Children's literature illustration created for an assignment at the SCBWI Houston 2016 Conference. Attending illustrators were asked to pick a character from Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz, sketch the character from multiple angles, outline an original picture book or middle grade story about that character, and then illustrate a scene from the story

I outlined a picture book storyline about the Winged Monkeys set in Baum's Oz, but in the past. In Baum's Oz, the Monkeys were enslaved to obey the owner of a crown as a punishment for playing a prank on the wrong person. I loved picturing the Winged Monkeys as misunderstood pranksters as opposed to the evil green monkeys depicted in the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie. In my story, the Winged Monkeys play a variety of pranks on the various people of Oz. The subjects of each prank feel they are being unjustly attacked, and attempt to retaliate and punish the monkeys. But the monkeys misunderstand and think the people of Oz are just joining in on the fun and so the back and forth continues to escalate until it goes too far. The story arch follows the monkeys and people of Oz as they both learn the difference between fun pranks and mean spirited, harmful acts. 

Featured in this scene are the Winged monkeys laughing after playing a prank on the Winkies (whose country is characterized by yellow: yellow, tinged skin, yellow clothes and yellowish surroundings)—dumping blue dye into the Winkies' lake on the hottest day of summer.