This week P&O is thrilled to have our friend, author/illustrator, Abby Hanlon, join us for a guest post. Take it away, Abby!

Abby’s twins. (click to enlarge)

My six-year-old twins are in desperate need of money right now to buy more Star Wars Legos. They have been thinking of ways to capitalize on the foot traffic on our busy Brooklyn block. The other night at 8:00 (bedtime) but still light outside, they convinced me to let them go out (in their pajamas) to set up a portrait drawing business. They brought an empty jar for money, a couple of clip boards, black pens and a stack of paper and sat on the stoop waiting for their first client. I listened from inside (feeling slightly mortified for them) as my daughter said in her most polite voice to the first person that walked by, “Excuse me, we are drawing portraits. May we draw you?” In 15 minutes, they drew three portraits and made two dollars.From inside, I listened to the small talk while each person waited for his/her portrait. Since I remained uninvolved, I don’t know what the portraits looked like, but nobody rang the bell to complain.

Portrait of an imaginary girl named Emily, (spelled “M-O-le.”)

I was surprised that my kids could carry out this project with the necessary level of self-confidence because every once in awhile they are horrified by their own drawings. “This is hideous!” they scream ripping up their paper. While they don’t have complete confidence in their skills, they have never questioned their ability to be creative. It is through the physical process of creating that they communicate. The extraordinarily large inner universe of a six-year-old that needs to be communicated each day takes every possible medium. So drawing, like playing, is simply a necessity. Especially when you need more Legos.

A child versus an “alien grown-up,” which was a quick, angry scribble on an enormous piece of wrinkled paper.

I chose some of my kids’ drawings to share, most of which intentionally communicate an emotion. But I think they also unintentionally communicate a little piece of personality. As an illustrator, I want my drawings to communicate as much as theirs do. Through their playful, loose, expressive lines, I can hear what they are saying. Their lines are brazen, their lines reveal their quirkiness, their lines shout:”Freedom!!” I’ve noticed that in general my kids are unable to focus for too long on the past or the future, they fall right back into the moment. Maybe this is the secret of spontaneous self-expression.

On Grandma’s lap.

I’ve always been drawn to illustrators who successfully convey this childlike freedom in their work. One of my favorites is Neal Layton. My son — who draws just enough to tell the story — with his messy, wild lines, reminds me of Layton. My daughter’s bold lines and simple shapes are more like Lauren Child’s. Other illustrators whose work has been praised as “childlike” include Chris Raschka, Oliver Jeffers, Todd Parr, Delphine Durand, Brian Karas and Adam Gudeon. Are there other childlike illustrators that you love? What do you think makes their illustrations effective?

Neil Layton illustration from That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown written by Cressida Cowell. (click to enlarge)

Bold confident lines.

This pathetic drawing was found hanging on the hallway bulletin board at school.At the beginning of kindergarten the class was instructed to “draw your favorite part of the school day.” My son chose “dismissal” which is what the arrow laconically depicts. Not a stroke is wasted in communicating his feelings towards kindergarten. (click to enlarge)

Scary guys. Maybe inspired by one of our favorite books,Tomi Ungerer’s “The Three Robbers.”

There is a puppy in the box.

“The Gnomes versus the Giants.” There is a lot more where this came from. My son has several sketchbooks filled with pages of wars, real and fictional.

“When I looked at the hermit crab, it was shriveled up.”

The stuff of childhood nightmares.

One page of a longer book on Abe Lincoln.

This princess is supposed to be saying, “I’m not going to marry you!”

I love those whimsical shoes.

“What happens in graveyards.”

A deer next to a tree in Ireland.

Fancy lady.

Jesus on a cloud, a fairy, a shepherd and a Catholic church (part of a series of Jesus art work that my son created to sell on the stoop.)

A composite of creepy characters with lots of sinister little details.

Big thanks to Abby and the twins! For Liz’s P&O interview with Abby click here.

I haven’t taken a look at Kickstarter in a while, and boy am I glad I did. Not only did I find the much needed Food Huggers (which could really help me out with my lemons), but then I came across Animal Stackers.  I love the stop motion animation in the video above. Poor snail got stuck in the tree – if only someone could help him get down.  Dan Nguyen can! I get so excited when a product is both useful and well presented. I like how a few simple details like the stripe on the snake, the turtle’s belly and the bison’s tail, can make those Tetris-like shapes come alive.

European toys, look out! There is finally a smart, well designed, functional wood toy (from renewable sources, no less) to compete with you.

For more info check here: http://www.animal-stackers.com

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been scarce around these parts for the past few months. Well, I’ve been on a sabbatical of sorts, working on a few time-chomping projects. More on that another time.

For now, enjoy this, my newest obsession. Ah, Tim Minchin:

The magic water faucet https://t.co/hJ0nhtgtfV

— Khoa (@khoaphan) May 23, 2013

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The Vine app has come a very long way since I first wrote about it in March.  People are now “Vine famous” many with a few hundred thousand followers and a few with even a million. Most of the popular Viners seem to be the ones who use it for comedy; a short film with an unexpected punchline. People are remaking one another’s Vines, having video conversations, and even getting together in various cities to make a bunch of Vines together. Businesses are starting to hire Viners to promote their products and the Tribeca Film Festival writes regularly about their favorite Vines.

Something refreshing about the app is that there is no editing tool; either post it or scrap it and start over. There is something more organic about trying to get it all in one take. Overall, being on Vine is a very positive place where creative minds can experiment and come together to appreciate interesting work.

My favorite Vines are still the animation ones. After doing the usual Vines of hangouts with friends and infuriating subway platform moments, I’ve finally started to try to do a few stop motion animations of my own. I’m loving it. But I haven’t got it down well at all yet. I need to understand the movements of each character and make them more distinct. I need to get a better quality tripod that doesn’t spin and wiggle. I need to find a story line compelling enough to animate but short enough to make sense in the confines of 6 seconds. As a novice I still just want to make all my objects spin around in circles!

The Pots. #StopMotion https://t.co/y4X6YJLFwl

— ruthie (@ruthielafond) July 16, 2013

@pinot is still my favorite. I don’t know how he can put out so many Vines of varying techniques and all high quality. I also love his deliberate references to vintage technology. @yelldesign has moved on from his magically animated fruit and vegetables to more experimental items that are clean, professional and amazing to watch. @creeepycrawler does very thoughtful pieces, often using cut up or folded pages to make his characters. @khoapan is a master in cut paper works and often lets us in on a bit of the process as well (@pinot does too).
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1-bit reality: Working with MacWrite in 1984 Mac. https://t.co/icDHcLmCTw #repost

— Pinot (@pinot) July 17, 2013

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BoxBot playing rope with kids. #art #animation #StopMotion https://t.co/7cOR2Unx34

— Pinot (@pinot) July 5, 2013

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The Chase by @yelldesign #magic #stopmotion https://t.co/0bOwBcaUb8

— Matt Willis (@yelldesign) July 8, 2013

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It’s ok to move at your own pace https://t.co/UT3RjLHn9F

— Chris Donlon (@creeepycrawler) July 15, 2013

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Just a single drop 💧 https://t.co/fS3Tp8avXa

— Khoa (@khoaphan) May 21, 2013

@MeaganCignoli does a myriad of Vines often dealing with colors and fashion. They are gorgeous to watch. I would love to be in her studio and see how she makes one. This might be an old one but it is still my favorite of hers; I think it’s the touch of whimsy.

Color party with hokaytokay. https://t.co/NGu1aCXRn4

— meagan cignoli (@MeaganCignoli) June 5, 2013

What Viners do you love? And please, any suggestions for a decent Iphone tripod?

