speak the narrative and personalities with professional ease. And it DOES take two to tango! I can come up with some creative ideas, but I do love feeding off of the reactions and comments from my clients, as I did with Peter. Adding fish and moving Dimple the Crab, and changing the relational scale between Dimple and Yeehaw; revision after revision was done to get each of these pages to the best possible design. Feedback from my authors gives me the opportunity to see where I can improve and gives me fresh perspective on things I might otherwise miss.

Coral reef creatures including banded coral shrimp, clown fish, snapper fish, royal gramma and snowflake moray eel.

I did love the chance to give an homage to my dad's saltwater aquariums in this story too. He had beautiful saltwater tanks with clown fish, shrimp and angelfish and sea cucumbers. So of course, I snuck in some of those characters along the way. See if you can name all the different species in this story! (Hint: It's a lot!!) It took me a month to research and illustrate all the different species and how to place them throughout the book pages to add touches of color to bring the coral reef to life.

It's been such a delight to be a part of the Dimple journey, sketching out ideas for the character designs, fine tuning ocean scenes and coral reefs. the first book, Detective Dimple and the Colourless Coral Mystery comes out this July, and you can get your pre-order copy on Amazon right now!