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I have started my pastel artwork for The Jungle Grumble. I am only doing 2 pieces of artwork at this stage, to be taken to the Frankfurt Book Fair by my publisher. I have just enough time to get it done. Because things are tight, John has been helping me with jobs, like cutting my pastel paper to size:
I generally work larger than the actual size. On this book I am doing my drawings at 120%, although one of the 2 images the publisher has chosen for their Frankfurt presentation is the very complex 8th spread, so I'l be doing that at 140%, so I can manage the detail:
Another job is getting the prints-outs of the roughs ready for me to trace. We only have an A4 printer. By the time the line-work is enlarged to the scale I am going to work at, the image is pretty big, so we have to print it out in several bits and then stick them back together again. The image above was in 6 pieces! To get them to line up accurately, we use the light-box:
I then have the extremely tedious job of tracing the illustrations up onto my pastel paper, again on the lightbox. I have to turn out the lights and pull the blinds, to make it dark enough to see through the pink pastel paper, which is about as thick as watercolour paper. If you want to know why I use pink, read this post, from when I was at the same stage with Dragon's Dinner.
My feedback came through from Egmont on Tuesday, so I spent that day on the very boring task of enlarging my drawings on the computer, printing them out and tracing them up onto my pink pastel paper.
Now, it's a bit nerve-racking, deciding where to begin on a new book. I dithered for a while, then plumped for the lamb on skates and the polar bears I showed you last month:
My main reason: they are both principally white animals, so that was one colour I wouldn't have to make a decision on, and so would ease me in gently. Plus, I love the way white is made up of so many reflected colours and how pastels allows you to play with that, building it up gently:
I worked on both pieces side by side, because it's quicker to work on 2 similar illustrations at the same time - always handy when things are running behind schedule. 
I based my polar bear drawing on this lovely photo I found on Google (ahhh...).
I used bold colours for their clothes, so they'll stand out against the white and also show up on whatever coloured background we drop in later. You see, none of the characters will have illustrated backgrounds: every page is going to have a different, flat colour dropped in later, in Photoshop.
The effect will be similar to my earlier baby book,
When You're Not Looking! - simple and bold (ideal for this younger age group), although I think it will be slightly less zingy, without moving as far away as pastels.
This is how things stood on my desk come Thursday morni
This
tracing business has just gone on and on! Luckily, unlike the
gorgeous weekend (hurrah) it's been a wet and horrid day today, so it's not such a tragedy, being stuck in the dark.
I've been knuckling down and trying to get it all finished, so I can get on with the fun bit of working with colour, but I can't concentrate for very long, and keep taking breaks to do other less dull and tiring things. Listening to the Radio 4 and sucking sweeties helps me keep my head down, but they make me thirsty, so I have to keep breaking for cups of tea...
It's a hard life, this illustrating lark. 
But, I've just finished the last spread - phew. So, let raise those blinds and raise a cheer. Yahoo!
My feet are killing this week. I am at the tracing-up stage with my Bears on the Stairs project, which means I'm standing up at the light box all day.
You don't realise how much standing wears you out, until the end of the day, when I realise I'm exhausted. Can't imagine having a job where you are on your feet all day every day!
This bit is very tedious: I first have to precisely measure and cut the paper for each individual illustration, marking a 5mm bleed all round, and a 10mm edging to trim off at the end. That stage alone takes a few hours (especially given all the cups of tea needed to keep sane).
Then I enlarge all the drawings on the computer (I'm working at 123%), print them out and stick them back together (I only have an A4 printer, so it takes four-and-a-bit A4 sheets per spread, as you can see above).
One by one, I then trace them onto my pink pastel paper at the light box. This also means that, if it's a bright day, I have to pull all the blinds and spend my day in the dark!
I'm encouraged to know that I'm not the only one combining sections of images manually and tracing the enlarged image on a lightbox. Thank you for sharing your process.
What a fascinating insight into the publishing process. I had no idea it was so fiddly and time consuming! I love your animal art it is so funny and cute.
Good to see your hard at work. I'm excited to see the end result. Stay active, best wishes,
Benjamin
It's great to see the publishing process:) What a great idea the pink paper,great post:)
Thank you. Glad to hear that the background information is still interesting.
:-)
That there's craft, that is!