Fallbrook resident illustrates first children's book

A Fallbrook resident recently illustrated her first children's book.

"I've been drawing my whole life really, literally a 2-year-old drawing on walls and inside books, so it's just been a thing I've wanted to do my whole life," Summer Faught said. "I really wanted to take on freelancing and actually get my art out there, all my art that's just been sitting and collecting dust."

Her grandfather, Frank Pangborn, has written poems and songs, and wrote a poem about a horse called Snow Cloud.

"I raised horses," Pangborn said. "I had black Arabians and bred them, and I loved horses, so I thought, you know what, Santa's missing a horse."

This gave him the idea for his children's book.

"I wrote the poem and I just happened to be talking to my granddaughter, Summer, and I didn't realize that she had been studying art and she showed me some of her work," Pangborn said. "She really has an artistic ability."

Faught began showing him some samples of Snow Cloud.

"We came up with a concept that Snow Cloud is stronger than three horses, and he's really big," Pangborn said. "He was Santa's original puller of his sleigh, but when Santa got the reindeer, Snow Cloud began to just work in the North Pole and help move the toys around and work with the elves.

"The elves at the end of the day would just love to be riding Snow Cloud, and having fun with Snow Cloud, and in turn, they promised to take care of him and groom him," Pangborn added. "They'd have to get on a ladder to get to Snow Cloud's mane and brush him and clean him."

"(We) started the book in March of 2019, and then finished it this past May," Faught said. "That's with work and school in between but, yeah, it was still working at it every week, multiple days a week for hours."

The response to the book has been good, according to Faught.

"People like it; it's cute; it's definitely a story for if you're first just beginning to read," Faught said. "It's a very simple story, but it's cute and Christmasy."

Faught is self-taught. "I actually didn't take my first art class until community college," she said. "I kind of want to do a bunch of different things, I would love to do animation, character design, I like designing logos, which all of that I've done."

For Pangborn, it was a wonderful collaboration.

"It is something that Summer and I will have as a special bonding – my granddaughter and I writing a book, and she doing the artwork on the book," he said.

They have other projects currently in the works as well.

"This is the one thing I know I was put here to do and I'm just running with it now," Faught said. "I wanna encourage others, especially kids, to do the same when they see my work."

For more information on the book, visit https://store.bookbaby.com/book/snow-cloud.

Lexington Howe can be reached by email at [email protected].