*BONUS for Super Mario Bros fans. Check out Hunter Harrison’s pieces featured here.

Endpapers for The Big Tidy Up by Norah Smaridge, illustrated by Les Gray. (Click to enlarge.)

Cover for The Big Tidy Up by Norah Smaridge, illustrated by Les Gray. (Click to enlarge.)

I love opening a children’s book to find beautiful, surprising endpapers inside. Here’s a round up of some of my favorites.

There are two different ways a picture book can be produced when it comes to endpapers—also known as ends or endsheets. Self-ended books are printed on the same paper as the rest of the book and are included in the typical 32-page count. With separate-ended books the endpapers are printed on different paper than the rest of the book and not counted in the 32-page count. For a more in-depth explanation, check out Tara Lazar’s post on picture book construction and this post on basic book construction on Editorial Anonymous.

So when is the decision made to include printed endpapers in a book? Cecilia Yung, Vice President and Art Director of G. P. Putnam’s Sons and Nancy Paulsen Books, graciously and thoroughly answered my questions.

P&O:  At what point in the process does the publisher decide whether or not a picture book will have illustrated endpapers? Is this decision made with the illustrator and author, or is this usually more of a budget and production issue? Is it usually up to the illustrator to pitch the idea for illustrated endpapers?

Cecilia: It depends on the book, but the idea can come from any of us working on the book—the illustrator, the art director, the editor or the designer. (The author is rarely involved with this aspect of the book.) Sometimes the story needs to be longer than 32 pages but not as long as 40, so it becomes a 40-page book with self ends. In this scenario, the endpapers can be used as part of the narrative. Sometimes the book needs to include interesting visual information that is not a critical part of the story (like a map), so it can be used on the endpapers. Sometimes there is an image that reinforces the story or the mood of the art, and that becomes a decorative endpaper. If everyone agrees that it is a good idea, we check with production to make sure that the budget can take it.

Cecilia: When the book has self-ends, the page can print in full color. When the book has separate ends, it needs to print as one- or two-color. The main difference is that self-ends are part of the pagination of the book and cannot be dropped in future editions, whereas separate ends can be dropped, so we never put critical information there.

Cecilia: The Nice Book and Love, Mouserella by David Ezra Stein both have very creative use of two-color endpapers. Bad Apple by Edward Hemingway has a gradation that mimics the dimensionality of a red apple. Knit Your Bit by Deborah Hopkinson has archival b/w photos from the period that inspired the story.

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Thanks Cecilia! Here are some more of my favorites. (Thanks to Rory, Tika, and Liz for contributing their favorites as well.) What are your favorite endpapers? Tell us in the comments!

Cover for Smartypants (Pete in School) by Maira Kalman.

Endpapers for Smartypants by Maira Kalman. (Click to enlarge.)

Cover of How Pizza Came to Queens by Dayal Kaur Khalsa.

Endpapers for How Pizza Came to Queens by Dayal Kaur Khalsa. (Click to enlarge.)

Bon Appetit! cover by Jessie Hartland.

Bon Appetit! endpapers by Jessie Hartland. (Click to enlarge.)

For Just One Day cover, written by Laura Leuck, illustrations by Marc Boutavant.

For Just One Day endpapers illustrated by Marc Boutavant. (Click to enlarge.)

Moonshot by Brian Floca

Endpapers for Moonshot by Brian Floca. (Click to enlarge.)

Cover of Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids. Cover artwork by Charles Burns.

Endpapers for Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids. Artwork by Charles Burns. (Click to enlarge.)

Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon

Ralph Tells a Story endpapers by Abby Hanlon. (Click to enlarge.)

Frederic by Peter Abraham. Illustrated by Eberhard Binder.

Endpapers for Frederic, illustrated by Eberhard Binder. (Click to enlarge.)

Where’s Walrus by Stephen Savage

Endpapers for Where’s Walrus by Stephen Savage.  (Click to enlarge.)

The Rainbow Goblins by Ul de Rico.

Endpapers for The Rainbow Goblins by Ul de Rico.

Endpapers for The Seamstress of Salzburg by Anita Lobel

The end pages for the original hard cover edition of “Where Did I Come From?”

I’m an animal fan (to put it mildly). When I came across this book, Animal Faces by Akira Satoh and Kyoko Toda, I couldn’t believe my luck. It’s such a simple idea; take a bunch of portraits of one kind of animal and put them next to one another. What comes out is something truly amazing: we see how each animal is an individual. Personalities appear. The disparities in their markings or fluffier cheeks make a huge difference when you compare one to the others in her species.

It reminds us of the power of observation. It’s a book about discovery and gently questions you to find subtle distinctions in the 24 portraits of each species. You might assume that tigers are generally all the same, until you really examine their stripes and suddenly an array of patterns stand out.

It brings me back to when I first studied painting many years ago and the teacher really pushed us to spend far more time studying our subject than staring at our own canvases. We were all so worried about the mechanics of painting that we forgot to just spend time truly looking at the model. Taking time to stare deeply at things and to examine all the minutiae that surround us is incredibly important; not only for our craft.

I find this book extremely useful for illustration. It reinforces how one small tweak can bring out a different character, personality or emotion.

What do you like to really stare at? What inspires your illustrations?

Here are a few of my favorite spreads (and species) from Animal Faces:

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Christoph Niemann: Petting Zoo, Limited Edition Silkscreen Print

Fellow art director Jenn McManus recently tipped me off to We Art Boston, an awesome online auction of original children’s book art that starts today.

Susan and Joe McKendry have collected over 100 original works of art from 50+ amazing children’s book illustrators and are auctioning them off online to raise money for the Emergency and Trauma Fund at Boston Children’s Hospital in memory of the Boston Marathon bombing victims. The auction runs through October 24.

A beautiful message from Susan and Joe, excerpted here, sums up the amazing generosity they encountered while putting this auction together.

“…As so many parents felt in those hours and days afterwards, I was certain that it very easily could’ve been us. We were anxious to find a way to help. As an artist, my first thought was to auction off a few paintings I’d created during the making of my first book, Beneath the Streets of Boston, and send the proceeds to the One Fund. But if I wanted to get involved, I thought, perhaps others would, too. I reached out to a few other children’s book author/ illustrators—David Macaulay, Matt Tavares, and Chris Raschka—to gauge interest in putting together a small collection of original art to be auctioned. Not only did every single one say yes, without hesitation, but they were so enthusiastic that they offered to help solicit donations from other illustrators as well.”

Read the full message here and check out all of the artwork here. A sampling of the great art for sale below…

Mo Willems: Elephant, Piggy & Pigeon, Blue Pencil on Layout Bond

Oliver Jeffers: The Great Paper Caper, Page 8 & 9, Print on Archival Paper from Pencil & Digital

Aaron Meshon: Take Me Out to the Yakyu, Page 30, Acrylic on Paper

Ed Emberley: Lion, Marker on Paper

Chris Raschka: Ugandan Mothers and Children, Watercolor on Rice Paper

Julia Denos: Dotty & Ida, Print from an Original Watercolor & Pencil

Melissa Sweet: Cover Art for Rubia and the Three Osos, Watercolor, Pencil & Collage

Opening image for Creatures of the Night, Real Simple Family 2013

Cover of Real Simple Family (on newsstands through 11/8/13)

Art Director Tova Diamond at Real Simple asked me to create some illustrations for an article about sleep for their 2013 family issue. The article, titled “Creatures of the Night” and written by Naomi Shulman, details different child sleep behaviors and how parents can handle them. Each behavior is represented by a different animal.

