Illustrating Uncle Buffalo Bill Book with Scrapbooking Techniques

I've had great fun illustrating my picture book about my Uncle William "Buffalo Bill" Mathewson using sketches and scrapbooking techniques.  I wrote the story of his life first, then came up with the illustrations.  Since I'd been teaching scrapbooking and family history research, I decided to incorporate some of these art techniques into the art work of this book.

The book initially was written to share with my family about their ancestor.  Then I was asked to share the story of the life of my ancestor who was known as the first Buffalo Bill in the schools.  So I began drawing pictures to accompany my presentations.  These evolved into illustrations for the book.

The original book contains the scrapbooking additions and has somewhat of a 3-D effect.  This comes through fairly well when I photocopied the book. Since I self-published the book, I was able to be creative and use some unorthodox techniques.

I'm also making postcards of the cover as promotional pieces.

Be creative with the books you write and publish.  It's such fun.

More Family Story & Scrapbooking Workshops

I continue to find great enjoyment in teaching family story workshops.  I've also been combining them with scrapbooking. 

My most recent one occurred at the Pease Public Library in Plymouth, NH.  We'll be planning another one in late spring. 

I encourage participants to bring at least six photos to act as memory stimulants or springboards for starting stories.  From there more stories may come to mind.