Folktale Week 2025
Tackling a week of prompts and what I learned along the way.
New to this kind of challenge—a themed prompt for each day of the week—I decided to jump into Folktale Week 2025. I’d already been sketching desert turtles and jackrabbits for a separate project, so that naturally pulled me toward The Tortoise and the Hare. It served as a good folktale/fable framework to build on, while also giving me an excuse to draw more animals, something I’ve been wanting to do more of.
I created four illustrations that covered five of the seven prompts:
Night
Rain
Book + Storm (combined into one illustration)
Dawn
All of them were painted in watercolor—a medium I’m actively trying to strengthen my skills in. I love how organic watercolor feels; it forces me to let go more and reminds me to loosen up my line work.
My biggest focus throughout this challenge was lighting—using it intentionally to show different environments, moods, weather, and times of day. It pushed me in all the ways I hoped it would. Moving from night to rain to storm to dawn let me build a tiny world where the tortoise and hare shift through evolving elements and changing light.
The week and a half leading up to the challenge ended up being some of my most hectic—my kids’ school and sports, holiday-season work, and Thanksgiving visits from friends and family all stacked up at once. One thing became clear quickly: I wish I’d had more time to step away and return with fresh eyes. Because each prompt had a set posting date, I shared what I had on the day, then ended up reworking all the images afterward once I’d had the chance to pause and digest them.
Something that’s helped me is the Illustration Dept. critique group which I’ve been attending regularly. Giuseppe brings a warm, open-minded approach to critique with insightful, encouraging feedback, and the other illustrators are just as generous—offering thoughtful suggestions and helping create a genuinely supportive space to talk about illustration and see a wide range of work. Even when I don’t have a piece to submit, I learn so much from listening to the critiques of others. Their feedback on my Night piece helped me re-center on values to improve the image.
Below, is the earlier version and the start of the new version. But there were many iterations in between.
Challenges like this remind me how much I love the process—and how surprising it can be to work on a theme that I wouldn’t have naturally gravitated towards.
One of the nicest surprises was the two little weasel characters who unexpectedly showed up in my illustrations. I grew really fond of them, and now I’m exploring their personalities and stories—something I never planned on but am excited to follow.