For more than 25 years, David Kendall has been immersed in art, film and education, whether teaching, creating or mentoring. From the classrooms of Parkside and Chandler Elementary, and Goshen High School, to earning an Master of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design, where he received their Educator’s Scholarship, and now as the Director of Career Networks in Goshen College.
Kendall’s career has always evolved around creativity and storytelling.“Dave has always been a true Renaissance person — creative in everything he does,” said Kendall’s wife, Carrie Lee Bland-Kendall. “He just naturally sees the world through the eyes of an artist,” she said.
The artistic vision continues to guide his current project: a children’s book. The idea for the book didn’t start now, as he had always thought about working on a children’s story and had started on some, but this time the idea came out of an art project while he was teaching at Goshen High School.
Kendall said, “I had a drawing class and for that class, I had the students create an alphabet. For each letter of the alphabet, they had to create a made up creature or character.” He continued, “I always liked to do the assignments along with the students.”
Kendall gave a specific example, “The letter ‘W’ from that assignment was this creature called a Wumpel that for whatever reason, out of all of the letters of the alphabet, that’s the one that I started to draw a little bit more often,” He said.
That simple classroom exercise planted the seed for what would later become The Wumpels, a story about whimsical creatures who act as nature documentarians. In “just a couple of hours” he said he created the story for a 32-page children’s book.
“The whole book was written with that idea in mind to show these creatures, these little monsters, creating this documentary, but they’re also being recorded or observed by this outside narrator, kind of like the narrator from a documentary,” said Kendall.
Bland-Kendall noted that this project feels like a natural extension of her husband’s creative style. “His art has always had a whimsical, playful quality that lends itself perfectly to children’s stories — it’s imaginative, colorful and full of heart,” she said.
Turning that story to a visual world was the next challenge. He spent about a year doing a mock-up and trying to get the page turns right. “I just created a dummy book out of longer pieces of illustration board and more or less drew out the whole story on that,” Kendall said. “With illustrations, you really have to guide your audience through the story and make them want to continue turning the pages.”
Once the structure felt right, Kendall transitioned to working digitally. He started using Procreate “because you can use brushes that look very similar to what a marker would look like or an ink brush would look like or a pencil or a micron pen, which is what I love to use. And so it really became a really useful tool,” he said.
Kendall’s decision to create a children’s book came naturally. “I’ve always loved children’s books. I’ve been fascinated with Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein, Edward Gorey,” he said. “I love books that have really simple illustrations, and I also love illustrations that are really layered. And so, this book is kind of a combination of those two things.”
When it came to defining his audience, Kendall explained, “I would say that my target audience would be children maybe 6 to 40.” He added, “Some of my favorite books are the type of books that parents would read to their kids and then explain what the words mean or what might be involved with the pictures.
That ability to reach a broad audience is one of Kendall’s strengths, noted Isacc Hernandez, a first year academic success coach. He said, “That landing zone might have different goals based on the audience that is interacting with the artwork, which is another thing Dave does well — crafting for a myriad of audiences, knowing he wants to connect and impact as many people as possible.”
Hernandez said, “Dave tells a great story with all of his artwork because he cares deeply about the message he is sharing and creating.”
Maintaining motivation over several years wasn’t easy. Kendall said, “I got to a point where I got really busy and I got really tired and it would sit on the sidelines for a month at a time. And so I realized that that was going to be problematic and I said, ‘Okay, one thing I’m going to do is I’m going to create a schedule for myself.’” Developing a color palette and a visual system also helped him stay consistent.
But beyond discipline, personal inspiration kept him going. “Having a child also made me want to commit to finishing a children’s book,” he said. Bland-Kendall agreed, recalling the family’s creative bedtime routine: “When our daughter was little, we read together every single day, and she would often ask him to make up stories on the spot. Dave is such a gifted storyteller — quick-witted, funny, and endlessly creative — so those spontaneous bedtime tales became a special part of our family life.”
Kendall now hopes to share The Wumpels with a wider audience. “We have some publishers, some agents that are taking inquiries that we really are interested in,” he said. “But I feel pretty good about the legs on it and the life that it’ll have.”
Bland-Kendall reflected on watching the project come to life. She said, “It’s honestly been so moving to watch him bring these stories and images to life. Dave has such a creative spirit — his imagination, his humor, that cinematic way he sees the world — it all just shines through.”
Hernández echoed that sentiment. He said, “He is someone who cares deeply and understands life in such a lovely way that he is able to connect with just about everyone. As an artist Dave inspires me to keep working on my craft. To keep learning and growing and to stay curious.”
