SCBWI illustrators

Jack and the Beanstalk

2012-02-18T15:26:00.000Z

My current work-in-progress is a picture book of Jack and the Beanstalk for Fukuinkan Shoten publishers in Japan.

I was specifically asked to approach this in a very traditional 'English' style, which you can probably tell! These are unfinished images of the line work before painting in watercolour. Inevitably a lot of the pen work will blend in when the spreads are painted, a problem I often face, but I'm hoping a lot will still be clear. Anyway, so far so good!

Cover for Highlights magazine

2012-01-11T10:58:00.000Z

This is a cover I finished recently for Highlights High Five magazine in the States. Happy, smiley animals for a bright, sunny morning. I painted it digitally in layers on top of the pencil rough I'd scanned in.
Here's to a good 2012 for us all.

A Question of Voice

2011-12-13T14:39:00.002Z

with Bridget Streven's Marzo
Illustrator Masterclass Series last event for 2011

Bridget Strevens-Marzo

Author illustrator and SCBWI International Illustrator Coordinator, began the afternoon with a slide show. The first image was to inspire us, an image from the French Book Fair in Paris, Salon du livre et de la presse jeunesse, always the first weekend of December. My own experience of this fair a few years ago was an amazing, creative experience being inspired by French publishing for Children. We all briefly mused on an Illustrator’s Masterclass Series trip to Paris.

The next slide showed several images of illustrated elephants and Bridget asked us to pick the oldest one. Of interest, the oldest one actually looked contemporary and was illustrated by an Australian illustrator, Harry Rountree, in the 1920’s. The images also showed that there are a 101 ways to illustrate an elephant.

We also had a look at Scott McCloud’s pyramid of different ways to illustrate a character, moving between reality to abstract.

Then we got into the discussion point of the masterclass, talking about style and voice. Bridget told us all that she actually hated the word style, because there is something that overrides that. And that something is ‘voice’. Our own unique ‘voice’ that makes our work authentic and our own.

In art school, we are told that you need to have a style to sell. But, where we got to is that it is really about content and having something to say.

Lots of ways to illustrate an elephant!

Illustrating Children’s Picture Books, Steven Withrow and Lesley Breen Withrow, RotoVision Publishing -
filled with interviews from published illustrators and Bridget is one of them. Second book is on creative exploration.

Bridget showed us a few pages from Quentin Blake’s book, ‘Drawing for the artistically undiscovered’, and noted that illustrators could be divided between painters and writers. Quentin Blake is a writer. It is easy to see whether the illustrator favours lines or shapes and, it is possible to be both! An expressive line that tells the story one way, or might be more sophisticated for older children, and very simplified shapes and colours for younger readers. Bridget also suggested that If you want to add new ideas to your work, go to old books. There is so much in the past that we have barely even grazed!

‘So,’ Bridget asked us, ‘What kind of children’s illustrator are you? Are you a fox or a wild boar?’

This was a question asked of Bridget by a French art director. He then went on to tell Bridget that the fox sniffs around the forest and get’s excited and looks things up.
Meanwhile, the wild board tends to stay with it’s family, in it’s own corner. Strong in what it knows how to do, but sticks in one place. A fox is adaptable and fits what they are doing to the voice of the story. Bridget is a fox.

Busy, busy, busy.


Just a taste of lots of different art materials around the table.

Looking at more inspiration!

More playing with art materials.

So again, we come back to, It is the voice that counts, not style.

In this journey to figure out our sense of identity as artists, Bridget asked us to ask ourselves the following questions.

How old are you deep down inside?

What kinds of children’s books do you positively enjoy reading?

What ideas for books do you enjoy wrestling with the most?

Stories? Concepts? Activities? Pop-up?
There are non-story, activities books. Games, which made me think of Highlights Magazine and the range of magazines that are part of Cricket Magazine Publishing such as Baby Bug, Lady Bug, Spider, Cricket and Muse Magazines - Cricket publishing.

Other illustrators are very conceptual. Alphabet books tend to be one of the first projects many illustration students work with.

And for those who are worried it’s too late, or that publishing gap has been going on a while now; the award winning book, Not a Box, was illustrated and written by Antoinette Portis, a designer who was over 60 when she produced it. And, it sold all over the world!

There are fold out books and artists books for children. Bridget pointed us to a fabulous exhibit in Paris that is only opened by appointment, Le Tois Ourses.

We also all agreed the kind of storytelling in which your character takes a child reader by the hand... This means your reader needs to immediately know who the main character is and that one character begins and ends the book.

If you are working on bringing more expression to your character’s face, Bridget suggested a great website called, artnatomia.net . On this site, it shows expression either as a mask or as a realistic drawing for reference. She also referred us to whole books on drawing eyes, noses, hands, and so on for reference. Don’t just focus on facial expression, jump into drawing your whole character in lots of positions. Look at body language as part of the expressive language you work with.

For fun, have a look at Ed Vere’s youtube video on, ‘How to draw Mr Big’.

The shape/silhouette of your characters and how they alter with gestures and expressions tell us more than a specific feature.

Part of Bridget’s workshop included written feedback on images sent to her in advance to the workshop. One of the participants said after her feedback. ‘I think I’ve got it. It’s more about what they do, and how they think and act.’ For me, it was the reminder that our characters are actors moving across a stage and interacting with each other.

Bridget also told all of us.
‘A key design word to grab (and keep) us and visual readers interested is,
CONTRAST!’
How do we show contrast? I know it seems like one of those basic design principles and elements talks, but, it is never said enough.

We do this by how we work with the following elements of design:
Space - full or patterned areas versus empty areas
Scale/size - clearly articulated big/medium/small in one composition, plus add surprise changes in scale from page to page.
Value - lights versus darks, even within colour ranges (light yellow versus dark purple)
Colour temperature - warm versus cool colours
Colour saturation - strong versus diluted colour including chromatic greys and blacks.
Line - thick versus thin, spotty, straight, curved ...

If your work is contemplative, you have to come out of that contemplation to action and interaction with the environment, other characters.

‘Illustrators we can easily get hung up on style - one way to do things, one type of process. To me, that’s putting the cart before the horse.’ Bridget said. ‘The horse is the content and
content is what really drives us. It’s what we want to ride over to the reader!’

The action ‘doing’ part of the workshop was given to us as a two part mission. The first mission: Draw a character in the way you usually draw it now and try to draw it with a different expression than you’ve done before, or put in a situation that is different for that character.

The second mission: Use someone else’s art materials to colour that character. Let the strangeness of using different art materials than our own take us to a different view.

Though we had a small group, the time was full. If anything, maybe it made the afternoon even more intense in that we all love what we do and want to keep progressing in our craft.

A few lovely things I took away from this afternoon’s work are:
An introduction to a wonderful deckle edged sketchbook from Paper Chase with lushes paper that shows tonal work and colour to it’s best.

Remembering that my characters are ‘actors’ moving across my pages, telling a story.

And, an idea for a future workshop on colour and composition.

Bridging images by Bridget Strevens-Marzo: My signing at the French children's book fair, Montreuil with Hervé Tullet, Brian Selznick (of Hugo Cabret), Lorenzo Mattotti, and all...

