"A Sardinha na Sardenha" is the first picture book I illustrated! Written by Ana Paula Soares and Published by Editora Recontagens in 2020, this book tells the story of a young boy - Juliano -  who spends his vacations with his grandpa in Italy. 

The book is a word-play in Portuguese, playing with the words "sardinha" as the fish sardine, "sardinha" as the word for freckle and "Sardenha", the island in Italy. 

Before starting the book, I did some exploratory sketched for the main character, Juliano.  And once the characters were approved, I started sketching and planing the pages. Deciding which ones would be full spreads and so on. This was the final/approved sketch.