Today, my illustration for Hal Friesen's book 'Shepherd of Sparrows' is featured on Reality Skimming Press' page. It shows a young Voltan using projection goggles and haptic gloves as his mentor, Prokhor, watches on.

I intended to create a simple pencil sketch with colours thrown on after. Something like the 'Escaping Together' picture that I drew also for Shepherds of Sparrows. But the image in my head was in 3D with projected images of spinning protein molecules, a matrix-esque rain of numbers, and in the middle of it all, an young face beaming with concentration and hope. The image was so vivid; I HAD to turn it into reality.

Debbie Ha (www.debbieha.net) draws an incredible depiction of Voltan and Prokhor from "Shepherds of Sparrows" by Hal J. Friesen. Music by Dan-O at http://danosongs.com In this illustration, we see the wonder of discovery through the eyes of Voltan, who has finally found a way to put his hyperactive mind to good use.

Watch it come together in this short "Making of..." video. Hal, with all his crazy smart ideas, requested that I film my screen as a drew. After a bit of ho-humming, I obliged. Thanks to video editing, you don't have to sit through 10 minutes of me deciding which brush to use, or 20 minutes of me mucking around trying to make colours blend better into each other before undoing everything I just did. This is one of the more ambitious digitally painted pictures that I've made and definitely one of the only ones I've completed. I'm still learning lots. (Like the fact that my drawing tablet is not tilt-sensitive!!! Ahhhhgh! WHY did you tell me Celeste! I was so blissfully ignorant before.)

I hope you enjoy watching the creative process. Here's a promise that you'll be seeing more digitally painted illustrations from me in the near future.

Don't forget to take a look at Hal's new book, Shepherd of Sparrows, now available for sale in person (at his book launch on Dec 4th!) or online at amazon.com.