Thanks Karen! I can't wait to see your book, too! I love Janine Dawson's illustrations.

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What beautiful illustrations! Can't wait to read all about Rosie and Ned.

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deadline met and feelin' fine

I now have a freshly cleaned drawing board (*happy sigh* . . . a clean workspace feels so full of potential), after sending off final artwork for Rosie and Ned and the Creepy Cave, the third in a series by award-winning author Meredith Costain, to be published by Puffin in July this year. (I also blogged about this project here.)

This adventure allowed me to draw a spooky old cottage with a witchy inhabitant, a creepy cave and satisfyingly suspenseful situations — all those kinds of things I LOVED in books (and tv :) when I was young. It's so fun to get to illustrate the type of book I loved to read.

Here's a teeny sneak peek . . .

images © 2010 Tina Burke
from "Rosie and Ned and the Creepy Cave" written by Meredith Costain
Published by Penguin Books 2010

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I'm a little teapot, short and stout

Another little sketch done as I watched the Olympics. Now it's all over I'll have to find another show that has a lot of breaks or boring bits.

I've been enjoying my time on the couch with my sketchbook. It's not something I often do — just doodle and see what comes out the end of the pencil. Usually I have a specific project I'm working on, which guides me with characters and subject matter, mood and action. But doodling is a great exercise, it gets the brain ticking and takes me back to where it all started — drawing for no particular reason, just simply for the fun of it.

This sketch started with a pose; a girl, with her weight shifted to one hip, a hand resting on her tilted waist. And of course no-one wants to sing "I'm a little teapot" on their own, so the situation called for a little sister, her weight balanced equally on both feet as she eagerly attempts to imitate the actions. To me, her straight-up-and-down stance feels more enthusiastic and energised, while the shifted pose of the older girl feels more relaxed — perhaps she's done this little song and dance routine a hundred times already.

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If you're a fan of picture books, or write and/or illustrate them yourself, you're sure to know of Oliver Jeffers' work. I enjoyed watching this behind-the-scenes video, so thought I'd share it here for other fans of his work.

Lost and Found is on my list of favourite picture books — I know it made the cut as it's one of the few books I had shipped over from my vast collection in Australia.

I adore the illustrations, the gorgeous colours and most of all its heart warming story. I think I love it even more now, after hearing the snippet of where he got the idea for the book — from an event in Belfast "where this kid climbed into a penguin enclosure and managed to kidnap a baby penguin . . . "

Honestly, who hasn't wanted to do that at some point?

The story has also been made into an animated short:

A quote from Jeffers, on his working methods:

"I almost can't separate them in my brain:
the pictures define the words and
the words define the pictures."

I liked this description: that's how I feel when I'm writing my books — the images

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best friends

I love seeing kids in this pose. It always looks a little awkward and claustrophobic, but instantly says "best friends".

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I saw this video of Brian Selznick discussing The Invention of Hugo Cabret on School Library Journal.

I loved Hugo Cabret, so I enjoyed hearing the author speak a little about his process, and see the "dummy" book that he created for it.

The dummy book is a rough mock-up for a picture book, as visualised at this stage by the creator. They can be made for the creator's own purposes as part of the development process, but also as the final submission to a publisher.

Selznick shows us a glimpse of what an illustrated dummy for a picture book can look like, though normally you would create a full-size (or the size you envision it) 32-page* version for submission. There are different methods and styles of putting them together, but generally the idea is to have a rough model of the final book, to let the reader get a better sense of the flow and rhythm of the story and pictures, and helps them visualise it as a final product.


Even at the submission stage it is acceptable to have your dummy consisting of black and white sketches, though if your illustration work is unknown to the publisher you may wish to include two or three more polished colour samples to give them an idea of your style (always copies, never send originals). Don't do the whole book as finished art. It's not necessary, and chances are there would be tweaks and layout changes and you would be redoing them anyway.

