My latest coloring book, Many Merry Mushrooms, will be available at BarnesandNoble.com starting July 12th, 2024! Many Merry Mushrooms features 27 original, hand drawn pages filled with scenes of playful and delightful mushrooms for all ages. With this book being up for preorder now, I figured I’d mark the occasion by sharing the start of my journey in cultivating these various fungi. Read on for more details about the origin of this book, and order now!

It’s been a while since I last worked on coloring pages, as I was juggling big life changes such as balancing different jobs and gigs, to moving into a new apartment in a new town that brings me a little closer to work. That said, I continued to mull over ideas for future books until the start of 2024, when I felt compelled to pick up my pen and start drawing again. I knew that I didn’t have a clear understanding of where I was headed when I first started this year, but with years of accumulated sketchbooks and doodles, all I had to do was retrace my steps to find a kindling of inspiration.

“Wave”, which shows a lover as she waits under the shade of a big mushroom, sparked my imagination, and I decided to take this image and see where it could go. I didn’t exactly start from scratch; I had planted a seed just a few years ago, and was now letting it take root. Back then, I couldn’t have known what this picture was going to turn into. I had the idea of an image, of the sense of waiting for the arrival, and simply laid it down in my notebook.

This was the beginning of Many Merry Mushrooms. Pen in hand, I watched as a rustic bench, sheltered under the cover of an enormous fungus, emerged from the emptiness of the blank page. The rest of the landscape came into view easily; distant hills dotted with faraway mushrooms, and a well-worn trail that passed by the lonely bench. Piece by piece, each line invited new suggestions about the world. The waiting bench felt like a bus stop, one of many lining this fictional countryside, which begged the question; what kind of bus would pass through this unpaved road? In the distance, a giant roly-poly came to be, promising a Ghibli-esque world where folks wait for their friendly neighborhood isopod to come crawling up and hitch a ride to their destination.

“Bus Stop” was the first page to be completed, and inspired me to follow the mushrooms to see what other playful scenes I could discover. Each hand drawn page I created is a window into a different world, some portraying wide landscapes, and others closing in on intimate scenes. “Wave” ended up inspiring two different pages! All of these pages were a delight to create, and I hope they are a delight for you to fill in.

Many Merry Mushrooms is available for Barnes & Noble print-on-demand on July 12th, 2024 for only $6.99! Order your copy now!