When Phil Fouche was looking for an illustrator for his Yellow Cat books, he didn’t realize it would be one of his closest friends.
Fouche, a former Ector County ISD school board member, and Donnie Norwood, a retired educator and IT professional, had known each other for years. Fouche mentioned to someone that he needed an illustrator for a book he was writing. Although they had known each other for years, Phil Fouche, author of The Yellow Cat, didn’t know his friend Donnie Norwood could illustrate it for him.
Now the process of publishing the first book is well underway. Fouche said in an email that he has found an El Paso publisher named Jeanie Glenn. The book left the week of Sept .20 for Missouri to get printed. Fouche hopes to have a book signing somewhere, as well.
Book 2, “Road Trip,” will follow, but it has a ways to go, Fouche wrote.
The inspiration for “I Am Just a Yellow Cat” and “I Am Jimbo’s Yellow Cat” were stories he gathered from his friend, Jim Blain of the K-Bar Ranch.
Fouche said in a February 2020 Odessa American article that Blain is a longtime friend and they have done business together over many decades.
Norwood said he and Fouche have known each other since the mid-1980s.
Fouche called Norwood last summer and said he’d written a book and that Norwood might be interested in illustrating it.
Norwood said he asked Fouche to send him what he had written and he would send a couple of illustrations. If Fouche liked them, he would be the illustrator.
“I did a few and he liked them. He’s written five books. As he writes them, I’ve just been illustrating them,” Norwood said.
They communicate mostly by phone or email.
On each page, Fouche would tell Norwood what he had in mind, but leaves it open for suggestions.
“I’ve illustrated all five books and it’s been fun. I was contacted by a lady in El Paso that is interested in me illustrating a book for her,” Norwood said.
Norwood and his wife, Kathy, live in Granbury, but he still comes to Odessa fairly regularly. He belongs to a local watercolor club, has been on the board of the West Texas Credit Union for 14 years and is involved with the Permian Basin Rehab Center. His wife was their development director for many years before retiring about a year and a half ago.
Norwood said he and Sonya Haynie, an artist, jewelry designer and retired educator, collaborate on a yearly auction benefiting the rehab center.
“Since retirement, I’ve gotten a lot more involved in art. I minored in art in college, but then life gets going. I focused more on my career than art, but now that I have some time I enjoy it. In fact we bought a house and one room is specifically devoted to art,” Norwood said.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education with a minor in art from Hardin Simmons University, a master’s in elementary education from University of Texas Permian Basin and a doctorate in educational leadership from Texas Tech University.
Norwood said he saves his work as a jpeg file and emails it to Fouche. He’ll email it back with any changes or say everything looks good.
“I send him a rough draft of it. Then I’ll clean it up and make it look a little better. That’s the process I’ve used and I’ll probably do it with the next ones,” Norwood said.
“It’s just nice to be doing art that’s going to be beneficial for people. A lot of times I do paintings and no one sees them but my wife and I but being a member of the Watercolor Horizons has been beneficial because it forces you to paint. They meet once a month on a Saturday. I have not been back to paint, but I told them at some point I’ll come back on a Saturday … and paint with them,” Norwood said.
His favorite thing to paint is portraits.
Additionally, Norwood served on the ECISD school board for five years after he retired.
“I just enjoy working with the schools and I still do. I’m a professor of graduate courses at the University of Phoenix. I supervise, occasionally, future administrators,” he said.
Norwood said he was pretty excited about the illustration project for a couple of reasons.
“It was a challenge just to take each page and try to think … what would help a kid interpret what they’re saying; what the book’s actually doing. Another reason I was kind of excited about doing it was I just put a new program on my iPad and I was anxious to use it. The best way to learn something is to begin using it in a have-to case and that’s what I did. I did all the illustrations in Procreate … It’s a drawing program and it works well.”
“I did the first one and he liked the first one then I just started doing some others. But for me, it was a way to use the new art and actually see some results. It’ll be exciting when the books are actually published,” Norwood added.
Fouche said Norwood is one of those guys that you can always depend on, but quiet.
Fouche said the story that stands out most about Norwood is that when he told the publisher he had an illustrator, she asked if he had ever done a book before. When Fouche said no, she expressed skepticism, but he sent her the illustrations and she was pleased.
“… I put about four illustrations (from) him and she literally 10 minutes later called me (and said) do not let him go. I said what am I missing and she says consistency. She said illustrators in books, the picture from one cat to another cat, from one person to another person, it’s really difficult to get them consistent and I never thought about that. She said he is really good,” Fouche said.
Fouche went to a gathering with other authors in August and showed one of them Norwood’s work. The fellow author jumped on it.
“He’s so good to work with and we’re friends anyway and he’s really excited about it …,” Fouche added.
Working with friends doesn’t always work, but Fouche said it’s made their relationship stronger.
“… He’s just been wonderful,” Fouche said. “He is so talented and I think he’s really enjoyed it. He’s as excited as I am about this thing.”