2011-12-09T01:31:00.000Z

Bridging images by Bridget Strevens-Marzo: My signing at the French children's book fair, Montreuil with Hervé Tullet, Brian Selznick (of Hugo Cabret), Lorenzo Mattotti, and all...

2011-12-05T18:10:00.001Z

• MY FIRST PICTURE BOOK APP!

Just finished work on the conversion of Ga Gunk to become an interactive app.

The artwork for Ga Gunk was finished a couple of years ago and has been seeking a publisher ever since. It's a very short, sweet little story that features two cute little froggies. They fall in love one magical moonlit night under the shooting stars.

Ga Gunk is the sound that American youngsters think frogs make. I must admit that I'd never heard of it either, but it kinda makes sense once you've become accustomed to hearing it.

And boy have i become accustomed!

This adaptation took around 3 weeks of solid work with many a late hour working on it and liaising with the Interactive Touch Books team in California.

They were always available to help and explain their brilliant (but complicated at first) web.app software.

Ga Gunk is now one of the 30 or so books available in the ITB bookstore and hopefully will prove a popular little tale.

You can get it HERE

The words came from Susie Ramsey who contacted me to illustrate this tale and told me that her grandma used to sing to her when she was little.

The PB app features 13 pages with a colouring-in page, a build-your-own-froggy puzzle and a Ga gunk song and narration by Rachel Baier.

I now have two further books in development and plan to offer my app creation/conversion skills to other authors and illustrators who might not be able to tackle the online creation process.

Although I already had all the a/w fully layered in photoshop I still ended up creating from these layers around 400 extra image and sound 'assets'.

If anyone else starts to work with ITB on their book then don't hesitate to give me a call for assistance.

2011-11-09T18:31:00.000Z

New artwork style for Bug Belly

Following some enthusiastic feedback from a couple of publishers and a consensus that they'd like to see non-digital artwork ("or would I mind someone else illustrating it") I've bitten the bullet, given up on the wacom tablet and enjoyed myself with coloured pencils and collage.

Here are some of the results and if you click on this LINK to ISSUU you'll see my updated picture book dummy that is ready to do the rounds again.

Itsy-Bitsy Book Cover

2011-10-30T09:50:00.002Z

Remember the issues we had with Waterstones not liking the yellow cover which I originally designed for Baby Goes Baaaaa!? Well, I thought we had sorted everything with the new duck-egg blue cover, but I suddenly remembered something...

On the inside, there is this illustration of Nana Croc reading to Baby Croc. Now, whenever possible, I include my own books in my illustrations. Cheeky, but why not?

I thought for Baby Goes Baaaaa! is would be sweet if, instead of one of my other books, Nana Croc was reading the actual book she was in! Clever eh? Except trouble is, that book no longer has a yellow cover... Uh-oh.

Remember the patch I made for Baby Croc's bare bum on the cover of Baby Can Bounce!? Yep, you guessed it:

It was so very tiny, it was a bit of a nightmare to do, but quite cute, I think you'll agree. When it was finished, I scanned it in and pasted it over the professional scan of Nana Croc from repro. Then, in Photoshop, I tinkered with it until it fitted like a glove. What do you think?

BICKIDS Competition

2011-10-20T16:19:00.000+01:00

Last month I had the pleasure of being invited to be a judge in the annual competition run by BIC -- the BIC PICTURE -- to find talented young artists amongst Britain's primary school children. My fellow judges were children's TV presenter Kirsten O'Brien, and colour expert Cecile Parenton, who heads the children's division of BIC. The winners have just been announced.

The theme was 'What I want to be when I grow up,' and the ambitions of the nation's children ranged from becoming a mad scientist to a roller coaster designer. If this small sample is representative, there'll be lots of footballers, astronauts, dress designers and chefs around in the future!

It's not as easy as you might imagine, picking winning pictures from a room full of shortlisted entrants, and there were several good-humored arguments along the way. We had some really delightful designs to sort through though, and choosing an overall winner was especially difficult. Well done to all who took part. Congratulations to all the age group winners, and especially to Laura Burton who won the main prize. Laura wants to be a children's book writer and illustrator, and with her winning picture she's made an impressive start.

I've pictured a few of my favorites here, but this is a link to the BIC Kids website, which gives more information: http://www.bickids.com/index.php?p_sa=actualite&p_actu=1 and to the Flickr site which shows more of the winning entrants: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebicpicture.

The Halloween Forest

2011-10-19T10:30:00.000+01:00

Although this won't be released until next year, here's a sneak preview of my upcoming Halloween themed book for Holiday House in the US. The Halloween Forest, written by Marion Dane Bauer, is a fantastical romp in a spooky bone forest. Fingers crossed it will find a publisher in the UK too. Woooooo!!!!!

2011-09-30T19:30:00.001+01:00

Yorkshire Sculpture Park sketch crawl

This was a sketch crawl of just one - me, tho I did see at least 4 others doing the same.
The weather was wonderful (Thursday 29th reached 28 degrees), I'd just sent off my last job, couldn't jump on the mountain bike due to an injury so thought right! I've not managed to join the Sheffield crawlers so i'll have my own right now.
The Jaume Plensa sculpture exhibition is breathtakingly superb. I heartily recommend it and I'm sure YSP will make a fantastic location for any future sketch crawl if the Sheffield contingent want to travel up the M1?? Please contact me if anyone wants to make a future date and i'll arrange the details.
My energy trailed off after a break for lunch, so in future I think I should stick at the drawing and reward myself with the break at the end.

Young readers phonics book

2011-09-29T20:55:00.001+01:00

How Anansi Got His Stories has just been published by Oxford University Press (Oxford Reading Tree Traditional Tales series), and I'm very excited, because I did the illustrations for it. It is the first time I have been published in children's books, too.

Anansi is a trickster spider from traditional West African/Caribbean tales. The other characters include a leopard, a snake, hornets and a sky god. http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/oxed/primary/ort/traditional_tales/traditional_tales_leaflet.pdf

Here is a selection of some of the illustrations. The cut-out typeface to the cover has been done by OUP.

Viv Schwarz character design and comic workshop

2011-09-14T22:17:00.000+01:00

Viviane Schwarz playing with shapes.

Viviane started the session talking about coming to graphic novels from picture books. In her last book, co-written with Alexis Deacon for Walker Books, A Place to Call Home, Viv used panels and speech bubbles. As soon as Walker got a graphic novel department, Viv proposed her graphic novel, Sleepwalkers, a wonderful imaginative story in which children can leave a letter under their pillows asking for help in stopping their nightmares. An unlikely crew with a Yoda type character, Viv's description, a sheep, and a bear and rabbit work together in helping children work out how to stop their own nightmares. As an added bonus, we got to look through a pile of press proofs for Sleepwalkers during the workshop. We also looked through a variety of graphic novel formats and styles represented in the books Viv brought with her such as Neil Gaiman's, Anya's Ghost, Fish and Chocolate by Kate Brown, Rumble Strip by Woodrow Phoenix and Spiral Bound by Aaron Renier.

Character design made by playing with random shapes.

The hands on part of the workshop started with choosing random shapes cut out of coloured construction paper and lots of 'eyes'. Playing around with these shapes in various positions and playing with eye shape and placement quickly made up lots of fun characters around the table. To do this for yourself, cut out random shapes of all kinds starting with the usual triangle, circle, square, bean, rectangle, thick, thin, curvy and so on in different colours. Make eyes as you go along and play! Viv talked about how she would document promising character shapes using a camera for future sketching into more developed characters.