I knew once I read the copy that I would have fun with it, and I immediately knew what I wanted to draw for the opener. My 5-year-old is a classic “rooster” (an early riser) and we are always hoping she will sleep later than she actually does. I feel a little bit of that early morning dread every time I look at the illustration above.

See below for some more sketches and finished pieces from the project. Thanks, Tova and Cybele, for such a great assignment!

Sketches for the nap protester (bull), prowler (cat), and rooster.

Final illustration for the socialite (butterfly).

Final illustrations for the rooster and the nap protester (bull).

Illustration from Miss Elephant’s Gerald, a tablet app based on a song by the Pop Ups.

A couple of months ago, the awesome Brooklyn-based children’s band The Pop Ups contacted me, asking me if I wanted to illustrate their jazzy Halloween song Miss Elephant’s Gerald. There would be animals. Playing instruments. Wearing costumes. Oh yes, I was very interested.

Illustrate a song, you ask? How does that work? Well, the band was collaborating with an app developer called Mibblio, whose product is a musical interactive storybook. Individual songs become illustrated apps that you can play along with. I was excited to work on something for the iPad and especially excited to work with a children’s band. You can buy the result in the App Store! Anyway, it was a totally cool project and the folks at Mibblio were great to work with. The app has gotten a couple of nice reviews already, from the kids’ music blogs Kids Can Groove and Zooglobble.

This project posed a bit of a stylistic challenge for me, as I felt that my normal ink-and-watercolor style would be a little too delicate for a tablet screen. So I amped things up a bit, drawing with a fatter line and using the colors straight out of the pan. Check out some more of the artwork:

Rahsaan Roland Cat.

My friend Jason suggested that the nun needed to be animated. He was totally right.

Speaking of endpapers: I was at my friend Sarah’s recently, digging through her children’s books. (Sarah teaches third grade.) She kept handing me stuff, saying, “Oh, this one is GREAT.” Then she handed me Johnny Penguin, published by Doubleday in 1931.

My immediate reaction: “OH HELLO DELICIOUS ENDPAPERS.”

(Click to enlarge.)

Ah, the good old days of pre-separated artwork (some of which appears to have been prepared in lithographic crayon, yum yum!). These endpapers, and some of the interior illustrations, are printed in black, a lovely warm gray, orange, and turquoise. All I can say is that I would like wallpaper made out of this stuff.

Getting ready for tomorrow’s post on http://t.co/CeiNMyyI4D #PaperMash #craftyvine https://t.co/ZQhWd0sp2j

— ruthie (@ruthielafond) November 10, 2013

This is a lucky time of year for New Yorkers. There are a bunch of fantastic things to get out and see in the world of children’s books. And it’s the usual suspects who offer us these great opportunities. Click the bold title for more details:

• This Wednesday, November 13th at 6:00pm! A Conversation with Marc Boutavant and Carin Berger at the New York Public Library.

• The Original Art  at the Society of Illustrators now through December 21, 2013.  

• The ABC of It: Why Childrens Books Matter at the New York Public Library now through March 23, 2014.

• Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective at The Jewish Museum now through March 23, 2014.

• Writing for Children Forum at the New School 6:30pm on December 3rd. “A panel on the nuts and bolts of breaking into publishing. With Alessandra Balzer, editor, Balzer & Bray, an imprint of Harper Collins, and Joe Monti, agent, Barry Goldblatt Literary.”

• If you’re in Philly, go check out The Night Max Wore His Wolf Suit, 50 Years of Wild Things at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, now through March 2, 2014.

• If you happen to be in Washington D.C. check out the Little Golden Books Exhibit at the Smithsonian now until January 1, 2014.

• Last but not least, this week only! Check out Approved for Adoption at the Angelika Film Center.

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If you have events, readings, exhibits, lectures, screenings anywhere in the country that you’d like us to share, please leave info in the comments or hit me up at ruthie@penandoink.com.

Map of My Heart (click to enlarge)

I’ll never forget when I came across Sara Fanelli’s My Map Book while I was re-shelving books at the independent bookstore I worked at many years ago. It made me chuckle that the bookstore had decided to shelve it in the non-fiction area under geography. Anyone looking for a map or an atlas would not find what they needed in this book. Though I’m not sure where I would have shelved it. After all, it is non-fiction.

It was so unlike anything I had ever seen. Really raw paintings, honest representations of mappable factors in a child’s life. These aren’t the kind of maps you would study in school. But they should be the maps that children be asked to illustrate for themselves.These maps make particular sense to me. I cannot tell you how many times as a kid I tried to imagine how the food I just ate all looked in my tummy at that moment. I often pondered the layout of my bedroom that I shared with my older sister, where my stuff ended and her stuff began. A few of my favorites are pictured here, but there are several more in the book just as engaging.

An added bonus: the book jacket unfolds to become a giant map. On the other side is a large blank area asking the reader to make their own map.

Perhaps I’m a sucker, but I get a lump in my throat when I look at my favorite of these maps: the Map of My Heart.

Map of My Face (click to enlarge)

Map of My Bedroom (left page)

Map of My Bedroom (right page)

Map of My Tummy

My piece for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, an assignment for the Illustrators’ Intensive.

I am still riding an inspired high from last weekend’s SCBWI Winter Conference. I’ve been to the conference four times now and the Illustrators’ Intensive Day is always the highlight for me. Art Director Cecilia Yung’s interview of Tomie dePaola was fantastic. They structured the talk around a comparison of Tomie’s book illustrations and his costume and set design work. Tomie and Cecilia drew insightful parallels between the stage and the picture book spread and picture books and the theater in general. As an illustrator, you are the casting director, costume designer, set designer and director.

Cover from Fun With a Pencil. Brett Helquist says “If you buy one book on drawing, buy this.”

Brett Helquist offered some great insights into creating memorable and engaging characters. He also encouraged us to practice every day. “Musicians practice daily,”  he said. We should practice things that won’t necessarily be published to refine our skills. His recommended reading: Fun With a Pencil and Creative Illustration, both by Andrew Loomis, and Cartooning the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm.

An interior page from Fun With a Pencil by Andrew Loomis.

Jack Gantos cited Miss Viola Swamp from Miss Nelson Is Missing! as a great example of a memorable character. By Harry G. Allard Jr. (author) and James Marshall (illustrator)

Paul O Zelinsky schooled us on staging and set design. He also gave some great general advice about creating illustration. My favorite quote from his talk: “Value trumps all.” I am going to put that on a post-it on my computer.

The unofficial theme throughout the weekend was the importance of building strong characters that feel unique and show emotion. Jack Gantos, who gave one of my favorite talks of the weekend, said that a great character is the key: “If you are drawing characters really swing your cat.”

Check out this post with some great conference sketches by Brooke Boynton Hughes. Brooke was a runner up in this year’s Portfolio Showcase. You can see more of her awesome work here. I got a chance to meet and talk with another runner up, Katie Kath, and I love her work. And ooooh Ruth Chan was also a runner up. Check out her  “Portraits of the Unsure.”  She’s got some great pieces on her blog as well. I’ve admired Lori Nichols‘  work for a while so I was so glad that she won the Portfolio Showcase. She has a sweet new book just out, Maple. You can see illustrations by these guys at the end of this post.

Kate Messner cited this book a few times in her talk and I can’t wait to read it.

