On writing

I have wanted to illustrate picture books for a long time and have loved getting involved in the kidlit community. I had no idea how supportive it would be and never imagined how much information others would be willing to share. Not having officially gone to art school I have always hoped that one day once the boys are older I'd be able to return to school and get a BFA but I am learning so much through other illustrators and through courses online I don't know if returning to school is the best use of my time...but I digress. What I have realized recently is that I could potentially write my stories too. I didn't think I had a story in me, but I have been pleasantly surprised to discover through the 12x12 challenge that I do have stories to tell and I enjoy writing them.
So another stream of posts are in order - highlights of great articles/blog posts to reference later as I will never retain all of the info after one read. I find my blog acts like a trail of breadcrumbs since I often find myself thinking "now where did I read that article?" "What was a reading when I found that link?". I am completely overwhelmed with social media these days and can't even try to keep up with it all, but little by little I'll find some gems to save and to share.
I have been following Elizabeth S. Craig on twitter, I can't remember who suggested following her, perhaps Katie Davis in a podcast. Regardless I am glad I did, she is constantly sending out fantastic tweets with links to useful info for authors that I would never find on my own. Here are two links she tweeted today...

"Writing Secrets of Prolific Authors" from WritetoDone - a blog any author should bookmark it looks like.
"Writing Descriptive Passages" from Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelists

Also today I came across a link to a post by Tara Lazar where she wrote about the 400 things that kids like - to provide a starting point for an idea. Tara has so many great posts for prepublished authors that I have added her link to my sidebar. I am sure I'll be referencing her blog often.

Thanks again to all for sharing your wealth of knowledge.

Session 11 - complete

Okay, that was a crazy session from Mark's course - 4, 5 and 6 pt perspective. In theory I get it, but it's really tricky. It's going to take a lot of practice to master it. There are some great YouTube videos out there though for the artist who cares to learn more about it and Dick Termes seems to be the master.

Session 10 - complete!

Session 10 was all  about 3pt perspective, and it wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. I am really comfortable now with buildings, but people in 3pt is still something I am going to have to spend a lot of time working on . I did have an 'aha' moment watching some of the video links Mark suggested we take a look at, especially TomatoDragons' video on 1`pt perspective where he talks about the key to adding characters to the image is having their heads line up along the horizon line...beautiful!

Character Design Exercise

One of my favorite character designers is Peter deSeve - how can you not!  Recently I took out a compilation of his character designs from the library, both me and my children looked through his sketches over and over.
I think that coming up with creative characters are so challenging. I suppose it comes with practice, but to really think outside of the box is even more of a challenge.On that note, today I came upon a post with an amazing idea to do exactly that - think outside the box and create unique characters.  Here is the exercise ! Thanks to Letters From Schwarzville for posting!...note not only is this a great exercise for illustrators, I think it would be a fun challenge for grade school kids. Heck, I'm going to save this for a fun rainy day activity from my children.

David Melling's process

It always seems like such a gift when you are able to actually view someone's process  as they create a picture book. Here is a video of David Melling and his process from start to finish. (Thanks Helga for sharing this).

Making a Storyboard

So as part of my Marks and Splashes course, a few months ago I worked on a storyboard for the mouse story. Admittedly it was a quick job, and I have revisited that storyboard many times since - altering pages here and there. I think it's time to revisit the storyboard again - there are still pages that I'm not totally happy with and over time I have thought of new ideas for other pages. As I am getting further along in the course I'm starting to have to make some real decisions on what the page layouts will be as larger more detailed sketches for these pages are looming.  Being a part of the #kidlitart challenge (see pencil image on sidebar) has brought extra motivation and along with it some added info on creating a storyboard and planning the layout of a picture book.   In fact I have come across three great resources just this week.

Firstly, Wendy Martin of Kidlitart has created a great ebook called "How to Make a Picture Book Dummy" (available on the Kidlitart website for only $5).I won a copy this week, thanks again Wendy! It is full fantastic info and I'm so thrilled to have a copy of it.