Getting to know your character - walking the line.

In getting to know your character, Viv gave us a couple of exercises to put our new character through their paces. This one I am calling, walking the line, but Viv called it creating a terrain for your character to travel across. She pointed out that a common mistake students and beginning illustrators make is spending lots of time drawing the face and facial expression and not understanding the character's body or gestures at all. The next two images shows how hard we were working!

Everyone working hard creating characters.

More playing with shapes while Viv gives encouragement.

Another getting to know your character exercise,
put your character into random shapes.

In the exercise shown above, you place your character in random shapes drawn on a large piece of paper forcing your character into a variety of positions and gestures.

Viv's character design from random shapes.

Another great character in the making from random cut out shapes.

Viv putting together a character.

The last part of the workshop was spent on quick exercises where we took our 'default' characters and placed them with our new characters in four frame sequences. These quick sequences were timed with the first set at 10 minutes a frame and the second set 3 minutes a frame! The first set of four frames began with the character we brought to the workshop doing 'something' in the first frame, then bringing in the new character in the second frame. The next two frames resolved in some way the interaction between the two characters. The second set of four frames began in frame 3 with a climatic moment between the old and new characters. Then we resolved the event in the fourth frame and then drew what happened before frame 3 in frame 2, then how it began in frame 1, emphasising the fact that you can start in the middle.

To wrap up, here are a few of the great suggestions that I managed to write down.

Start by giving yourself limitations; limiting colour and giving yourself a panel grid.

Use Celtex or Scrivener for preparing your script.

Be obvious!

Don't keep going back, work through it and be persistent. That way you get the story out without suffering too much and trying to make something 'awesome' right away.

It's important to get to know your characters first, you need your characters to drive the story.

Write lists of characteristic qualities and history for your characters then do lots of drawings showing how your characters 'express' those qualities through gesture and body language.

Keep a book on personality types that you can feed into your ideas.

Explore themes and ideas in your comfort zone first, then later, jump into areas less comfortable.

And lastly, at least what I wrote down, explore improv theatre! Recommended by Viv; Improv for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone. It's already on my wish list!

Our next Illustrator Masterclass is 10 December with Bridget Strevens-Marzo; The Style Question, exploring voice and style. There are still places available.

No line!

2011-09-14T15:48:00.000+01:00

I've just received the proof copy of a book I wrote and illustrated for OUP earlier in the year -- a re-telling of the Elves and the Shoemaker. It was a bit of a departure for me in that I decided to do away with a holding line, which for a long time has been the way I've preferred to work in Photoshop. I rather liked the result. The pictures felt fresher somehow.

I think a dissatisfaction with your own style is something that most illustrators feel at some point or other, and I've certainly jumped about more than most in an attempt to find a perfect formula. This approach made me re-examine the way I added shadow and texture, and I even found myself drawing the roughs in a slightly different way, aware that I could do more than usual with elements such as candle light... if that makes any sense. Anyway, I felt I was using a different part of my brain, which was enjoyable!

'Baby Can Bounce' artwork - head down...

2011-09-06T19:10:00.000+01:00

When last I showed you my artwork on the book, I was about to start the hedgehogs. I got on with them early last week:

There's so much other stuff tacked on the desk above, as I am using the artwork from Baby Goes Baaaaa! as colour reference for the characters etc.

The hedgehogs are all done now:

They are illustrating the page: 'Baby can dance' of course. I thought it would be more fun if they were dressed up. As you can see from this earlier rough, they were originally going to be trying on Mum and Dad's clothes, like children do...

...but Egmont felt that made things look too old and not babyish enough, so I went for more random dress-ups instead.

I finished the week by working on the polar bear and the anteater. Polar bear is about done (Baby can hide) so today it's anteater (Baby can shake) I'm going to get stuck into.

This week John is going to help me out by scanning all the illustrations I've done so far, to send to Egmont. These won't be the final scans of course, just interim ones, but Egmont emailed to say they need some images to take to a sales meeting in the USA. I don't want to send the actual artwork, as sometimes I like to go back and tweak the ones I've previously finished, so home-scans are the next best thing.

It's so great to have someone else to be able to do the scanning, so I can get on with the next piece.

Right, head down...

Norwich Solstice Scrawl Crawl

2011-06-23T23:10:00.005+01:00

On 21st June several SCBWI regions around Europe participated in a Summer Solstice Scrawlcrawl. Inspired by illustrator sketchcrawls but expanded to encompass writers too, coinciding sketching and writing events ran in Paris, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Madrid, Athens, London and several other locations. Some fascinating images from all corners of Europe were the result, many of which have been posted to the dedicated Solstice Scrawlcrawl blog.

Not to be left out, in addition to the Scrawlcrawl in London organised by Anne-Marie, I decided to run one in Norwich too. We had a great day here, with 9 participants taking part, members and non-members, both writers and illustrators. Here are some of the images from the participants (you can see all my drawings on the Solstice Scrawlcrawl blog and on my own blog Shelley Scraps)

In the morning we first walked around Norwich's old medieval town, covering Tombland, the iconic Elm Hill and the banks of the river Wensum near the Art School (here's a video tour of the area). It was a quiet, peaceful morning with relatively few people about, many of us concentrated on the buildings. The writers not only worked on story ideas, but also joined in the sketching too - multi-talented!

Elm Hill by Lisa Smith

River Wensum by Lisa Smith

Elm Hill by Maureen Nisbet

Panda soft toy in window of Elm Hill's Bear Shop by Maureen Nisbet

Tombland Alley by John Shelley

Rear of buildings, Elm Hill, by John Shelley

More participants joined us during lunch, after which we moved on to Norwich Cathedral.

L to R: Maureen Nisbet, Kat Erwin, Joyce Taylor, Cathy Fiddy, Elaine Mitchell, Lisa Smith and Paeony Lewis. In addition there was Matt Robertson and yours truely.

The late Norman structure proved a rich source of subject matter as we spread out to explore the cloisters, interior and exterior.

Cathedral window by Lisa Smith

Cathedral from the Close, by Matt Robertson

Exterior, by Matt Robertson

Personally I was especially interested in drawing visitors to the cathedral within the environment of the architecture.

Screen near South trancept, by John Shelley

Cloisters, by John Shelley

Finally we all gathered to compare notes before ending late afternoon. With glorious sunny skies lasting until nearly 10pm we could actually have carried on for hours more.

I think everyone enjoyed the experience and we'll definitely run something like this again. Many thanks to everyone who participated!

Creative Typography in Children's Books

2011-05-24T13:32:00.008+01:00

with Gillian McClure and Lisa Kirkham

Lisa and Gillian showing a spread from Gillian's next book.

It is always nice to see everyone stream up the steps into the large room at St George’s through the Little Russell Street entry we’ve now become accustomed to. The huge blocks of carved lintels laying across the courtyard just gives it more ambience. This time it was a smaller group than we’ve had though it didn’t make it any less intensive or exciting.

Gillian talking about text placement on spread from The Little White Sprite.

