Children's Book, Greeting Card Cartoon Design and Illustration by Pat O'Kelley

Project: Character Development on a Rabbit Cartoon
Category: Sports Cartoons, Animal Cartoons, Animal Caricatures

I did this several years ago by request for a avid tennis player that wanted a rabbit cartoon to be framed in her office. She enjoyed the rabbit tennis cartoon a lot. I wish looking back I didn't put the tongue in the cartoon behind the rabbit teeth. But I was into the tongue thing in cartoons at that time. I wanted to capture a fun look that was colorful and playful.

Project: Character Development on a Rabbit Cartoon - Feelings added
Category: Whimsical Cartoon, Animal Cartoons, Animal Caricatures

This one I did after college when I felt lost. I was still working on this Rabbit cartoon development. Like the cartoon before much of the cartoon design was the same. I changed the face to look more masculine and rough. Heck, he's lost and in a desert. Its one of my favorites at the time. It captured my feelings pretty well in my mid twenties before I met my wife and we started our awesome family of soon to be seven.

Project: Character Development on a Rabbit Cartoon - Seasonal
Category: Whimsical Cartoon, Animal Cartoons, Animal Caricatures, Action

Even though this was another one of my Animal Cartoon Caricatures study of Rabbits, it by far is my favorite. I truly enjoyed this colorful, full of life dancing rabbit cartoon in the leaves - jamming tunes out on his make believe rake guitar. Even though I felt Lost at times I found happiness in my cartoons and their world. This one is still framed in my office in Atlanta.

Project: Special T-Shirt Design for Occupational Therapy for Challenged Kids
Category: Whimsical Cartoon, Animal Cartoons, Animal Caricatures, Sports

This was a fun project I was given during my Rabbit designs. I was asked to design a shirt for college students studying Occupational Therapy that worked daily with kids with special needs including physically challenged. They played sports as hard as any kids even if in a wheel chair or in braces. I thoroughly enjoyed cartooning this colorful animal sports cartoon for the Special Needs Kids T-Shirt Design.

Project: Cartoon Character Development of a Beaver Caricature - Sports
Category: Whimsical Cartoon, Animal Cartoons, Animal Caricatures, Sports

This was just for fun. I started and did probably make a cartoon for every animal in the encyclopedia: see mural design page. I love and still love the Atlanta Braves - even though I'm not the daily fan I used to be. This cartoon was a study of mixing sports with whimsical cartoon characters for children book design. I was trying to learn more about working with professional layout markers and blending than the concern of the actual cartoon development.

Project: Dog Caricatures, Animal Cartoons, T-shirt and Print Design
Category: Animal Caricature, Dog Cartoons, T-shirt Design, Cartoon Print

"Simon" was the very best friend this client ever had. She wanted to make sure her dog lived forever in caricature form that she not only framed but I had a T-shirt printed. This Collie Dog Cartoon was fun. She asked for the halo and the dog bowl with his name. I worked from a photograph and tried to capture the owner's love and perception of what her dog meant to her life.

Project: Children Caricatures, Kid Cartoons, Cartoon Editorial Print Design
Category: Special Unique Cartoon Design for Child Caricature Print

"Taylor" was 4 years old. I knew this beautiful creative happy kid. His mom commissioned me to design a cartoon to capture his "menace to society" title. I even did a hand drawn caricature on a jean jacket as well. I wish I had the picture of that too. Anyway I really liked Taylor. He was a great kid; but like all boys his age if you didn't watch out he'd be into anything he could get his hands on. This was a fun cartoon project.

Project: Special T-Shirt Design for Occupational Therapy for Challenged Kids
Category: Handi-caple Cartoon, People Cartoons, Rock Climbing, Sports

This was another T-shirt design I did for the occupational therapists at Georgia Southern University. Who says physically challenged people can't achieve any heights in sports that most regular people couldn't dream of excelling at? This cartoon was based in my feelings that we all set our own limits - good or bad. In this case I used pen and ink only, scanned into the mac to create a t-shirt design that said it all - "I can do that."

