The Monsters Only I Can See

The Monsters Only I Can See is a children’s book manuscript about two siblings, Nina and Shiloh, dealing with mental illness shown with visual monster manifestations. It was created as my 2022 senior thesis at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design with hopes to eventually publish. Watercolor, ink, and color pencils are the medias used for the illustrations.

The idea was heavily inspired by my own struggles with mental illness and the way I felt as a kid as the issues developed. I wanted to create a picture book about a complicated and dark topic like mental illness and explain in a way that a child could comprehend and not feel overwhelmed or scared by. I also wanted there to be an emphasis on the fact that things such as depression and anxiety can affect people in different ways, shown through the various different monsters, and the ultimate goal of the book to be an emphasis against the feeling of being alone with your illness and encouraging people to reach out to others to talk about what they are experiencing.