The lovely Susan Boase asked me to participate in the author/illustrator Writing Process Blog tour , a series of blog posts where folks answer the same questions about process and projects. It's a fun way to peek into the brains and studios of illustrators and authors.
Susan is an incredibly gifted author and illustrator living here in Portland. Her beautiful and moving picture book Lucky Boy, was a 2004 KIND Picture Book Recipient. The Three Robbers is a well worn favorite around our house. My three year old requests it often!
Alrighty, onward. The questions!
What are you currently working on?
I'm in a fun creative place right now...no major deadlines. My brain is free to roam wherever it would like. On my desk right this minute I have two picture book ideas that I've been tinkering with, and a middle grade novel. I'm also getting ready for the release of The Orchestra Pit (Neal Porter, Roaring Brook) on August 19th, and excited for Book 1, Friendship Over, The Top Secret Diary of Celie Valentine (written by Julie Sternberg, Boyds Mills Press) to come out in the fall.
How does your work differ from others of its genre?
I love to illustrate and write stories that incorporate coziness, family, and nature. They're themes that I seek out in life and in books. I use warm colors, paint on canvas, and add a lot of layers of paint to create different textures.
Why do you write what you write?
You know the part in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when ordinary people start obsessing over that mountain, and they can't stop making art about it? That's how I feel when I have a new story idea. I tend to fixate on different topics, until I hash out a story about them. It happened with circuses. It happened with orchestras. It happened with bunnies. In fact, the main character in the Bunnies on Ice is obsessed with ice skating. She can't stop thinking about it! I can relate.
How does my individual writing/illustrating process work?
With The Orchestra Pit, I knew that I wanted to make a book that highlighted every instrument in an orchestra, but I was wrestling with how to make it work. And then one day I was watching the Portland Cello Project perform, and it kind of came at me with a whoosh. What if a snake accidentally slithered into an Orchestra Pit, rather than a snake pit?
When a story idea starts to take form like that, I'll go straight to painting, and hash out a few ideas. I love to paint so this is the best method for me to get to the heart of an idea. When I have a few paintings done, and the general feeling in place, I'll work on the text.
With a picture book, I try to keep the text as simple as possible. I will write and re-write until the text is as minimal as I can bear.
When I've hashed out the text and worked on the rhythm and pacing of the story, then I'll move forward to the dreaded thumbnail and dummy making stage. I say dreaded, because I loathe sketching. I just love paint and color so much, that sketching has always felt limiting and constrictive. Until now...
This year I started doing some dummy and thumbnail sketching in a new way, using an app and a stylus from Paper 53. It's changing everything for me, and most importantly, making drawing fun again! It's ridiculously intuitive, even for someone like me who has never drawn digitally.
Here's a jacket sketch for a dummy I'm hashing out this week, done with Paper 53. I'm able to play with colors and layers in a really easy way, so that when I get to painting, I know exactly the feeling that I'm going for, and a rough map of how to get there.
Once the dummy is done, I move on to working on canvas. I transfer my sketches using transfer paper and add layers of acrylic paint. You can watch a little video of my painting process, right here.
Who am I tagging?
I'm tagging the lovely Leda Schubert, a talented author living in Vermont that I hope to meet in person one day. Leda has authored many books, including The Princess of Borscht and Monsieur Marceau, which won the Orbis Pictus Award for outstanding non-fiction. Leda has a new book coming out with Neal Porter about Pete Seeger. Can't wait for that!
Aileen Leijten
I first met Aileen years ago, when we were both living in Brooklyn, NY. She's illustrated Bella and Bean and City Hall, The Heart of Los Angeles and written and illustrated The Hugging Hour. I remember pouring over Bella and Bean when it first came out. Gorgeous stuff. Her illustrations and storytelling appeal to the young and old, warm and full of quiet humor. I also swoon over her three dimensional creations on etsy. Can't wait to hear more about Aileen's upcoming book project. Check in with Aileen and Leda next week!