PIGNIC Sketches!

I had a tremendous amount of fun writing and illustrating PIGNIC. Here's a peek behind the scenes...

One of a million pig character sketches.

A sample from the initial thumbnail layout.

The dummy consisted of very small sketches drawn with Derwent Inktense pencils which are 

water-soluble. I liked the results so much that I used the same pencils for the final art.

You can find a copy of PIGNIC at your local bookstore or here.

The official PIGNIC launch party will be at Children's Book World on Saturday, June 2nd at 1 pm!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

I was thrilled when editor Neal Porter sent Scott Menchin's picture book text What Are You Waiting For? to me. Written as a vague conversation between two unnamed (and undescribed) characters, Scott left a great deal to the illustrator which is a wonderful thing. Aside from the What of the title, I had free reign to come up with characters and business for each page and each question.

I decided to make the characters animals. At first they were sweater-wearing bears...

But, although I love drawing bears, I thought that maybe there were too many bears in picture books and I should try something new. So... badger and bunny.

Turns out, lots of illustrators were also thinking about badgers and their books also came out this year. Badgers in the zeitgeist, I suppose.

Finding the visual story to go along with Scott's dialogue was the key. I decided to play each question against the two characters noticing something along their walk. In that way, the waiting became an opportunity to observe their surroundings, to be present in the moment (even though the badger is mostly impatient for the arrival of the What).

This is the image that came to me for the "Is it old?" question and subsequently led to the rambling and observing visual story:

Here are some more sketches:

For the final art, I decided to work as simply as possible to reflect the tone of the book. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and pastels on Strathmore Toned Tan paper. I used a similar technique years ago for Alice Schertle's Very Hairy Bear. It was wonderful to work this way again. Pure and simple drawing. It was a pleasure.

Here are some finals:

I was hoping for a simple, quiet approach to the cover but it was not to be. Here's my initial cover concept:

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? was a great experience and one of my favorite of my own books. I hope you check it out.

Here's what Kirkus Review had to say:

"...The book’s well-thought-out design combines double-page spreads, spot, and bordered illustrations. The final illustration, very small and surrounded by the toned white space of the page, metaphorically hints at possibilities to be discovered beyond borders. 


A quiet, thoughtfully designed picture book with a strong message."

Ravens

Just playing around with a Winsor & Newton Ivory Black Water Colour Marker and my trusty water brush. Fun, but seems to fade quite a bit after a few minutes. Scan or take a photo quick, kids.

And just for fun...

Pig in a Tutu!

Drawn with an Intense pencil, Niji water brush, and plain ol' water.

Drawing a Shrew

Giant Elephant Shrew, that is.

DRUTHERS!

If you had your druthers, what would you do?

My first picture book as both author and illustrator is now available! The idea for Druthers came to me ten years ago but it took many years (and, arguably, fatherhood) to get the book right.

Here are some images from the long journey:

Original cover concept from the pitch dummy.

Another cover idea.

Pages from the sketch dummy. The basic structure of the story is the same from the dummy, 

but we expanded the build-up to the ending.

Various character sketches. Fortunately, I have very good source material running around the house. This book is dedicated to her.

Experimenting

All of this Random Penguin House news inspired me to try my own merger.

This started as a pencil sketch in my sketchbook:

I placed the sketch on my lightbox, and very loosely marked the landmarks of the sketch (eyes, pose, etc). Then I turned off the lightbox and drew a new drawing with ink on Arches watercolor paper:

I then put a new piece of Arches paper over the original sketch on the lightbox, marked the same general details, and did a fast watercolor wash:

The last step was to merge the ink and watercolor in Photoshop. I didn't worry about it lining up exactly to keep some energy for the final.

This process opens up the possibility of trying various color schemes without losing the original pen drawing. The idea is based on the color separation technique that used to be standard for picture books. 

It's always difficult to keep the energy of your sketch through to final, and I'm thinking this might be a possible answer to that problem. What do you think?

Painting Begins

This week, I began painting my next graphic novel. Like my previous books, I'm painting this one with watercolor. Watercolor is a "traditional" medium, but not at all traditional for comics. There are others who use real paint for their books, but most comics are colored digitally. However, there is no Rule about this. Since I'm more comfortable with watercolor and prefer the results, that's what I choose to use.

New paint. New brushes.

The illusion of order that, as the weeks and months roll on, will most likely devolve into messy chaos.

There was also pie.