On Sunday Kate Messner brought the house down with her talk titled “The Spectacular Power of Failure.” More than one attendee including yours truly admitted to getting teary during this one. Our ideas about perfection often get in the way of our work, she said. She noted that we should look to athletes and engineers as role models for dealing with failure. These guys expect to try new things over and over that don’t work. Kate cited the  Art and Fear a few times. My favorite quote from the book: “Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do, and what you did.”

And another quote Kate cited from Art and Fear: ” You learn how to make your work by making your work.” And on that note, I am off to make some myself… or watch House of Cards.

An illustration by Katie Kath, A runner-up in this year’s Portfolio Showcase.

…and another great illustration by Katie Kath.

An illustration by Portfolio Showcase runner-up, Ruth Chan, from her “Portraits of the Unsure” series.

Peter and the Deer by Brooke Boynton Hughes, Runner-up in the Portfolio Showcase.

Star Prayer by Brooke Boynton Hughes.

Petrified Trees. A piece from Ruth Chan’s blog.

A spread from Lori Nichols’ sketchbook.

An illustration from Maple by Lori Nichols.

These three books are on my bedside table*; they make me happy. First and foremost, they happen to be fantastic reads that I highly recommend full of humor, heart and outstanding illustrations. I look at them and rearrange them often and even though I’ve finished them, I just don’t want to put them away. I think that has something to do with the yellow. I rarely use yellow in my work, it seems like a bold choice and an even bolder one for a cover.  But seeing these three side by side is a reminder that I should. I can’t get over how great they go together and most of all, how they make me feel just seeing them. I looked on my bookshelves and found only two other book covers that were yellow (both unremarkable books). Is this a trend in publishing and book design or is this just a happy circumstance?

Do you use yellow or have any noteworthy yellow covers? Tell me about them in the comments!

And make sure you check out their work:  Sara Varon, Allie Brosh, Marc Boutevant and the Ariol series written by Emmanuel Guibert.

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*I liked how they looked on my bedspread. That is not a table!

Painting from the 1998 Caldecott Medal book Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky (click to enlarge) “I’ve benefited a lot from practicing figure drawing. Spring Studio in SoHo is not so far from here. It’s figure drawing all day everyday and you just show up, but on certain days and times Minerva Durham, who runs it, teaches anatomy. That has helped me tremendously, whether I’m drawing a person realistically or making up a cartoon character.”

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I was first introduced to Paul O. Zelinsky’s work when I heard him speak at the 2010 SCBWI Illustrator’s Intensive. I was inspired by the way his style changes depending on and in service to the story, so I was very excited when he recently agreed to speak with Liz and me at his Brooklyn studio. 

Paul received the 1998 Caldecott Medal for Rapunzel, and Caldecott Honors for three more books: Hansel and Gretel (1985), Rumpelstiltskin (1987), and Swamp Angel (1995). (You can see more of his work on his website.)

Paul at his desk pretending to use his computer.

THE SCOOP ON PAUL O. ZELINSKY

Hometown: Wilmette, Illinois

Now lives in: Brooklyn, NY

Tools of the trade: You name it. I have lots and lots of brands of many kinds of paint and other media. I get Staedtler (black) pencils for no good reason; generic nylon watercolor brushes because the fine sable ones have not lasted well for me; Arches 120 lb cold press paper is a fallback but I use others, too. Epson 10000XL scanner, Photoshop CS5.5, Epson SP2200 printer. Faber Castell Pitt artist pens, S and XS, for doodling, but I keep losing them. Faber Castell Pitt Compressed Charcoal extra-soft, for chalk talks.

Workspace: Studio apartment across from a churchyard in Brooklyn Heights

Book Trailers:  Z is for Moose, The voice of the glove is Maurice Sendak. I hadn’t planned what was going to be in the trailer exactly and I didn’t know who he would be.  I just said, “Would you record something?” [ED NOTE: You'll have to watch it to see what Sendak chose to say.] I also created a few animations for The Shivers in the Fridge here and here.

Fun Fact: My recent hobby has been to fix on certain numbers that are interesting or significant to me, and to track the number of my Twitter followers until it reaches those numbers, feeling like I’m urging things on, as in a horse race. When my following was in the 1,000s there were lots of interesting dates to aim for; after the low 2,000′s that stopped being a possibility except for an occasional significant Star Date from a Star Wars episode. Oh, yes: my Twitter name is @paulozelinsky.

Paul’s studio in Brooklyn (click to enlarge)

The view from Paul’s desk.

From top: reference books, awards in the bathroom; pens and pencils; a hole plugged up with an award; an empty intercom unit filled with a sketch; cards with original illustrations by Brian Floca, Rodolfo Montalvo, and Sergio Ruzzier

PO: Do you have a typical day?  Do you try to get yourself on a routine or schedule?

Paul: Well, I get here. I try to get things done and then eventually I leave. That’s how I do it, ever since I moved out of my own live/work space in the distant past. My wife was a teacher [in Brooklyn] and our daughters were in school so everything started at 8:00 AM.  But I’ve always been a night person. After many, many years I’ve trained myself to wake up and get here in the morning, but it doesn’t follow that my working brain would shift to the morning. Whatever I can do before late afternoon is usually very inefficient. And every time that I come back to work after dinner or just stay here and go until really late I think, why don’t I always do this? This is so good! But typically I only spend days at the studio. I’m not very routinized. I try to get stuff done.

PO: What are you working on now?

Paul: I just finished the second moose book. It’s a shape book called Circle, Square, Moose. It’s in proof right now. I’m hoping to make a trailer for the book then I’ll start Emily Jenkins’ next picture book.

The title page, in proof form, for Circle, Square, Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky.

PO: You use a variety of distinct styles that change from book to book. When an editor comes to you with a manuscript how much say do you have in the illustration style that you use for the book?  Do they come to you and say,  “Can you do this like Rumpelstiltskin?” or “Can you do this like Toys Go Out?”

Paul: I don’t actually think anybody’s ever asked that.

PO: Really?

Paul:  I guess I’ve been lucky that way. Nobody’s said, that I can remember, please do this like that. I guess publishers have known from pretty far back that maybe they’d be surprised. And maybe they’d be pleased. I have reworked things when they weren’t pleased, but in those cases there’s been a discussion of why something wasn’t working and I’ve been convinced that they were right. That’s usually how it works.

PO: So once you’ve read the manuscript do you just start experimenting with different techniques?

Paul: Yeah, sometimes I know what I don’t want to do and that’s all I know. But it helps. If the story isn’t telling me where it wants to go then I’ll try different things. It’s pretty clear I like finding approaches to my books by thinking of art and the history of art. I think about those images more than about pictures by illustrators per se.

The Shivers in the Fridge interior illustration (written by Fran Manushkin and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky)

The Shivers in the Fridge interior illustration (written by Fran Manushkin and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky)

PO: Speaking of art history, the illustrations in The Shivers in the Fridge are so expressive. When you got that manuscript did you immediately think German expressionism or was that more of a subliminal influence?

Paul: I’m not sure. I knew I didn’t want to make the characters round and simple and classical-looking. It would be too much like Toy Story, for one thing. So I went the other way. My editor liked what I did but I think there were other people in the house who said, “Why doesn’t it look more like Toy Story?”  I thought this text was too crazy to be illustrated in a realistic way, and tried to make the pictures crazy, too.

PO: So do you think your editor went to bat for you on that?  Did hear anything about it?