Here is a more detailed explanation of creating a picture book dummy (ironically it's difficult to track down a good how-to with clear pictures). For the record, my first submission (for Fly, Little Bird ) was created from scratch, folding 16 sheets of A3 paper in half to create a 32-page A4 sized book, and hand stitched the spine together with wool. I scanned my original sketches, and created the layouts with text in Indesign, then printed them out. I used spray adhesive to adhere the printouts to my blank book, creating a very sticky and toxic-smelling dummy.

Hey, it worked! But even so, never again . . . I found that as careful as I was, there was still enough overspray and gluey fingerprints to make the pages stick together a little, which is distracting as you're trying to read it— I feel it messes up the pacing of the story as the reader stops to fiddle with stuck pages, or even worse, skips a page altogether (however, now you can get adhesive printer paper, which I'm sure would be much easier, cleaner, and less smelly).

So I now use "Option A", (as described in the article link above ↑): a binder from the office supply store, which has plastic sleeves and a clear cover opening where I can sli

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winter

I find kids incredibly cute in their winter gear — all those coats and hats and hoods and mittens. I can almost hear the nylon swish as this little one trundles along.

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The first skate

Inspired while watching the pairs skating at the winter olympics last night. I like to think that this is how they all began.

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As small children shuffle off for their first days of school this week (good luck little Inny! Aunty Tina is thinking of you!! xx), Kids Style File has recommended Ruby Makes a Friend as

"...the perfect book to read to a sibling who has bravely waved
goodbye to their older brother or sister for the day..."

That made me happy. But some news that will make you happy — they're also offering their readers 20% off everything (including Ruby!) in their lovely online store until March 31st. Check 'em out!

Ruby's big brother leaves for his first day of school


Ruby starts school — and introduces Milo, her imaginary friend, to the class.


Images from Ruby Makes a Friend
by Tina Burke
Published by Penguin Books

Best of luck to all the little munchkins on their new adventure! And to the parents! And the teachers! x

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See this black dot? In the red circle? That's a black squirrel. I love seeing them against the white snow.

This little guy spotted us during our walk in the park, and came bounding over,

and stared at us expectantly.

You can imagine how embarrassed we were to tell him we weren't actually trying to get his attention, we were just taking a photo.

It reminded me of a little squirrel I used to feed peanuts to, when we were living on Toronto Island a couple of years ago. I scattered nuts around on the side deck and up along the handrail, then sat and watched him and his friend, "Skinny", come to collect them. Sometimes they'd peel and eat a few right there, sometimes they would carry them away and bury them in the snow for later. This usually involved putting one whole, unopened nut in their mouth, then stuffing another in next to it, at which point the first one would pop out. They'd pick it up and stuff that one back in again, and the second one would pop back out. This is how humans are smarter. We have backpacks.

I was entranced by this little comedy show, but also in the way the little squirrel looked like he was smiling when I got a look at his profile. His little mouth curved upward, and with his little chubby cheek and bright eye - well, he looked just like a little cartoon character.

Truly, it was like this:

So happy!

I always assumed that this was what squirrels looked like all the time, but after seeing others in the park, and now looking at photos on the internet (yes, I did my research on this), they actually don't all look like they're smiling. I think I just had one happy squirrel visitor, or at least one that really liked peanuts. I wonder if he's still there, and if he's still happy?

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Looks like you had a great night! Love the cover illustration too!

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It was so fun to see the photos of It's Christmas being read to a kindergarten class in this post! Look at those attentive little heads!! 

It got me reminiscing about how much I loved the lead up to Christmas when I was a child - the Christmas-themed arts and crafts, songs, books, end of year school plays. Such an exciting time of year for this little Burke!

Tiny Tina meets Santa
(A very special occasion that required a very fancy dress)

It was my memories of all that excitement and anticipation that inspired me to create It's Christmas.  I started - just for fun - sketching a series of individual "moments", initially having no intention for the illustrations to be part of a book - I actually thought I'd use them for a series of Christmas cards.  However, as I sketched, I found the individual vignettes seemed to tie together so naturally that I was inspired to write It's Christmas, showing a series of snapshots of different children as they prepare for the big day . . . 