Gillian began by asking all of us where we were in our careers as children’s illustrators and writers, and then introduced herself as an author illustrator bringing three decades of picture book creation and publishing experience to the masterclass. Lisa Kirkham has an MA in Typography with a focus on typography for children’s literature. Both had an easy and inviting manner about them coupled with a shared passion for producing well designed children’s books in which text and image are beautifully integrated into the act of storytelling. Gillian felt that the typeface that Lisa had designed during her MA expressed in letterform her delicate rich illustrative style. That and Lisa as a designer forged their professional partnership.

Lisa showing how the text flow leads you from one page to the next in a triangular shape flowing from left to right.

Gillian and Lisa’s most important message is to consider text early, not as something added on late in the planning and creation process. Lisa and Gillian work together from the first roughs. Here are a few recommendations given at the workshop.

When deciding text placement, consider what is going on. Where you are in the story at that point. Blocks of text can give emotional intensity along with size and scale of the letterforms. Of course we are talking about the picture books as you will have blocks of text in older children’s books due to how much text there is. It is a good idea to try out various exercises in emphasis with your text using placement on the page, where the text is split and whether the image is used to split words or phrases much like a the use of a comma or full stop. Other ways text is split has to do with the form of a book, utilising the gutter and the page turn. Emphasis can also be effected by text or character size, weight (bold, regular, light), italic or not. Also, consider a thoughtful strategy, don't do things just because you can such as the use of too many typefaces. If the shock of using an unexpected typeface is used, why? Is it an important story element that adds to the experience of reading the picture book? Read your text out loud. How it sounds tells you something about how it needs to be treated in the image and on the page.

Lisa spoke about how working with text and image to a large extent is instinctual. I agree with her to a certain extent, but it also has a lot to do with developing an eye and ear for it. Developing an aesthetic to how a story is told at it’s best in the integration of text and image to a level that you are not aware of the expertise and skill that went into the making. Much like good writing. She left us with three important points to consider in every picture book; honour the content of the book; be aware and think about your audience; and read it aloud.

So many other things were discussed and shared including foreign rights and how that effects use of reversed text (white text) coloured text and handwritten texts.

Heather Kilgour, one of the attendees sharing her dummy for feedback.

Gillian had us do a couple of exercises that related directly to two of her upcoming books now in the planning stages. It was amazing to see how many different takes there were to the same text and the potential of using text as a story element.

The opening spread from The Little White Sprite written and illustrated by Gillian McClure.

Everyone had brought their own dummies to share and get feedback on during the last part of the masterclass. It was such a great opportunity not only to get feedback from Gillian and Lisa but how all of us pitched in with ideas and comments. This kind of creative hotbox is one of the earmarks, I think, of how giving illustrators at various stages of their careers are with each other. I also think this is an earmark of SCBWI as an organisation. To read more about Gillian and Lisa’s workflow and about Plaister Press, follow these links.

We even had a children's book editor in our midst! Listening and looking intently at one of the dummies presented.

We have three more Illustrator Masterclasses planned for this year, all promising to be as inspiring and informative as the last one. The Portfolio Intensive is the next one on the 25 June in London.

Michael Rosen Illustration

2011-05-16T12:16:00.001+01:00

I was very pleased to be asked to illustrate a story by Michael Rosen for a book that’s being put together on behalf of the Bristol Children’s Hospital. Contributors include Jacqueline Wilson, Alexander McCall Smith, Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Anne Fine, Nichola Bayley, Quentin Blake, Michael Foreman, Emma Chichester Clark, Nick Sharratt and several others. The story is called 'The Worst Cough In The World', and this is the illustration I came up with. It was nice to work in black and white again. It's the first purely B/W drawing I've done in ages.

more York images

2011-05-14T11:26:00.000+01:00

Some more sketches from the York Sketchcrawl. These are by Catriona Tippin.

York Sketchcrawl

2011-05-12T10:59:00.000+01:00

On 7th May SCBWI members in the York area got together for their first Sketch-crawl and Scrawl-crawl (for writers). 12 members of the North-East group walked the city walls and worked on drawings and writing inspirations, reports say it was an enriching experience. Here are some sketches made by one of the participants Sam Zuppardi.

Bridging images by Bridget Strevens-Marzo: Tools of Change Bologna March 27, 2011

2011-04-05T16:59:00.001+01:00

Bridging images by Bridget Strevens-Marzo: Tools of Change Bologna March 27, 2011: "Well I promised to write it up for SCBWI BI so I took pages of notes at the 2011 Bologna Book Fair's first ever Tools of Change for Publish..."

New Idea: the Tour de Sketch

2011-03-29T09:33:00.007+01:00

On Sunday, we tried out a new sketching idea in Derbyshire, just outside Sheffield. Instead of our usual monthly SketchCrawl, we tried it on bikes. A group called Pedal Ready, associated with the Peak Park, sponsored us by providing free bike hire, which was great, because it meant everyone could have a go.

24 people turned up at 9.30am at Hassop's ex-railway station. The 1st sketching stop was just 10 minutes away at the old Thornbridge Station:

Apparently, in its day, it was a private station for the exclusive use of the residents of the adjacent Thornbridge Hall (!).

Next we continued to a spot where the path opened to lovely, long views across rolling farmland:

We had a longer run next, to where there was a twisted, old birch tree in a picnic area:

We rode back to the cafe at Hassop Station for lunch, as it was too chilly to picnic, then had another slightly longer run afterwards, out to where the trail ends, at Coombs Road viaduct. The sun was trying to come out and it was getting quite warmer, so we sat on the grass, beside a field full of springy, new lambs, and spent about 50 minutes on our final sketch of the day:

Then it was back to Hassop for a well-earned cuppa, where we sat round a big table and slowly passed all our sketchbooks around the circle. It was a real feast: big books, tiny books, all kinds of styles, rich with ink and watercolour, charcoal and pencil (as usual, I will post other people's work up in my Picture Gallery as they send it in.

We'll certainly be trying that idea again!

Sketchbook project on tour in the U.S.

2011-03-22T09:41:00.012Z

In this post I thought I would share a peek into the sketchbook I submitted for Sketchbook Project 2011. The theme I chose was Nighttime Stories. I knew I wanted to work in black and white with touches of one or two colours, and I knew that I wanted a narrative thread to hold it all together. Above is one page of my storyboard thumbnails outlining the theme loosely to a Native American myth on bringing the first light to the world.

In this tale, animals and people could change between being human or animal at will and the moon was a woman who hung upside down in the sky. Above, the ravens love their blackness and wish to keep the world dark.

An interesting challenge was to show the human form connected to their animal forms. Here, the Wolf People want warmth and light and are dressed in their wolf skins.

Above, the confrontation between Raven and Wolf as Moon Woman looks on. Wolf had gone to Moon Woman to ask how they could bring light to the world.

The battle between the Ravens and Wolf to free Moon Woman's brother, the Sun from the cave they had imprisoned him in.

Interestingly, 28,839 blank sketchbooks were sent out from the Art House Co-op and just under 10,000 sketchbooks were sent back. These books will be kept in a permanent collection at the Brooklyn Library, cataloged and each has an ISBN number. It is amazing to think of original art being something you can check out. Currently, the exhibit has been in Brooklyn, New York and Austin, Texas - next stop Portland, Maine. By the time the tour wraps up at the end of July 2011, the exhibit will have been all across the United States. A tour diary is on the website along with the portfolios and sketchbook submissions of all the artists that participated. It has been truly exciting to be part of this project reminding me that I can do a lot of work in a short amount of time when needed. Follow the link to see more of my sketchbook.