Paul: If there was contention, I didn’t hear about it, because I had a wonderful editor. A lot has changed in the power structure of publishing but in the end it’s the illustrator’s drawings that are in the book, and the illustrator’s name on it. Sometimes I think illustrators are more timid than they need to be. I think it happens a lot that an editor or an art director will say something and the artist will think, “I have to do this because the editor said it,”  when it could have just been the beginning of a discussion. Editors don’t mind a conversation. And they can be wrong. If you disagree strongly about a suggestion or a criticism you should say so. In one sense, everyone is on the same side– the side of making the book as good as it can be. But there has traditionally been an attitude in children’s publishing that the people making the art are Artists, and deserve special respect. From what I hear, that tradition may be wearing thin in places. That would be too bad. Not only because it’s so nice for an artist to be the recipient of great respect, but also because it’s an attitude that actually makes your work come out better. At least in the long run. At least I think so.

Detail of an illustration from The Shivers in the Fridge

PO: I have a very specific question about that The Shivers in the Fridge. I loved how you used a reddish purple color for the line work throughout the book instead of a black line.  Did you start with black and then change it to that color? Was that just sort of an experiment?

Paul: It was a pencil drawing that I scanned and printed.  There was something so serious about all of the black. I changed it from black to red in Photoshop. It looked much more lively and just felt lighter.

Detail from Rumpelstiltskin by Paul O. Zelinsky

PO:  Were you inspired by specific Renaissance paintings for Rumpelstiltskin and Rapunzel?

Paul: For Rumpelstiltskin I was just inspired by the sense of style and shape and light. I was looking at paintings but I wasn’t copying anything. For Rapunzel I decided that I would actually use specific poses and specific things from particular paintings.

I saw a painting—Portrait of Agatha Bas by Rembrandt—that I thought just encapsulated what I would like to have as a figure on the cover of Rapunzel. There was a woman inside an arched trompe l’oeil frame. She had one hand on the side of the frame and a fan in the other hand. The fan was sticking in front of the frame and her pose expressed a really interesting “come in here/get me out of here” duality. Also her gaze was unbelievable.  I thought, oh, if I could only do that, but I’d have to copy Rembrandt’s picture.  And then I thought, well, that’s what they did in the Renaissance. They copied. Art was a library of stock images. Greek sculptures were especially popular.

Left: Portrait of Agatha Bas by Rembrandt; Right: The cover for Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky (click to enlarge)

I was also looking at Renaissance art for inspiration for what the prince would be wearing. I found it in a painting: Altarpiece of the Saints Vincent, James and Eustace by Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. One of them was wearing a cape and I really liked the way it had sheepskin on the inside and velvet on the outside, but I couldn’t tell from the reproduction what this piece of clothing would look like from the back. A stage designer friend put me in touch with a costume historian and we faxed back and forth. She sent me six pages from a book of costumes, which helped.

Left: Altarpiece of the Saints Vincent, James and Eustace by Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo; Right: Paul’s prince in Rapunzel (click to enlarge)

Costume design reference books: The Cut of Women’s Clothes and Fashions in Hair

A spread Paul illustrated for Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones. (click to enlarge)  “She never got to see anything I did [for this book before she passed away], which made me sad. I was so proud to be illustrating her book, though it had a different illustrator in Britain. Diana Wynne Jones was my older daughter’s favorite author for years..”

An original painting for Swamp Angel written by Anne Isaacs, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. Oil on wood veneer (click to enlarge)

PO: How much time does using oils add to the process?

Paul: I’m sure it takes more time. For my most classical-looking books I was simulating the Renaissance oil painting technique, which has an underpainting and then an overpainting. The underpainting is gray monochrome, and all the hues get put on top of it transparently in the overpainting. Van Eyck I think was one of the early ones to work that way, building up rich colors with glazes. My underpainting was watercolor because it was quicker.

PO: How has technology affected your work? There have been some changes in printing technology since you’ve started, and I also see that you like to experiment.

Paul: I welcome the changes. Printing has gotten much better. I have always liked finding technological solutions to things. Full color [camera-separated cmyk] printing existed when I started but if you weren’t established then you weren’t budgeted for full color. You would have to pre-separate art and you had to try to figure out a way to make it look decent using only two or three colors of ink.

I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to have four colors of ink and it wasn’t that much more expensive to put in a fourth color with pre-separated printing. It was just a lot of work. I did two very elaborate four-color, pre-separated books trying to make it look like they weren’t pre-separated.

It was tricky. You have these four complete drawings for each picture in the book, and it’s just gray all over the place. You can’t tell by looking whether you’ve done it right; you have to think it out. That light gray where the bunny’s nose is– yes, it’s right, because it puts a little yellow into what would otherwise be purply pink. But if on the same piece you forgot to paint gray where on one of the other drawings there is gray grass, you may  end up with grass that’s not green but blue. There usually wasn’t enough money in the budget to shoot and proof for this kind of mistake. So I thought, is there a way to to mimic the printing process? I thought of rigging something up by double-exposing color slides. If I could get slides to come out showing an ink color where the original was gray, then overlaying all four might simulate the printed picture. This crazy scheme actually worked. I took a slide of a piece of Pantone magenta paper, then double-exposed it with my magenta separation (which was all black, white and gray), and the developed slide, instead of going from white to black, went from white to magenta. And the same for the other three colors (the black separation I didn’t double-expose). I then took the four slides out of their cardboard frames and sandwiched them together, and lo and behold: not perfect color but good enough to see the mistakes! I came up with this Rube Goldberg process after my editor and I went through real torture  color-checking the separations for  The Maid and the Mouse and the Odd-shaped House. I used it for The Lion and the Stoat.

[ED NOTE: check out Liz's great explanation of pre-separated art for more background on this printing process.]

Cover for The Maid and the Mouse and the Odd-shaped House by Paul O. Zelinsky. For this book, Paul simulated the full color, camera-separated printing process with pre-separated art.

Interior spread for The Maid and the Mouse and the Odd-shaped House by Paul O. Zelinsky (click to enlarge)

The Lion and the Stoat by Paul O. Zelinsky. This is another book that simulates full color, camera-separated printing with pre-separated art.

PO: That’s so much further than most people would go. You sound excited about the process, not just the finished piece.

Paul: Yeah, I like trying to find tricky solutions to things. And I am really happy when it works. I am also aware of how ridiculous I can get. Once I started using computers, it all fit right in with the way I was figuring stuff out before that.

Paul’s invention, a tracing box his friends call the Zelinskograph

PO: Is this another one of your homemade solutions? (see photo above)

Paul: I came up with this idea when I was starting the paintings for Dust Devil, where the type had to fit in the art very tightly. I would draw outlines on my wood veneer and paint as carefully as I could but as I painted, things seemed to move around and the type didn’t fit with the image anymore. There was no way to see, while I was painting, where the type was going to go. I couldn’t lay down an overlay because the paint was wet. I couldn’t put the type behind the art on a light table because the wood and the paint were opaque. So I thought, I need something projecting from the front. An actual projector wouldn’t do it, I knew that. So I thought of this device.

It uses a half-silvered mirror I found online (it turns out to be a teleprompter supply). You slip some paper between the two vertical pieces of plexi—a drawing of what you want to trace, or in this case paper with the printed type—and, if it’s set up right, what’s on the paper appears to sit the on your artwork exactly as if it were printed or drawn there. If you adjust the lighting so that there’s more light on the paper in the plexi, or more on the work on the table,  you can effectively make the reflected image appear or disappear, or find any stage in between.

PO: Is this something that existed before?

Paul: It probably has existed, things like it… I just called it my tracing box but then Sergio [Ruzzier] said that it was really a Zelinskograph.

Paul’s custom made flat file couch. “I had this made after my first book that sold sort-of well. I had a friend who made wooden boats build it.” He keeps lots of his originals in here.