Next, Tara Lazar posted a fantastic explanation as to why picture books usually are 32 pages and describes in detail the different between a self-ended layout and a color ends layout...before reading her post I didn't even recognized the difference, but it's huge!

Finally, I am working my way through the famous must have for picture book author/illustrators -  Uri Shulevitz' "Writing with Pictures", chapter 6 goes into detail on storyboarding. I must admit I'm finding the book a bit of a slog to get through. Perhaps because I tend to sit down and read in the middle of the afternoon on my comfy sofa.

But there you go, some great resources to check out!

PBDummy Step 1 is up!

It's time for step 1 - choose the story, and get mentally and emotional prepared for the next 25 weeks because this is actually happening.

I am really excited about working on Amy's story based our adventure with the mouse that found it's way into her basement. It's been working through my brain for a few years now, so the idea that I'm going to have all those ideas down on paper by July 1 is thrilling.

This step 1 entry does give a great resource to those who might be trying to come up with a story idea, and a resource I may need one day, so just for future, a link to PiBoIdMo...

http://taralazar.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/piboidmo-official-sign-up-starts-today-right-here-right-now/

Advice from Mem Fox

Mem Fox has long been a favorite of mine. Her book "Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge" is a part of my 'special book' collection high on the book case, far away from sticky hands and crayons. Recently a link to her blog was posted on the facebook page by another member of the PBDummy Challenge. In this entry Mem gives from great advice for anyone thinking about writing a children's book.

portrait study...half way there

Matt at DTO has created  6  excellent chapters of instruction on portraiture. I'm just finishing chapter three.

Session 8 & 9

For my "Marks and Splashes" course, this week I was working on research - a scavenger hunt of sorts to find reference images and videos for our book (Amy's words, my illos). What a fun exercise this was! The next image that I am going to work on is for the page that will read "pesky, scary mice". I have had the image for this page in my head for a long time, but have never collected reference photos for it. I was looking online - Google-ing and scrolling through Pinterest (how lucky we are as illustrators now with the internet and thousands of images at our disposal in seconds), and then I thought why not set up a still life of this image in my head rather than looking through tons of photos? So I went to the one room in the house that has the door opening the right way and set up various items, used a flashlight to get the shadows I needed, got my boys helping me, one as a model, one holding the door and one as a cheerleader (although he did let me borrow one of his "Pet Shop" character which was the stand in for the mouse in our story). It was such a fun exercise to do and I think I'll enjoy drawing the image all the more since it's more personal with our familiar household items in it.

Session 9 was a review on perspective. Not very long I ago I did a few chapters on perspective with Matt an instructor at SVA in NYC and creator of the online drawing class DTO (highly worth investing in by the way!), but good to address perspective again and take the opportunity to consider composition and value at the same time...there is so much to think about when creating an image that work!...My next thing about perspective to master = to throw a character into the perspective mix (scene/person/animal/action all working together)

I am feeling a bit like a illustration junkie - trying to take advantage of and collecting all the learning I can. This week I was trying to win a copy of Will Terry's 6 video session on designing an image. I was so diligent checking his blog multiple times a day, but the one night I got sucked into working on our family blog I missed the window of opportunity! Oh well, I have heard such great things about his class too, that will be my next investment...thank goodness I have a supportive and patient husband. :)

Failure

Here's something all creatives need to read, a post by Sara Zarr

Am I keen or what??

Okay, my plate is full - I just signed up for a second challenge, this one from Kidlitart. 25 weeks to create a picture book dummy. What a great challenge. So if all goes well by July 1 I will have Amy and my book ready for submission!

12x12 in 12

So here's a new challenge for me. On top of keeping up with family/home responsibilities and two online art/illustration courses, I am going to try to come up with a story idea every month this year. It's a challenge Helga introduced me to - one initiated by Julie Hedlund. Helga made a very good point - as one who wants to be an illustrator of children's books, there will undoubtedly come a time when I will want to write a story of my own, so why not start generating ideas now!