2011-03-19T17:19:00.001Z

I've at last figured out how to post here...after previous postings including my sketchcrawl sketches into the void. Anyhow here's my latest post from my own blog http://bridgimage.blogspot.com.

Artist and children's author-illustrator Brian Karas, whom I invited a while back to talk for SCBWI France about his book The Young Zeus, shows a great way to use a free 3D computer modelling tool, Google Sketchup for visualizing a house and neighbourhood, in his great trailer for his new book Neville written by Norton Juster (of Phantom Tollbooth fame).

But what really makes it all work, in my book, is the feeling behind the process, how he puts himself in in the shoes of his main character, into his world.

When you've got that identification right, when you feel at home in the story, any or every tool you use to help you illustrate it, will work.

As illustrators we can easily get hung up on style - one way to do things, one type of process. To me, that's putting the cart before the horse. The horse is the content - that's what drives us. And with that, we can draw along (excuse the pun!) with a single nib or a whole wonderful cartload of pens, computer software, paints, paper - you name it!

PAUL MORTON - SKETCHBOOK WORK

2011-03-16T09:15:00.004Z

Between commissioned work I like to find time for using my sketchbook/notebooks. I've always carried one of these with me ever since leaving college and it sometimes becomes my second brain.

Ideas are jotted down and developed, stored like in Dumbledore's pensive, and surprisingly re-discovered and used years later.

At the moment I want to draw children, and in particular one little boy for a wordless Picture Book I'm working on, set in a garden.

I need to draw and draw until the shape of the limbs, the folds and bulk of the clothes and the expressions, come naturally to me.

These are some early examples from the last 2 weeks, I've a long way to go before becoming close to Shirley Hughes!

Baby Goes Baaaa! - creating the artwork

2011-02-14T12:39:00.003Z

I started on the pastel artwork for my latest book Baby Goes Baaaa! last week - yikes!

Fortunately, it's all going pretty well so far. It's taken such a long time to get to this stage that I'm really enjoying getting down to it.

To keep on schedule, I have to do one page a day, but that's not as tricky as it sounds, as none of the images have backgrounds this time - we are going to drop bright pastel colours in later.

Here are the ones I've managed so far. Egmont has kindly given permission for me to blog the entire process so, if you are interested, you can see in-progress images and read more about the project every couple of days on my blog An Illustrator's Life For Me!

Wish me luck for this week - I'm working on a baby hedgehog's first kiss today...

SketchJam in Sheffield

2011-02-10T16:29:00.006Z

Last week, we had another go at the SketchJam idea. It was rather louder on the ear than the old fellas we drew last time: this time it was a rock band!

I'm not really one for rock music these days, but it turned out to be brilliant fun, and I was amazed at all the rock classics that I knew. I'm not really one for rock music these days, but it turned out to be brilliant fun, and I was amazed at all the rock classics that I knew.

When the music eventually wound up and I finally made a dash for the loo, I looked at my watch and realised it was midnight - we'd been drawing for nearly 3 hours!

There are more drawings on my blog if you're interested.

4 February Sketchcrawl in London

2011-02-09T22:25:00.013Z

Clare Tovey, Anita Loughrey, Bridget Strevens-Marzo and myself, met at the Museum of Childhood as growing throngs of school children collected at the front entrance. All the children, teachers and parents added a wonderful energy to the venue, making it at times hard to choose between sketching the constantly moving children or the incredible exhibits throughout the museum. I was mesmerized by the old wooden rocking horse above because of the lovely organic line formed by the shape of the horse and the beautifully crafted details still visible in the wood on the horse's anatomy.

I wanted to spend more time in the 'costume' area of the museum and will definitely go back. This amazing silk dress had intricate embroidered flowers and birds all through the bodice, sleeves and skirt. The small bespoke leather shoe went with it. Next to this exhibit were a range of shoes from different ages the children could try on.

Above is a couple of examples of 'handmade' toys from history. I made rag dolls as a child and with my own daughters, so loved the plaited wheat dolls. As I was drawing the cat, children were sitting all around me drawing the same toys from the same case guessing which was the oldest toy. I can tell you it was the small flat wooden doll from Egypt.

The following three drawings were done by Anita Loughrey, and this was her very first sketchcrawl and the first time she had done any observational drawing in years. I think we may have a convert!
Above, a big red train, 1920 - 1930.

A sampling from all the great teddy bears from different ages. Each bear had great distinctive faces.

Fantasy Flyer, Anita's first drawing of the day. As we passed our books around at lunch we spoke about the great comments said by the children and the unveiled excitement that showed through their body language, movement and noise level in general inside the museum. It was a great day and we are looking forward to the next one!

Not shown, but hope to follow up with images from Clare Tovey and Bridget Strevens-Marzo.

Bridging images by Bridget Strevens-Marzo: Sorting the mess and 'deskavation'

2011-01-24T20:02:00.001Z

Bridging images by Bridget Strevens-Marzo: Sorting the mess and 'deskavation': "Last year was busy, crazily so at times, and there was no time for pondering projects. Just one commission which I've mentioned befo..."

Sheffield Sketchcrawl no 4

2011-01-24T17:42:00.008Z

Around 30 people turned up on Saturday for the 4th Sheffield SketchCrawl: some old hands, several brand new faces, all different ages. This is Bryn Hughes, who seems not to feel the cold at all, choosing to paint outside as usual - brrrrrrrr!

The lovely Sheffield Telegraph article brought a few more closet-sketchers out of the woodwork too. We had a great time and drew until our pencils were smoking!

This is one I did in the morning, in the library. You can see more of my sketches and read all about the day here.

But you really should take a look in the Picture Gallery too, where I am gradually posting the drawings done by some of the other people there, like this one by Sally Jane Thompson:

As usual we all chilled out at the end of the afternoon in a bar and passed round the books. Such a lovely way to meet new like-minded people.

Introducing SketchJam: Sketchbooks & Beer!

2011-01-15T18:44:00.012Z

No, not exactly a SketchCrawl this time. SketchJam is SketchCrawl's younger brother, so to speak. It's a brand new, musical idea that I tried on for size this week.

Remember how the snow scuppered our chance to draw an orchestra recently? Well, I've been mulling things over with my good friend and fellow artist Martin Hinchcliffe (who also did this lovely painting). We've cooked up another way to draw live music.

SketchJam's world premier (!) started at the Cubana in Sheffield on Thursday evening, where we were entertained by soul and jazz from the 50s and 60s, played by Simon Peat on the Sax, with Joel White on vocals and keyboard.

It was wonderful, and I was bobbing up and down (while also trying to draw!) to all the old favourites I remember my mum and dad playing when I was young. Unfortunately though, as you can see from my sketches, we couldn't really get close enough to the musicians, plus it was a bit dark and VERY warm, so we moved on after a bit, just down the road a way, to The Grapes:

Our merry band of 7, some old hands from previous SketchCrawls, but some new faces too, huddled happily over sketchbooks and beer in a cosy side bar, drawing the locals:

We thought we had missed our chance, yet again, on the music front, but we discovered at 9.30 that we had struck gold: a knot a old folks in the corner suddenly whipped out guitars and spent the rest of the evening taking turns singing wonderful folk music!