. . . and their mounting anticipation as they await the arrival of that V.I.P . . .

It's so fun to now see It's Christmas being read to kids, knowing they're probably squirming with excitement as I once did, and I'm absolu

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I'm not surprised! Congratulations!

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... and to spread some cheer, I have another colouring sheet for you!! Click here to download.

You can find the first colouring sheet here.

HAPPY COLOURING!! 



[image based on an illustration from It's Christmas ©Tina Burke].

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It's Christmas is listed on the US Children's Book Council's reading list for seasonal holidays!  

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Last night was the SCBWI Christmas party at the Hughenden Hotel - such a fun night!  I scheduled a whirlwind Sydney trip around it, and loved being able to chit-chat with my book industry friends (though the evening flew by all too quickly for my liking).  

The exuberant and lovely author Deb Abela gave a keynote speech and reading (I love how her vibrant voice comes through in her writing. She always sounds like she's having such fun creating her stories), and I was able to catch-up with many friends, including Susanne Gervay, Chris Cheng, Sarah Davis, Jeni Mawter, Sue Whiting, Lachlan Creagh, and authors Sue Walker and Aleesah Darlinson, and illustrator (and ex-Disney colleague!) Serena Geddes!    

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Hey you there.
this is a great activity.
I will let Bini know.
hugs
ME

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Rosie's a favourite at our house, the girls will be quite interested to grab the new book!

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... and I have an early gift for you!

In celebration of December, and inspired by the lines of Christmas trees that are already for sale on our corner, I decided to post this today - to get your little ones colouring and dreaming of a white Christmas (or a sunny Christmas, depending on where you live).

Happy colouring!! I'd love to see your results!

Click here to download your free It's Christmas colouring sheet!


[image based on an illustration from It's Christmas ©Tina Burke.
If you wish to share the gift, please credit me, and/or link back to this site. I'd love to hear how you share it! Much appreciated, Tina]

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As well as illustrating as my own picture books, I've also illustrated two books written by award-winning (and prolific!) author Meredith Costain, published as part of the Puffin Nibbles range.

↓ These are some my original character sketches I made when first designing Rosie and Ned for the first book - Rosie to the Rescue. I love the characters in this series, and really enjoyed working on these books and in the b/w technique, so I was thrilled to hear that Meredith had written a third in the series! Yay!

I'm about to start on the final cover art for 'Book 3', then we move on to the internal illustrations. The cover is generally the first stage of final artwork to be done, so it can be used for any marketing purposes by the publisher.

These are 'chapter books', aimed at young readers. Chapter books are typically text/story driven, with lots of black and white internal illustrations throughout, so the front and back covers are the only colour work involved. This allows me to have a bit of fun with it, though as this is a series there obviously needs to be consistency in the style from book to book.

Normally I do my children's book illustrations in watercolour, which allows me to leave a strong emphasis on the drawn line; watercolour is soft and transparent so I can have a lot of fun getting the drawing precisely how I want it, then add the colour without blotting out the facial expression or any subtle linework I want to keep. In my own picture books, I use text very sparingly and tell a lot of the story through the characters facial expressions and poses, so it's important I'm able to get the message across clearly through my drawing.

For the covers of these chapter books, however, I decided to go with acrylic as I wanted really strong, bright and bold colours for a dynamic cover - plus, in a nutshell, I love working in acrylic so was happy to have an excuse to use it!

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Ohhhhh......shiny and new!

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Congratulations on the new site Tina - I love the new layout!

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... to my shiny new site!

I've given it a much-needed spring clean, and am excited to be adding this blog to use as a diary of what's going on in my world, and to answer some FAQ's.

I was inspired to do a complete overhaul after recently creating a website for my "other" art, and my first blog - something that I have been intending to do for a long time. I decided to link the two together, to make a more comprehensive and cohesive online home.

I hope you enjoy them!

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