Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I'm (slowly. slowly) putting together an illustration portfolio, and I need at least a dozen pieces. I need ideas for scenes to illustrate, though; I have some but not enough that I really love. Do you have any ideas? Any lyrics from songs or lines from books (preferably not books famous for their illustrations) or poems or dreams you've had or anything that you'd like to see illustrated? I'm looking to do work for childrens' books, but all the pieces don't necessarily have to be child-centered.

...thank you.

The first thing that popped into my head was the cherry blossoms (sakura). They're just starting to come out in Japan and they are breathtakingly gorgeous! There have been countless poems written about them, so you might be able to find one you really like to use as your inspiration. Just my initial suggestion though, if I think of any more I'll let you know.

furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto
(an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water)

- Matsuo Bashō

What I really want to say is that you should draw an illustration for one of my stories. So maybe I'll say nothing.

Oh! You should do cats! I like cats. Two cats of different colors curled up sleeping together. Or a cat curled up with a baby. Or! I have pictures of little sisters sleeping with video game controllers, flipflops, and phones.

You should illustrate The Phantom Tollbooth. All of it. (o:

I would kill to see Eric Carle-like illustrations for this story. There's a version out there with funky illustrations, but I always thought illustrations of this story should be more dream-like and abstract. Or Eric Carle-esque P:

P: looks like the smiley face is trying to pick his nose with his tongue.

He's licking his lips. It's the face you make when you're trying to do something really precisely and your tongue creeps out of your mouth. It's probably my favorite emoticon.

P:8

That's a guy licking his nostrils that wears goggles.

You could use the subject lines of spam emails as inspiration, like the good folks at spamusement.com (warning that that site is not g-rated, but is hilarious).

I'd like to see an illustration of scenes in the poem "jabberwocky." I suspect there are famous illustrations already, though.

It's probably just my weird sense of humor, but I think it would be fun if the one yielding the vorpal blade looked like Sean Connery as a youth.

You could draw someone like, liking their upper lip as they're trying to draw something juuuuust right. You know what I mean? And what they're drawing could be the drawing that they're in. Kinda like the Children's Songbook cover.

Also. I was reading a book the other day and it mentioned a Vorpal Blade. I laughed.