We had a smashing evening and all drew and painted our socks off until about 11.00. It was so casual and friendly, bantering with the singers and generally chilling out to music and drawing. What could be better?

Email me if you live in my neck of the woods and fancy coming to the next one.

From brief to book - trials of a non-fiction writer

2010-12-16T13:31:00.004Z

Fiction writers work inside out – from idea to story to pitch to publication. Non fiction writers usually work the other way round, from an idea that starts inside a publisher’s head. You have to get inside the subject, make it your own, learn about it and make it fun.

Early last year I was asked by my publisher to write and illustrate a book for children about looking after the marine environment. My reply of “er… not sure about that…..” was taken as enthusiastic consent. By autumn I had been given a title, a brief and a lovely marine biologist as consultant. “Start with the origins of the earth”, they said. Of course. Good idea. I was just about to suggest that myself.

This sketch book page shows the messy way it all started, trying to draw and write my way into the unknown and give it some shape and structure. I’ll gloss over the struggles of the next nine months. You know the kind of thing - long hours, research, sharpening of pencils, self-doubt, redrawing, rewriting, whingeing on facebook and heavy dependence on Google. Editor Susie made encouraging noises amongst her corrections, publisher Phil left me in peace apart from occasional emails saying, “I’m glad you’re enjoying this book”.

Enjoying wasn’t the word that sprung to mind, but as each chapter was complete and each tricky subject tackled I became more comfortable with it. It wasn’t their project any more, it was mine. I was getting used to drawing fish, albatross and sea defences and came up with a joke for every page - more or less. I found out more than I ever wanted to about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the time that single use plastic takes to decay. I glared at people who bought cellophane wrapped bananas in the supermarket and found marine conservation groups to join.

By September it was done, and the book is finally in my hands. I can’t bear to look too closely at it though – far too worried about finding mistakes.

There’s a nice preview piece on http://responsibletravelnews.blogspot.com/2010/11/rya-go-green.html though the cover design has changed in the process.

One of these days I'd like to write and illustrate a book from the inside out - there are plenty of ideas lurking in the back of my head, though they always get put to one side when a 'real' job comes along. Though that would mean pitching to a publisher which looks about as comfortable as jumping out of a plane without a parachute. One day, perhaps!

http://www.claudiamyatt.co.uk/
http://www.rya.org.uk/shop/pages/product.aspx?pid=G75(RYADefaultCatalog)&mode=t&type=BK(RYADefaultCatalog)

'In Conversation' Illustrator Masterclass Event

2010-12-05T20:21:00.011Z

Despite the snow and ice that had disrupted travel earlier in the week and the presence of lots of London Christmas shoppers illustrator members and non-members came to hear Ben Norland, Art Director from Walker Books, and author illustrator Viviane Schwarz talk about their working relationship at the last Illustrator Masterclass Series in 2010 on 4 December at St George's in Bloomsbury.

Viviane speaking about her book, Shark and Lobster's Amazing Undersea Adventure. Both Ben and Viviane spoke about how an illustrator's ability to write greatly increased their odds of being published as there are degree courses turning out illustrator's every year but very few courses that teaches how to write picture books.

Viviane speaking to illustrators at the tea break.

Everyone surrounded the table during the feedback session given by Viviane and Ben on the book dummies brought in by attendees.

An example of Viviane's world building for her latest book. She made the sketch on the left based on a 'set' created by toys and other materials in her studio.

Ben and Viviane 'performed' Vivian's latest book written by Alexis Deacon, available for sale in July 2011. Ben and Viviane spoke about how a picture book needs to be read aloud and is a performance.

More from the book by Alexis and Viviane, A Place to Call Home. When asked if Viviane starts with her characters, she said that she begins with 'place' - 'builds the house' then populates it. She often makes 3D models of her characters like a sock puppet. She even shares her puppet making as you can download from her website patterns to make knitted cats from her book, There are Cats in This Book. Ben added that in his opinion there are three important elements to every picture book: Consistency of character, sense of context and place and a sense of humour.

More on the Sketchcrawl!

2010-11-30T21:25:00.010Z

The morning was cold and clear and the company, warm and fun. The images above were done in the V&A Museum in the afternoon. While drawing the study of the fellow with the hawk from one of the huge tapestries at the museum, I was asked very politely to leave for a half hour while the tapestries were given a rest from the light. I then went to Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit exhibit and was amazed at the vast amount of studies she made of her pet rabbit who of course, became Peter. Only that kind of 'knowing' your character so well would allow for this amazing view of Peter jumping as above.

At the Natural History Museum I warmed up on a horse head skull - I was thinking about a Susan Cooper book cover, then sketched this impressive mammal the Maned Wolf.

Last year I played around with the idea of pangolin characters and seeing this little guy inspired me to pull them out again and see how I could develop them more. All and all it was wonderful inspiring day. The usual anxiety of sketching in public just wasn't there knowing you had friends drawing throughout the museum. We all agreed we would definitely do it again in the new year and hopefully make it a regular event. Hope to see more illustrators at the next one!
Anne-Marie

London Sketchcrawl Report

2010-11-29T00:23:00.005Z

26th November was the first SCBWI Sketchcrawl event in London.

The event was open for anyone, not just our illustrators, however as it turned out only members turned up on the day. A small but dedicated group of SCBWI children's book scribblers descended on the Natural History and Victoria & Albert Museums, pens, pencils and brushes at the ready. Here are just a few samples from some of the participants, I've posted all of my own sketches on my personal blog.

Amber Hsu - Fish

We started the Sketchcrawl shortly after 10.00 am in the Natural History Museum. The location, exhibits and visitors all proved to be inspiring subjects.

It was great to see the way each artist focused on different aspects of the museum. Some of us made copious notes and explored characters developed from the displays, while others sought to capture the environment and immediacy of the moment...

Clare Tovey - Bats

John Shelley - Griffon Vulture

Clare Tovey - Whale

John Shelley - Moeritherium

Some creatures past and present gave particularly inspiring ideas for children's book characters....

Amber Hsu - Girl and Bird

I think one of the biggest lessons for us all was how these displays encouraged us to broaden our vision, whether through new ideas or for texture, materials, treatment of our drawings etc.

The relatively limited time frame per image encouraged us to open new doors in our creativity.

John Shelley - Distant Relatives

John Shelley - Entrance Hall, V & A Museum

Sue Eves - Notes on Devonshire Tapestries

In the afternoon we moved on to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where once again the location itself as well as the exhibits proved a rich source of subject material.

Amber Hsu - Sculpture

some participants: L to R: Sue Eves, Amber Hsu, Anne-Marie Perks, Claire Tovey, John Shelley.

There were many more sketches and other participants, if I receive any more I'll add them to this post.

At the end of the day we gathered to share notes. It was a fascinating and very satisfying event which we certainly plan to repeat.

Sketchcrawls began in the US a few years ago based on an idea by Enrico Casarosa. Although there are set dates for Worldwide Sketchcrawls this SCBWI event was independent. More information on the original concept is on the Sketchcrawl website.

Starting Out? How to Get Noticed...