Another invention: Paul’s artwork hanging system.

PO: Are you using Photoshop much in your work now?

Paul: It depends on what I’m doing. For the Toys Go Out books, there’s not a computer in sight. The Z is for Moose book was supposed to look like that really boring alphabet book from when I was growing up, something which would probably have been done with airbrush at the time. I made the backgrounds in Photoshop and printed those out on watercolor paper. Then I colored in the characters with watercolor. I turned it into stuff that was physical art and it all had to be scanned, but some of what was being scanned had already been scanned and printed. People are doing that quite a bit now.

PO: Yeah, that seems to be popular: you scan your line work, print it on watercolor paper and then add your color. Did you do that for the Awful Ogre books?  Did you scan your pen and ink and then do your watercolor on top of that?

A detail from Awful Ogre Running Wild by Jack Prelutsky illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (click to enlarge)

Paul: The first Awful Ogre book —Awful Ogre’s Awful Day by Jack Prelutsky—came before I could have done that. I used my photocopier at the time, a big Canon machine. It had great blacks. It used powdered toner like a laser printer but it was analogue, with impressive line quality. Toner repels water, so when you have your printed black line drawing and add watercolor it holds it within the outlines. It’s incredible. Watercolor on top of regular black ink weakens the blackness of it. You’d have to go back over the lines with more ink if you want them to have that punch of the copier’s printing.

By the time I was illustrating Awful Ogre Running Wild my copier had gotten old—no more black blacks and it put tone down on the whites. But now laser printers could print almost as well as my copier once did. At Greenwillow Books their printer was pretty good and I found that if I didn’t completely finish my line drawings before scanning them, and added some actual pen and ink here and there at the end—you know, just some fine details—that really eliminated the copied quality of the lines.

A spread from Awful Ogre Running Wild by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

PO: You have worked with so many different media in your work. Do you have a favorite medium that you work in and a least favorite?

Paul: I don’t really… but I wrote something for the Horn book a few years ago about why I use oils so much. Since that piece came out, though, what you can do with computers has changed a lot, and what I can do with computers has changed even more, so my view of computers should definitely be revised upwards. But there’s still nothing like good paper and good paint for making art!

____________

Thanks for sharing all of your great insights and work with us, Paul! We’ve only scratched the surface of Paul’s oeuvre so head over to his website to see more.

Some time ago, I wrote and dummied this story about a bear named Ursula (natch) who does water ballet. She’s training for the big water ballet championship with her friend Ricardo…

…until one morning, when they discover a new pool policy: NO BEARS ALLOWED!

Anyway. Last summer, Ursula (under the working title of SPLASHDANCE) went out on submission and ended up reaching the acquisitions meetings at a couple of houses. So there was this big week when I was waiting for news. One evening, I got an email from my agent with the subject line “YouTube video.” The email read, in its entirety, “You will enjoy this” and included a link.

Of course, I took the email completely at face value. (Note to anyone who ever wants to throw me a surprise party: it will be very easy.) A YouTube link? Not exactly what I was expecting, but not out of character for my agent, either. And what do you do when your agent suggests you do something? You do it immediately. Duh.

So I watched the video. And then I called my parents and made them watch it too.




All I can say is that everyone should have an editor as awesome as Susan Dobinick. (Plus her team of talented assistants, LIVE from the FLATIRON BUILDING!) By the way, are you wondering about the “NOT A BEAR” t-shirts? Well, my friends, the book is due out in 2016. (!!!)

A still from a pilot episode of The Muppet Show.

Hey, literary New Yorkers! Sex! Violence! Also, The PEN World Voices Festival has been going on this week—and this weekend, they’ve got not one but two children’s lit events! Children’s books are literature, YESSSSSSSS! And psst, the organizer tells me: “You can also pass on the discount codes: PEN14 or PEN2014. I think it’s 20%.”

Sex and Violence in Children’s Books: Where The Wild Things (Really) Are, with Sarwat Chadda, Robie Harris, Susan Kuklin, Sharyn November, and Niki Walker – Sunday, May 4, 12:30 pm, Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, Cooper Union, 41 Cooper Square

So, sex and violence. I want to digress a bit, to let you all know that I took the reckless step of Googling “sex and violence in children’s books” to find an image for this post. The results were disappointingly un-scandalizing, but look what was in the first row of results! And since I am an honest blogger who doesn’t just steal other people’s images, I am going to editorialize about this image for a second, because fair use. Okay, no, really because MUPPETS.

According to the Muppet Wiki (yes!), this episode parodies the growth of sex and violence on television, which I’m guessing was new enough in the 1970s to warrant a bit of social commentary, and features the Seven Deadly Sins embodied as Muppets. But what I really like about this image is the wild-eyed look on the Muppet’s face as he readies the explosion.* If I had to sum up my own sense of humor with a facial expression, this would be it.

Anyway, this should be an amazing panel discussion. I mean, look at the lineup.

How to Write a (Super) Hero, with Sarwat Chadda and Christopher Farley – Saturday, May 3, 3:00 pm, SubCulture, 45 Bleecker Street

First of all, I’m pleased to learn there is still a subculture (or at least a SubCulture) on Bleecker Street, amidst all the designer clothes and fancy cupcakes and dog salons and stuff.

This one is for [older] kids, and it’s about world-building, mythology, and heroic quest stories. Awesome.

AND! Here’s a BONUS PUPPET EVENT! It’s called A Procession of Confessions, and it is surveillance-themed, featuring the Processional Arts Workshop, the same big-puppet builders who put on the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. These people know how to do spectacle. This event is not specifically for kids, but I’d say it’s not not for kids, either, so bring ‘em. Sunday, May 4, 5:00, in front of Cooper Union.

—

*My favorite piece of Jim Henson wisdom: if you don’t know how to end a piece, either make something explode or have one of the characters eat the other.

(click to enlarge)

I cannot believe I wrote this post a year ago. When I put it on Facebook, I hadn’t thought much about it. But lo and behold Mark from my high school French class (and just about every other class I had growing up) kindly contacted me to tell me he still had the books. Not only did he still have the books, but if I wanted them, those books could be mine! And so thanks to Mark, those books are now mine! They make me so happy.

Most importantly, I finally know that Mel Dietmeier is the illustrator. I still cannot get over his loose illustrations and the levity they bring to the often dull phrases of basic language learning.

I couldn’t find much about him other than that he had written and illustrated two other children’s books: Someone is Missing  and Potato. Thank you, my vintage book collection (in blog form).

I took a few more photos of some other favorite pages to share with you. Amusez-vous bien!

Too much champagne to hear the phone ring (drin…drin…)!

She plays a mean cello!

This is the only one I’ve pictured here, but tennis appears frequently throughout these books, as if it’s the main leisure activity of France. Look at these daydreams!

What a perfect depiction of a bad mood! (click to enlarge)

This restless night might be my favorite page, maybe because it has a little bit of Edward Gorey’s spookiness to it!

click to enlarge

Poor Olivier…what a catastrophe!

Thank you, Mark, for bringing these books back to my life!

Roll the credits!

The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat

Recently I got a chance to talk with Dan Santat about his latest picture book, The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend. There are so many things I love about this book and Dan generously gave me some serious inside scoop. Scroll on for a detailed behind-the-scenes look into the making of this beautiful and thoughtful story.

Robin: I saw the book trailer for Beekle before I saw the book and loved it. Beekle is totally ready for the movies!