Project: Create the Ultimate Web Design Geek for a Designer Workshop
Category: Caricature Design, Corporate Training and Recognition

I did this in 2005. I was asked to sum up our entire team of designers into one super hero designer "Super Geek." If you notice, yes we used the Flash Logo as we were all learning Macromedia Flash Action Scripting that day. It was a fun cartoon. The color was intentional due to the workshop before; the presenter said I used lime green as my work space background and guidelines as no designer would ever in their right mind use that awful color - Touché.

Project: Design a Cartoon of a Flea for the Flea Circus Classifieds
Category: Bug Inspect Caricature, Bug Cartoons, Iconic Cartoon Development

This was a fun quick project that was digitally designed and colored. It was for a corporate's internal newsletter classified section they called "The Flea Circus." I was asked to create an Iconic Logo using a Bug Cartoon as the main attraction - yes that was a pun I think. Anyway they still use this image in their weekly newsletter on the front page to attract viewers to take a look at the junk for sell by peer employees.

Project: Children Caricatures, Kid Cartoons, Cartoon T-shirt Design
Category: Special Unique Cartoon Design for Child Caricature T-shirt

I was paid to design cartoon caricatures of three grandchildren as a special surprise for a client willing to pay the money to have that custom done for one sweatshirt Christmas gift. I worked off separate photographs of each of the grandchildren to design as instructed "Grandma's Little Angels." It was a fun design and the Grandma I heard loved it very much. This is a good example of how I can draw children cartoons and even greeting card design.

Project: Bear and Animal Caricatures, Bear Cartoons, Print Design
Category: Whimsical Cartoon, Animal Cartoons, Animal Caricatures, Relaxation

I did this for pure fun. This was done about 1995 during my lost times. I drew me as a bear that found my honey and was basking in the glory of the moment. It was done with PrismaColor Design Layout Markers and ink. I really liked this cartoon. It is old and faded and has lost the crispness it once had - but I still love it. It shows my strengths in cartoon character development and showing of emotion through cartoon design with color..

Project: Cartoon Logo Design - Otter's Attic
Category: Iconic Cartoon Development, Animal Cartoons, Otter Caricatures

I was commissioned to do a fun cartoon logo for a local company called the "Otter Attic." I knew the store owner well enough to know it had to catch a presence she felt about animals - and especially otters. She is an animal lover and I was very pleased that she chose this design to use for her corporate mascot logo identity.

Project: Cartoon Logo Design - Otter's Attic
Category: Iconic Cartoon Development, Animal Cartoons, Otter Caricatures

This was another design I did of a different pose "The Otter Dance" for the Otter's Attic. Yea I know my wife said they look like ferrets too. But it was still a fun pen and ink illustration that was whimsical and playful. My clients needs were to show otter love - and this was on of the comps.

Project: Cartoon Logo Design - Dynalead Custom Rock Climbing Rope Leash
Category: Iconic Cartoon Development, Animal Cartoons, Dog Caricatures

I was commissioned to do a fun cartoon logo for a national dog leash company. They only needed the dog that was a caricature of the president's favorite rock climbing companion. This line drawing was later full colored and rapped with the company textual log to become their corporate identity on every leash sold.

Project: Greeting Congratulations of New Baby Cartoon Design
Category: Greeting Card Cartoon Development, Baby Cartoons Caricatures

I just love babies. That's why we are on our way to having our fifth. This was a one time design of a fellow peer that just had her first baby. My company asked me to design a card, one of many, especially for the unique occasion. Everyone on the team signed it and even though it was just pen and ink the new mommy liked the card a lot.

Project: Greeting Congratulations of New Baby Cartoon Design
Category: Greeting Card Cartoon Development, Baby Cartoons Caricatures

Yes another baby card. But this time the mommy was not only a fellow designer but a local rock star as well. Pena nd Ink only on acid free bristol broad.