2010-11-24T17:28:00.009Z

I'm get lots of emails from people trying to get started in book illustration so, to save writing individual replies, here's some more general advice, this time about getting yourself noticed.

It's following up on my post about creating a children's illustration folio, sharing what I can about the next step, and what worked for me at least.

Firstly: spend some time browsing the children's section of bookshops. Independants are best, but Waterstones will do the job. Bookshops are better than libraries for this, as it's all still selling, so never out-of-date.

Familiarise yourself with what different publishers do. Who publishes picture books? Who publishers chapter books? Which illustration techniques are used for which age groups? Who leans towards traditonal, beautiful, funny or off-the-wall?

Note the websites of publishers whose books look a bit like what you do, then check their newest releases on-line to see what they're after right now.

Get a copy of The Children's Writers & Artist's Yearbook (or something similar - there are a few different ones these days). This has listings of all the publishers with their contact details, as well as more advice and guidance.

Make colour prints of maybe three of your best pieces, marked with your contact details or, if you have the necessaries, design an A4 flyer, like the one above.

Post these with a short covering letter to the publishers you have researched. Unfortunately, publishers get unbelievable quantities of unsolicited material, so you have to work very hard to catch their eye. Here are a few hot tips that worked for me:

1 - Make sure you contact a named Art Director or Commissioning Editor (never send a 'to whom it may concern': it will probably go in the bin).

2 - Ensure any samples you send are produced to high quality - first impressions DO count.

3 - Be funny or different or cute (I designed this letterhead for my covering letter, with the tied-up cat printed top-right and the fish swimming along the page bottom, featuring the header 'See me soon, or the pussycat gets it!' )

4 - Be persistent, but not boring: send a printed sample of new work (not just the same old stuff) once a month.

5 - Get on-line: set up a simple website, or a Flickr portfolio, to refer publishers to (but resist the urge to pad it out with your less-good work).

6 - Be proactive: phone the art director a week later to ask if they will see you.

7 - The scatter-gun approach: do all of the above for lots of different (but relevant) publishers.

8 - Don't give up too easily: take on board any feedback you're lucky enough to get, but don't be put off by lack of success - even if you're good, it might take a while for someone to bite.

Initial Contact:

If in doubt about which individual to contact, don't be afraid to phone the publisher's switchboard to get the relevant Art Director's name. In your covering letter, tell them you would like an appointment to show them the rest of your folio. This is important, even if you're not local: I have always found that face-to-face contact is the thing that works. For me, samples sent out and website links are all about getting publishers to ultimately let me visit them at their offices, to present my work in person.

Don't be too disappointed if the Art Director doesn't remember your samples when you phone - they get hundreds. Ask again if you can make an appointment to visit them with the rest of your work. Be ready with a simple website or Flickr page, so they can quickly check your work on-screen.

OK, now the bad news - children's illustration is a very tough market to break into: there's so much competition and the standards are very high. My experience is that slogging round publishers and bombarding them with reminders about your work is the only way in.

But take heart: if your illustrations are of a high enough standard, are interesting, clever and relevant (perhaps even a little bit different, without being too off-the-scale), you should eventually get your foot in the door, if you stick at it doggedly enough.

Watch my blog for posts about what you should expect if you are successful in getting an appointment with an Art Director. In the meantime, if you missed my talk at the conference, why not read about how I got my first book?

Good luck!

Hot Tips Put Into Action!

2010-11-16T14:15:00.010Z

I want to quickly pass on a couple of great tips I picked up at the wonderful SCBWI conference over the weekend (and take the chance to show you a couple of the sketches I did on my way there).

The first tip comes from Tim Hopgood, another picture book illustrator / author, who I first met at the Northern Children's Book Festival earlier in the week.

We were at the same hotel for 3 days, so had dinner together each night, along with other folks like David Bedford, Joan Lennon and Alan Durant. That's one of the lovely things about the NCBF: you catch up with people you've not seen in ages and keep adding new friends each year.

Tim and I got on like a house on fire, so I was especially pleased to run into him a few days later at the conference. He was giving a talk on how his book ideas evolve.

He's an understated, but very funny guy, and the talk was really interesting. We all did lots of giggling and one of many things that amused us was when Tim shared a bit of his working practice: every day, before he starts work, he turns up the music good and loud, and spends a whole hour dancing around the studio, all by himself! This is an illustration from his gorgeous book Here Comes Frankie!, that seems rather apt...

So anyway, yesterday, after I had waded through my back e-mails for the week I've been away, I decided to try it. I couldn't afford an hour, as it was already about 11 o'clock, but I jumped and bopped for a good 10 minutes, and found that Tim's right: it's really good for clearing your head.

Out of breath and slightly sweaty (must get more exercise...) I starting in on the re-planning I need to do for a text that's been buzzing around for a while. Gullane are showing initial signs of interest, but are right that the idea needs some re-thinking.

I also tried out a new, 'big-paper-ideas-map' technique that I picked up at the conference from Marcus Sedgwick. It's a way of tugging as many relevant thoughts from your head as possible and then marshalling them into some semblance of order. I usually just sit at the computer and write, so this is a new method and, so far, it does seem to help.

Thanks Marcus! Thanks Tim!

Winchester conference photos and notes

2010-11-16T07:46:00.006Z

Thanks to everyone who organised and came along this weekend, what a fabulous chance to catch up with people and hear about new work!

Mini Grey showing her colour sketchbook for 'The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon'

There's loads of photos zooming around Facebook and such, but you can see some of them here, over on my blog.

Notes from Tim Hopgood's workshop

Winchester Conference Competition winners

2010-11-15T22:45:00.005Z

The SCBWI Conference in Winchester Onwards and Upwards was a fantastic success. A string of events for illustrators included excellent presentations by Mini Grey, Bridget Strevens, Tim Hopgood, Sarah McIntyre and Lynne Chapman, in addition to open portfolios, one-on-one critiques, competitions and the Illustrator's Print Exhibition. If you weren’t able to attend and have a Facebook account check the British SCBWI Group, which is full of links to reports and photos.
The Print Exhibition is now online in a Web Gallery. The show was a great success and will hopefully be touring to other venues up and down the country over the next year.

There were two Illustration awards presented. One was for the Best Portfolio in the Open Portfolio Review, which was won by Julia Woolf.

The other prize was for the Undiscovered Voices Tribute Competition.
Here are the three finalists:

Anna Violet

First prize: Anna Violet, with her submission illustrating Adele by Anne M Leone. Anna will receive a year's free entry to all the Illustrator Masterclass events.

Runners up:
Helena Wilsen-Saunders, illustrating At Yellow Lake by Jane McCloughin.


Helena Wilsen-Saunders

Alex Craggs, illustrating Back from the Dead by Nick Cross.

Alex Craggs

Reconciling pictures with words

2010-11-11T15:23:00.014Z

I thought I’d post a few images that formed part of a talk I just gave with Sarah McIntyre to the conference of Oxford Children’s Book Groups. The talk was about developing the pictorial side of a picture book story, and the importance of constantly checking back to the text, to get the right feel for the book as a whole. We called it ‘Hopping the gap between words and pictures.’

Here’s my hardback cover for the picture book BUG AND BEAR, by Ann Bonwill, which will be published by OUP in 2011. I was talking about how I eventually decided what the characters would look like.

