How It All Began

Hearts, chocolates, and Jane Goodall

It’s Valentine’s Day. This is how I envision it all began.

In the spirit of Valentine’s day, I wanted to share with you a project I have been involved with for a few months. A college friend of mine is a talented chocolatier, and his delicious creations always have designs on them. Jonathan Doherty, the owner of Clandestine Chocolates, invited me to collaborate with him on some chocolates and of course I said yes! I am always interested in new ventures. I drew the designs for his Valentine’s Day batch this year.

It was so much fun to think in these terms, so different! He did most of the work in creating the choclates and boxing them all up (I have never been to his shop, our collaboration was done remotely). It even came with a booklet explaining my work, and the chocolates.

The cover of the box of chocolates

If you want to be on Jonathan’s mailing list for the next batch (they are delicious!), and any future ones we might collaborate on, you can sign up here is his store on Etsy. A portion of the proceeds of each batch of chocolates is donated to charity. Jonathan asked me where I would like my batch’s proceeds to go, and I chose the Jane Goodall Institute. I have long admired her and what she has accomplished for our world.

The initial sketch

I chose to draw these characters because what I do is all about connecting with others, and these little drawings represent “my people,” so to speak. I have never drawn a chimpanzee before—and animals are my people, too—but I wanted to draw one to honor Ms. Goodall’s work.

I so enjoy being a cartoonist— you never know what adventures it will take you on!

It was a pleasure collaborating on this project and I hope we do it again. You can follow Jonathan’s work on Instagram and Facebook.

I created the colors on photoshop. Here are the finished candies!