Sam Visits a Sawmill

Project Overview

Sam Visits a Sawmill takes children inside an industry most of them have never seen — and makes it genuinely fascinating. When Sam tours a busy sawmill, she follows the journey of a tree from the truck weighing station through debarking machines and into finished beams, guided by workers who take pride in their craft. Author Stephanie Fuller writes with a clarity and enthusiasm that respects young readers’ intelligence, and the story delivers real STEM content without ever feeling like a lesson.

The illustration challenge was making industrial machinery visually engaging and approachable for young children — saws, conveyors, and timber stacks needed to feel exciting rather than intimidating, and the human workers needed to remain the emotional centre of every scene.

Role

Stephanie brought me a subject most illustrators have never drawn: a working industrial sawmill. The challenge wasn’t just technical accuracy — it was making heavy machinery feel warm and approachable for a four-year-old. Every scene had to keep the human workers at its emotional center, with the equipment playing a supporting role rather than overwhelming the page.

I worked across the full 38 pages, handling character design for Sam and the mill workers, all environmental and machinery illustration, and print-ready file preparation — researching real sawmill photo references extensively at the line art stage to get the details right.

Character Design

Before a single page is illustrated, I develop the main characters in full — defining their proportions, expressions, and personality. This is the foundation that keeps your characters recognizable and consistent across every scene, every lighting condition, and every emotional moment in the project.

Process

Every project follows this same structured path, so you always know where we are and what comes next. You review and approve at the sketch stage and the line art stage — nothing moves to color until you’re happy. By the time the final spread is rendered, there are no surprises.