These Animal Illustrations are Simply Delightful

As a young girl, Sarah Walsh was equally thrilled with both drawing and animals. Growing up she found a clever way to transform her early passions into a full-time job by illustrating animals. Describing her work as “quirky, happy and thoughtful,” Walsh uses anything from pencils and pens to gouache and cut paper to create varied illustrations that adorn anything from coloring books and toys to home decor and apparel.

Based in Kansas City, she shares a home and studio with her fellow illustrator husband Colin Walsh, their son, a scrappy pup, and a chubby cat. “I like a lot of color and fun things around me — fave books, artwork, toys, my happy stuff, etc,” she told Jama’s Alphabet Soup. “A big paper mache unicorn head is on the wall, drawings my daughter did when she was little.”

After working some time as house designer and illustrator of Hallmark Cards, she decided to branch off on her own and joined the Lilla Rogers agency. Amongst her collaborations are publications like Penguin Random House, Chronicle Books, and The Guardian. And with more than 60k followers on Instagram, it’s clear that people are taking note.

Check out some of her delightful illustrations in the gallery below:

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LONG POST ABOUT FAILURE ALERT 🚨 hi…so this is Oona. A baby Tapir who poops a lot. A few of you might remember her. She was a big part of last year‘s 100 day project. It was a story about Oona and her friend Klinkii, a conifer tree with a special past. They live in the rainforest. Through their environment and what comes naturally to them, they learn a very important lesson about themselves and how they impact the world around them. I thought maybe working on this project for the 100 DP would be a good idea but it wasn’t. 😭 It became too much pressure and hard to translate for daily posts. Writing and illustrating a children’s book is hard enough so I quit the 100 DP and also put the story aside 😭 FOR A YEAR. But then….Fast forward to my current 100 day project. Tapirs are ungulates. They have hooves. Three each on the back feet and four each on the front. 14 damn hooves. There was no avoiding it and I had to draw Oona again. But because of the baggage attached to the story I’ve been putting it off HARD. I finally just said to myself “get on with it lady.” So I did. And I feel better! Doing this piece gave me a few thoughts on how to approach this story differently. And I made some adjustments to her as well. It’s amazing what the passage of time can do. Some distance from this project might’ve resulted in a possible breakthrough! Not a mind blowing face melting breakthrough but just enough of one to possibly change the course of things for actual progress. And in a way that is huge. For those of you struggling with a project that you’ve become afraid of and put away as a result of that fear, when the time is right just go for it. You are the boss. Show that project who runs things. CRUSH that fear. Only good things will come from it. DAY 51 ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️#100dayproject #sarahs100daysofhooves #whatthehoof #ungulates #sarahwalshmakesthings #hooverphonics ##sarahwalshmakesthings #klinkiiandoona #tapir #babytapir #costarica #rainforest #globalwarming #circleoflife #reforestthetropics #bookproject #kidlit #writeandillustrate #childrensbooks #rainforest #tropical #tropics #savetheplanet #wereallconnected #sloth #papaya #flora #klinkiitree

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