Dan: Thank you! My agent, Jodi Reamer at Writers House, shopped Beekle around and DreamWorks actually optioned the book before I got the book contract. A lot of film companies inquire at Writers House to see what kind of properties they have. They requested to see me because they had seen a picture book I had done a few years back. We finally had a chance to meet and I pitched the idea for this book. They liked it and then two weeks later they made an offer.

Robin:That’s so cool!  What is your role going to be in the movie?  

Dan: I’m solely a creative consultant. I know quite a few guys that work there and I know the beautiful work that they do. I’ve gotten advice from other friends who have said the best thing to do is just take the option and then stand back and let them do what they do.

Robin: Tell me more about creating the book.

Dan: This was one of the most intimidating projects I’ve ever done. There’s a metamorphosis from uncertainty to knowing exactly who you are which was very personal to me. The main character, Beekle, is a blank slate. His purpose isn’t entirely clear. As he goes on this journey, he’s worried: am I doing the right thing? In the first version of the book, I focused on how life experiences define who you are. My editor thought that was more of an adult theme and that we should talk about friendship, about making your first friend. I loved that idea.

On my son’s first day of preschool he had all of this anxiety. What are the other kids going to be like?  Are they going to like me? Am I going to find anybody that wants to be my friend? I remember telling him: be yourself. You don’t need everybody to like you, you just need to start with one friend. I hope a kid reading this book gets the idea that friendship is out there. You don’t have to really look for it because chances are someone is also looking for you.

A spread from Beekle where Beekle and Alice meet for the first time. (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: Tell me about the world-building in the story.

The most intimidating part of this book was the first spread, the imaginary world. What would a world where imaginary friends come from look like? I remember doing all of these huge landscapes—all of these grassy knolls that were shaped like slides—it almost felt cliché. Every time I drew it, it always looked like I was trying too hard to be fantastical.

I even did a couple of final pieces that way. I actually said, okay, that’s the way it’s going to look and then I painted it. I remember in the back of my mind thinking that it didn’t really feel right.

A progression of sketches for the first spread of  Beekle: the island where Beekle is born.

Then my editor, Connie Hsu, made a text change. She suggested that rather than saying, “He came from an island where imaginary friends were born…” maybe it should say “He was born on an island… .” And then she said, “Could you show us a picture?”

I remember I just stressed out. Why are you asking me to do the one thing that I don’t want to do? I had already done eight different compositions. Then I decided I should focus more on him being born than on the world. I decided to just show enough of the world that it felt really fantastic. He’s born from a rainbow and a cloud. It’s just rocks and clouds.

I wanted the imaginary world to feel warm and inviting. The book is also a metaphor about the birth of my son. The first time that my wife held the kid, friends and family around us. I wanted that first spread to feel like that, like oh my gosh, he’s here, you know?

The final opening spread from Beekle. (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: Right, it’s like a celebration. It’s so effective. You have these gorgeous imaginary creatures and it’s like they are in this fantastical waiting room. You have just enough there that makes it feel like fantasy.

It sounds like you worked very closely with Connie on the text. Tell me more about how you worked with her on this project. 

Dan: Typically when I do a book, I’ll write everything out and then I’ll illustrate it but in this case there was a lot of push and pull. I would draw one thing and tweak the text and then I would let Connie read the text and she would tweak that and then I’d end up tweaking the drawings again.

Picture books man, they’re so hard. Connie was very hands-on with helping me with the writing. Just changing a couple of words here and there was huge. We would change one word in a spread and then it would create ripples throughout the entire manuscript. It was really delicate. I knew what my weaknesses were so I followed her lead. In the end it’s a much stronger book than what I had originally thought of.

“There was a part of me that was so in love with the journey part of the story. I had all of these ideas of him on this boat and Connie said, ‘We get it!’ One spread! You get one spread. I originally did this whole huge spread of his journey. I thought I’m going to show you. I’m going to incorporate it all into one spread. She said, it’s a little much, let’s just do the whale, the whale is good, you know?: ‘…faced many scary things.’”

The final spread representing Beekle’s journey. (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: How did you come up with the ideas for the characters on the endpapers?

Dan: I always knew that the endpapers would be a line up of kids with their imaginary friends but I was really intimidated. In the beginning I was just doing all of the beautiful sailing landscapes with just Beekle. At a certain point I realized I had to start filling pages with the other imaginary friends. All of the pages that you see with imaginary friends came towards the end.

I like the concept of an imaginary friend because it is an intention: who is the perfect friend for me? If you are an imaginary friend you only exist because someone thought of you, right? I wanted the imaginary friends to be grounded in something familiar and I wanted their purpose to be clear without having to write it out.

The endpapers actually took me about a week to figure out. I would sit there for hours and I would just think and say, no, no… Once I filled that page of imaginary friends I was running empty on the tank. I decided keep the cast relatively small and to have the same characters throughout so that the endpapers are like a glossary.

A few early sketches of the imaginary friends for Beekle.

The endpapers for Beekle: “There’s a kid with a guitar and then his best friend is this little monster that lives inside a bongo drum. He just beats himself in the head. For the longest time I kept trying to think of some amorphous character with piano key teeth or a snail that had a shell that was shaped like a French horn. It just got a little too weird when you looked at it. I didn’t want these to be aliens or variations of furry beasts. I wanted these to be imaginary friends.” (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: Did you do a lot of character studies? You knew you wanted an octopus so you drew 20 octopi and…

Dan: I’m really bad about that. I do all of that in my head. Since I’m a parent, a lot of my time is spent either walking the dogs or cooking dinner or doing laundry or taking the kids places. I don’t have time to fill a sketchbook. I hate to admit this but I’m actually figuring out character designs while I’m doing the final artwork. It’s burned me a couple of times. I’ll draw something and then maybe in another spread I’ll add something to that character or change it and I’ll like it a lot better, and then I’ll have to go back to the earlier artwork and change that. For some reason it doesn’t feel like I’m wasting my time when I know that it’s for the purpose of being a final piece.

Robin: How does that process work with your art directors and editors? Isn’t there usually that phase in the process where you say here are my characters and then there may be some back and forth with the art director? Are they cute enough? Are they too cute? Are they old enough/young enough? Does that still happen when you’re handing in your sketches or do you work with art directors that are more hands off, or that have faith in you to get it right at the end?

Dan: I think a lot of people realize that I probably do my best work if I’m free to go do my own thing. That said, I always like to deliver more than what the publisher will expect, I think that’s just good business practice but it’s also good for me to push myself. You always want your next book to be better than the last one that you did.

If I’m working on a series, or if it’s an editor or an art director that I’ve never worked with before, they’ll usually want to see what I have for designs. Then after that I just take it from there, but I’m always open to art direction.

The case design for Beekle by Dan Santat. (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: I love that Beekle is hand lettered. It’s such a nice addition.

Dan: I’m constantly trying to push myself to get better at typography because I find that if it all comes from the same hand it feels more immersive. It started with the covers. I did a picture book called Chicken Dance and just ran with it. I decided I was going to make the cover comp so good that they couldn’t deny it. I know where my limitations lie so if I do a type treatment and they don’t think it’s working then I’ll back off.

With Beekle I felt that the handwriting portion of it was important because I wanted it to feel like this was something that was made by the girl in the story. There was a point where I even wanted the drawings to be really loose and naive, almost like it was drawn by a five-year-old. I couldn’t get myself to do it. It probably would have made the message even stronger when I reflect on it but at the same time I thought it didn’t feel finished.

Robin: That would have been a little more expected so I’m glad that you didn’t do that. This feels like what’s in her head as opposed to coming from her hand. I think that style would have gotten in the way a little bit.