Bug and Bear went through several versions before I hit on how they should look. Although I liked this early version of the two friends, I realized it was just too sensitive. In the text, Bug eventually annoys Bear so much that she tells him to go and jump in the lake! This little Bug just looks too vulnerable for that.

So in this later sample, I settled on a more stylized Bug, with circular eyes. He’s much more of a caricature, and that gives us just enough distance from his emotions, so that it’s okay for Bear to get annoyed with him.

And jump in the lake he does! But this sketch of him floundering on a lily pad wasn’t used in the end. Hopping back to the text again, I realized that the story is not really about Bug being terrified of drowning at this moment. It’s about his friendship with Bear and the misery he feels at being banished by her.

So here’s the finished spread, where Bear is worried, Bug is miserable and Bear makes an heroic rescue…

Before their inevitable reconciliation!

Noah's Ark

2010-11-11T08:53:00.001Z

Here's my recent sample piece that I have sent to Brights my agents. It was illustrated it in photoshop and painter. I wanted to concentrate on the emotions in this piece as well as a sense of depth and perspective - hopefully I've managed this, although it's probably a little too small to see much detail!

THE LITTLE WHITE SPRITE

2010-11-02T09:06:00.003Z

My new book, to be published in March 2011 is The Little White Sprite; a story about a boy who encounters a mysterious creature inside an old hollow tree. On one level it's all about a child entering a magical world, being persuaded to stay but in the end finding he can safely return back again to where he belongs. On another level, the sprite has echoes of nature spirits that are said to be the life force of trees.

The Little White Sprite paperback edition ISBN 9780956510815 and hardback edition ISBN 9780956510839 will be available in March 2011 from Amazon and bookshops via Gardners and Bertrams.

The Sketchbook Project

2010-10-18T08:39:00.007+01:00

Front cover of my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project, theme Night Time Stories.

Inside front and inside back covers for the sketchbook.

This is the cover for an exciting event I am participating in called the sketchbook project run by the Art House Co-op in Brooklyn, New York. Artists are participating from all over the world. The sketchbooks are given ISBN numbers, tour several main cities in the US and become part of a permanent library collection allowing them to be checked out like a book. I got started on this project as a way to experiment, play, and try out a story idea based on two characters, Raven and Wolf and their competitive and mischievous relationship. Their story is based on a Native American story of a time of magic and when humans and animals were the same.

To find out more:

BRIAN WILDSMITH

2010-10-15T09:51:00.001+01:00

Just seen the small collection of illustrations by Brian Wildsmith in a current exhibition of his work at the Civic in Barnsley.
Brian Wildsmith's vibrantly delicious colours and clever use of collage were some of the first picture book art work that really made me sit up and take notice.
It's so satisfying to see these originals again after all these years and realise that they are just as rich and strong, the gouache sings out, and the craft is so apparent.
I've always fancied making a trip to Tokyo to visit the BW museum and wondered if John had done so whilst living there?
I also want to see Eric Carle's museum in Massachusetts, has anyone been there?

Brian Wildsmith was born in Barnsley and went to the same art school as I did.
Jan Pienkowski, for a short while, lived on the same road as me in Barnsley - now surely there are some omens at work here!!!

Morris the Mankiest Monster ~ Sarah McIntyre

2010-10-02T18:24:00.006+01:00

Here's publisher David Fickling and illustrator Sarah McIntyre in conversation about the making of Morris the Mankiest Monster, probably the most disgusting picture book in the world. MTMM is written by Giles Andeae and Sarah McIntyre. A professional series event by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators in the British Isles

Pop-up fun for all!

2010-10-02T11:19:00.010+01:00

The final product - the penultimate spread of the published book published by Caterpillar Books.

Working from the finished white dummy, templates are made up by the publisher with tab, fold and cut lines which are used as a guide for artwork (each one needs a corresponding coloured back to be painted also) with large bleed just in case.

Having agreed on final designs and colour, here is the full sized background of the penultimate spread; a hungry, faceless bear!

More sketches, finalising the finished page layouts and adding swatches to each spread for the colour.

Many changes to address problems (here cutting down from 6 layers to 1 by using a different method), and working up to full size which is approx 240mm w x 260mm h.

Ongoing character sketches throughout, as are the text revisions.

As Pop-up books are a little different, I thought it might be interesting to show a bit of the process which goes through many stages, here is a very condensed version of events!

First, an A6 sized dummy of 8 spreads, each showing different pop action with a rough idea of text and position.

New Book

2010-10-01T15:17:00.003+01:00

This is the cover of a book I've recently finished illustrating. Written by Lynne Garner and published by Piccadilly Press, it features a young troll, Boris, and his dog. The story encompasses love, friendship, betrayal, revenge and farting -- so most of the major themes of literature covered, I think.
I scanned in a pencil drawing and then coloured it up in Photoshop. The book is due out next year, in Spring I hope.

Blog Header Winner

2010-10-01T10:12:00.004+01:00

Trish Phillips is the first winner of our blog Header challenge with the charming cut paper header you see above. Well done Trish, lovely work!

The Blog Header Challenge is an ongoing competition to submit designs for the blog title bar. Read the submission guidelines to create your entry.

John

Vern and Lettuce launch today: come help them make a zine!

2010-09-30T09:37:00.007+01:00

I've been waiting for this day for years, and it's finally HERE! Come read the first book I've both written and illustrated... a brand-new comic set in the world of Vern the sheep and Lettuce the rabbit, who live in a bustling tower block shared with a big family of rabbits, a couple of yaks, polar bears, rats, pigs and an elderly nanny goat.

Vern and Lettuce mark the occasion by launching their own online magazine, set in their world of Pickle Rye. It's a town without humans, where animals get up to all sorts of shenanigans as well as going about their day-to-day lives.
...And YOU can contribute, whatever your age! Find out more on Sarah McIntyre's blog here!

(Click on the pics to enlarge)

Counting Bunnies

2010-09-27T19:38:00.008+01:00

Bunnies are definitely popular at the moment! Here are the preliminary sketches for a counting book for an American client - I will post the finished artwork once the book is available.

WALLY WOPPAPOTAMUS MEETS THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD

2010-09-27T14:18:00.005+01:00

Recently finished 60 b/w illustrations for Helen Bonney's 2nd book about the space travelling Woppapotamus from Titan.
Here are 2 of them - Wally meets polar bears in the Arctic, and Wally relaxing on the Methane River. Polychromas pencil on paper.

Stone Soup

2010-09-27T12:56:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone, to start the process here's one of my recent pieces, for a Japanese children's magazine version of Stone Soup. Most of my children's work is in watercolour, but this was flat digital colour applied over a scanned pen drawing.

Welcome to the blog!

2010-09-27T12:28:00.003+01:00

The SCBWI illustrator's blog is now live. A big welcome to everyone!

What to post here?

This is primarily an image blog, so this is a place to share artwork, sketches, latest releases, and anything else pictorial that relates to our illustration work. General conversation is more the realm of the NING site, but of course do comment on posts!

Posting
If you use Photoshop save images as save-to-web. 72dpi, maximum 800 pixels tall or wide. On the blog set images to 'Medium' or 'Large', avoid 'Extra-Large' as it can affect the display on some browsers.

Tags
please include tags! Your name, technique, and published media.

So, what's your recent work?