“SCBWI Illustrator’s Day – Critiques and Learning”

I just returned from a full day of critiques, portfolio reviews and meetings with agents & art directors at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators – “Illustrator’s Day” in Princeton, NJ.  It was a very productive learning day for me.  I love doing the SCBWI events because I always come away with so much valuable information and it’s great to connect with others in the field.

The above image was the “before” illustration completed as a 2 page spread assignment for the group critique. I chose to work from a book called “The Critter Sitter”, originally beautifully illustrated by Chuck Richards. I didn’t look at Chuck’s book until after I did the illustration because I didn’t want to be influenced at all.

Art Director Donna Mark, (Bloomsbury/Walker Publishing) was my assigned mentor and some of the comments and suggestions from her as well as the other illustrators in the group were as follows:

1.Not sure that the dark purple background is working. Possibly make it look more like a kitchen background or lighten it up.

2.The boy, Henry is too small and disproportionate to the door, as well as the proportions of the frog and cat in the foreground.

3.The dog is at an angle that looks like he is not running out of the door but staying inside the house.

So here is my attempt at fixing some of the problems…

Here is the first sketch that was initially submitted to the Art Director for review before starting any painting…

Donna suggested that I include much more to the scene since there was so much going on in the text for this page spread.  I revised the sketch several times to try to include the dog as well.  In addition to the critique, there was a great workshop for illustrators given by Leeza Hernandez, and I also got to meet with agent Christina Tugeau.  Great tips and helpful suggestions were gained from both.  I look forward to the next Illustrator’s Day event with NJ SCBWI.

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This month’s featured website or blog…”Patch Together”

See your designs and illustrated characters turn into actual product!

Featured image for this month…(from my RF stock portfolio)

“Picture Books – The Illustrator’s Process”

Since I began promoting myself in the area of Children’s Book Illustration, I have had a number of people inquire about providing illustrations for their “book that they have written and always wanted to publish”.  I decided to put together some resource information for this month’s topic to shed some light on the process a picture book illustrator may go through. 

I hope to also dispell the myth that as a writer you need to hire an artist and have the illustrations completed to submit along with your written manuscript.  Here’s what I tell people that ask me about illustrating a book they are interested in getting published… “Send the manuscript to the publisher, without illustrations.  It will be judged on it’s own merit and if the publisher is interested, they will find an illustrator that fits the project, …that’s just how it’s done”.

Instead of going into any more detail, there is a great article on that subject here at Harold Underdown’s site, The Purple Crayon 

Since publishers are looking to match-up illustrators with manuscripts that they like, an illustration project for a picture book will most-likely come directly from an editor or art director at a publishing house.  The publisher may send a manuscript to several illustrators at the same time and ask for a sample page or two in order to select the exact style they are looking for.  At that point they will narrow their selection down to one illustrator.

From the Illustrator’s side…

Once they decide on an illustrator, a contract is drawn up between the illustrator and publisher containing details of due dates, royalties, etc.  If you don’t have an agent working with you on this it is a good idea to have an IP, (intelectual property) attorney take a look at it for you.  Once all the legal stuff is out of the way the illustrator starts sketching and preparing a sketch “dummy” of the book.  It’s a rough mini-version of the book page layout.  This helps to see how the book flows from page to page and helps in laying out color and text position.  Make sure to check with the publisher for specifics on the book size dimensions and how many pages, etc.  Typically that is around 28-32 pages with between 500-800 words for a picture book, (max is 1000).  Rough sketches of the page spreads are submitted to the publisher first before any color work is started.  Once you get the go-ahead on the sketches, it’s time to add the color.  Here is a bit more information and sample layout of the pages for a picture book from Kathy Temean’s blog.

From “A Sweater for Duncan” – To be published by Raven Tree Press .

Personally, I like to add one more step in there and do a “color” rough that shows the publisher what you have in mind.  The color mock up shown at the beginning of this article was put together using print-outs of the color roughs that were sent to the publisher.  I use this mock up, (complete with numbered pages) throughout the entire time I am working on the final illustrations in order to keep everything organized.  Once the illustrations are finalized and sent to the publisher, you can be sure there will be some changes, (much easier to do if you are working digitally).  The publisher then produces the book, usually within about 6 months to a year.  You can be sure I will post the announcement here when “A Sweater for Duncan” is released next Fall.  🙂

See all current news and release date info. for “A Sweater for Duncan”  

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FREE Vector of the month from Deystudio, LLC:

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This month’s featured website or blog…”illustrator Sahin Ersoz”

I came across Sahin Ersoz website several years ago and find myself still going back for a visit every so often.  I love his style of characters and animation.  He has done several Disney projects. Enjoy… be sure to check out the sketches!

Featured image for this month…(from my RF stock portfolio)