Dan: Drawing style was something that was a big part of this book. For the past eight years I’ve primarily used Photoshop for all of my books, but with this one I integrated paint textures and charcoal textures. It was important for me to get that handmade feel into it.

Robin: Alright, so I’m going to make you get technical here. You’ve got your pencil sketch and then what is your process? How did you create the finals?

Dan: I think this might be a popular trend that’s happening these days in illustration. I take a sheet of paper and then I just try to make really beautiful watercolor marks and interesting textures. Then I take another sheet of paper and fill that up with charcoal, another with color pencil, another with acrylic. I scan all of those papers in and I end up with these huge Photoshop files of pure texture. I take my tight pencil drawing and layer the textures on top. I create alpha channels on those textures and draw with that. It’s almost like I’m cutting out the shape of the thing that I want to create using that texture rather than a Photoshop brush. That way I’m incorporating that handmade feel with the computer.

I’m starting to build a library of different scanned textures and materials that I can pick and choose from. I think Jon Klassen and Peter Brown do it as well and it’s something I’d experimented with before. I wanted to take this approach for this book because I felt like it was integral to the story of this girl making a book. I was thrilled with the end results.

Robin: It’s beautiful.

A final illustration for Beekle: In this scene “the ground was a color pencil texture overlaid with a watercolor texture. I could probably do that conventionally but here I’m doing it on a computer and I think you get the same results.” (Click to enlarge.)

Dan: I don’t know if I’ll be able to have the time or the computer memory to do my next book. Each texture file is around 80 megabytes so when you layer them some of these files got up to around 5 gigabytes. I can just feel my computer…

Robin: …Groaning and buckling…

Dan: Right. It got to a point where I tried to scale something and my computer would just shut down. I would get really stressed out: I need to scale this so I have to save my file first and then scale it! It was terrible.

Initial sketches for the dragon spread in Beekle.

The final dragon spread in Beekle. “Each spread took me about a day to do. The dragon spread took me three days because I painted each scale on the dragon individually. I remember thinking this is going to suck but in the end I think I’m going to be really happy with the result. I’m really glad I did it.” (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: Tell me about your color palette. At any point are you formally putting together swatches for your palette and saying these are my yellows, these are my blues or do you just have your go-to colors that you like?

Dan: I’m not that rigid about it. In art school, we would have guest lecturers come in from DreamWorks and talk about how color can completely dictate the mood of a scene. A purple sky can feel very dark and ominous. If we change that sky to a yellow then it feels young, refreshing, optimistic. When you study all those DreamWorks films you see it! To this day I find myself referring to certain color palettes because I know from past experience what kind of emotions those particular colors will convey when I use them in the right scene.

When I came out of art school I found my color palette was the hardest thing to master. Color in general can be so daunting grasp. There is an infinite number of colors, which ones should I use? 

I threw out my whole portfolio and decided I needed to get a better control of color. One of my friends who was a really excellent designer just said, start simple. Start with two or three colors and then try to do an entire piece with just those three colors. When you’re doing a lot of color mixing you’re going to find that all of those colors harmonize together. That’s what makes the piece so much stronger: All of the colors inherently relate to one another because you’re mixing those properties into the whole thing. I started with that and then I’d add a fourth color, a fifth color, and so forth.

When I create illustrations on a computer I have more opportunity to experiment, take more risks, and to really tighten up my sense of color. I noticed over the years that there are certain colors I gravitate towards, like mustardy yellow. My skies tend to be dark turquoise. But sometimes the mood of a scene might be better depicted by a slight shift on a color bar. Honestly, I feel like if I were given a palette of paint and a paintbrush it would take me forever to mix the color. With the computer I can figure it out in minutes.

I do have one horrible quirk and I hate to say it, I loathe purple! It’s not to say I never use purple but when I use purple it always feels awkward. Purple is like the color theory’s Helvetica. It is very powerful if someone knows how to use it but everyone uses it wrong!

That’s not to say that I’ve never used it—one of the monsters in the beginning is purple—but I think one of the strengths of this book is that the palette is really tight. 

A spread from Beekle by Dan Santat. (Click to enlarge.)

“I tend to push my darks and lights. I learned this from my experience working in the video game industry. If you were to make something in 3D without it being lit it would look horribly dull. Lighting is like 90% of the whole thing.” (Click to enlarge.)

“Everything creative in the book is done in really saturated, fun color and anything that relates to the real world is very stark. This is one of my favorite spreads. To take it upon yourself to go out into the real world is really scary, it’s a dark real world where everything is just gray and adults are really intimidating. I wanted the imaginary world to feel more secure than the real world itself. As a kid I think there’s this comfort of being in your imagination.” (Click to enlarge.)

Robin: So where did the name Beekle come from?

Dan: When my son was first learning to speak his word for bicycle was Beekle. My wife said that would be a really great name for a character and I thought, yeah, that is a pretty excellent name.  

Thanks Dan! To see more of what Dan does check out his website.

The final spread from Beekle by Dan Santat. (Click to enlarge.)

(click to enlarge) page spread illustrated by Emanuele Luzzati from Italo Calvino’s: Il visconte dimezzato.

I recently went back to Italy, almost ten years after I had left it. That’s a long story I won’t bore you with now, but one of the things I missed most was browsing in European book stores. Books feel more beautiful over there, the thick paper (often textured), well-illustrated covers of every kind of book (no photos from movies that came after the books), and many different sizes and shapes of paperback novels. Every book is begging for you to touch it and flip through it, which is probably why they often come sealed in plastic wrap, with just one copy unwrapped in front for me to play with.

(click to enlarge)

I was on the hunt for children’s books by Italian authors illustrated by Italians. Something I noticed in the children’s book section was that there were few picture books but many shelves of chapter books (of all reading levels) with lush illustrations. I have theories on why this is: with all its idiosyncrasies, English takes much longer to form than Italian; that fact plus a mix of cultural and publishing practices provide for some pretty great chapter book options. I love how many illustrations are included in these books, how the texts melds with them, that they are in color and often harbor glorious full page spreads.

At a delicious dinner at our friends’ home, I was lucky enough to spend some time with Sofia, a very bright 9 year old who patiently showed me all her books from when she was young to what she is currently reading. She answered all my questions and introduced me to several books I didn’t know, including ones by the author Roberto Piumini. C’era una volta, ascolta is a lovely collection of stories by Mr. Piumini, illustrated by Nicoletta Costa. I love the texture she creates with her patterns and the humor Ms. Costa conveys.

Next up is a great among children’s writers, Gianni Rodari (and here), he won the Hans Christian Anderson Award for his incredibly imaginitive books for children. Le avventurre di cipollino is illustrated by Manuela Santini. Her illustrations blew me away. They are so soft and strange and seem like they are part of the paper fibers rather than printed on them. Her figures are without edges, which makes them hard to photograph and they seem to move along the pages. Enjoy!

(click to enlarge)

Lastly,a book by Italo Calvino, renowned author of short stories and novels. His Il visconte dimezzato was illustrated by the artist Emanuele Luzzati (and here). I could stare at these artful rich colored illustrations all day. I love the thick lines, bold colors and his written descriptions throughout the drawings.

(click to enlarge)

Do you have any Italian favorites? Let us know in the comments!

Sneak peak: Francesco Tullio Altan is an Italian author/illustrator who has influenced me enormously. Separate post on him to come. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this image from Altan’s board book: Pimpa e il fungo sognatore (Pimpa and the daydreaming mushroom). As you can see, the mushroom loses his cap!