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John Manders was educated at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and later took courses at the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, where he studied children’s illustration, animation, and life drawing. His interests include puppetry (he studied that at Syracuse University College) and trying to speak Italian.

John’s  work is featured in over 30 children’s books and gazillions of children’s magazines. He’s a member of the Society of Illustrators, the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, and is a founding member of the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators. John was also their first president.

A pet lover, John organized the successful Bow Wow Meow art auction that benefited the Animal Rescue League of Western PA, and the PSI scholarship fund. He also curated Illustration:  The Process, an educational exhibit of fourteen illustrators and their working methods.

John’s incredible work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh gallery, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, and he was honored in the 25-year retrospective of Cricket magazine covers, held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. That year, he was also a participant at the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, Italy. In May, 2006 he was named Outstanding Illustrator/Author by the Pennsylvania School Librarian’s Association.

This John’s latest book. You can see his process in the following interior spreads in the book.

This is a glimpse of John’s work-in-progress shots from Finnegan and Fox: The Ten-Foot Cop. This scene shows a crowded sidewalk next to a construction site. The lady next to Finnegan is upset because a mouse ran over her foot!

This is thumbnail sketch (very small).,and final painting. With crowd scenes, I’m always looking for people to include in the scene. It’s hard to make up all those characters.

This is the rough sketch.

Tight sketch (half-size of the painting). Using 2B pencils on layout bond paper, he transfers the drawings onto Arches 300 lb hot press watercolor paper.

Next is an ‘underpainting’ in neutral tones with Winsor & Newton Designers gouache.

The color is painted on top of that.  Starting to lay in gouache layers.

Painting in progress. More details added.

Continuing to add layers of detail. Prismacolor pencils are used for highlights and    accents.

Getting a closer look below.

Final below.

The next scene shows New York’s Finest organizing a search for a lost little girl. My cousin’s son is a NYC cop, so naturally I had to put him in this picture or be kicked out of the family. You can see him at the bottom of the page. And here is a photo that includes his loving parents. As always: thumbnail sketch, tight pencil sketch, work-in-progress and final painting. Sorry the final looks so washed out. It looks much better in the book!

Thumbnail Sketch.

Refined larger sketch.

John always does research. You can see photos of New York City police cars taped to the side for reference.

The policeman in the picture is John’s cousin’s son. Family comes in handy sometimes.

Final spread.

Cover Sketch.

Final cover art.

Cover Art above – Interior Art below.

Video below.

TIP FROM JOHN:

Masking fluid (or liquid frisket) is a pretty handy item to have around. Many of the scenes in Jack and the Giant Barbecue have characters in front of the big, wild & woolly American West. I like to spread out and paint that kind of backdrop with equally wild brush strokes. That’s a whole lot easier if you don’t have to carefully paint around the characters.

Masking fluid is kind of a rubbery syrup that you paint on your paper wherever you don’t want watercolor. It dries to a water-repellant film. As you see in the pictures, I masked out Jack and his faithful pony (also using bits of masking tape) so I could slather on the paint with abandon. When I finished painting the background, I peeled away the mask using a rubber cement pickup.

Use the link below to see John’s technique.

http://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/masking-fluid/

Due to a mix up, I will be posting John’s interview questions later and will announce it when I post it, so you don’t miss anything.

John’s picture book Jack and the Giant Barbecue has been dominated by National Cartoonist Society for the Reuben Award. The winners will be announced Saturday, May 25th at the Reuben Awards dinner in Pittsburgh, PA.

Check back to find out if John wins? Is he in the poster? We’ll find out when John sends me the answers to the interview questions.

Hope you enjoyed getting to see John’s illustrations. I will post the interview questions as soon as I receive them from John.

You can visit John at www.johnmanders.com And as always I love when you leave a comment. Hope  you still will even with the glitch with the interview questions.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy