Growing up in the early 60's, I don't recall having the wide assortment of beautiful children's books we see these days. The ever-popular Dr. Seuss books were just making their appearance ("The Cat and the Hat"--1957; "Green Eggs and Ham"--1960; "Ten Apples Up On Top!"--1961), and in kindergarden, I was learning to read with the Dick & Jane & Spot series. Ho hum. The latter didn't have any kind of 'wow' factor for me concerning the writing or illustrations. Dr. Seuss was fun and I'm sure I read his books over and over until the spines were worn out.
Now a-days--Wow! Children's books are an art form until themselves! And I do have a nice collection that I've started. I do all of my children's book collecting at garage sales and thrift shops. Some morning's when I'm out at garage sales, I see hundreds of books to choose from, with prices ranging from between free to a dollar or two for beautiful hardback picture books. I'm drawn to the book by the illustrations primarily, looking for art done in styles similar to my own, styles that are eye-catching, or those in highly rendered, meticulous styles. Living in Montreal, many of the books I find are in French. I'll also find books in German and many published by British publishing houses. Once I'm home, I then will research the book, author, and illustrator to find out what I can about it/them.
A resent purchases from yard sales:
A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry (Publisher: HBJ, 1992)
I was initially attracted to this book by the beautiful and intricate pen, ink and wash drawings. I use the same mediums myself so I wanted to study how Lynne worked her magic. But the story, too, is wonderful. Lynne tells the story in words and pictures of the history of the Nashua River and valley in Massachusettes over the last couple of centuries, how the river was essential to the Native Americans and pioneers for living. As the indusrial revolution came to the valley, things began to change. The river became polluted and filthy. Then laws were passed to clean up the mess, with the river on it's way to being healthy and vibrant again. Much research and time was spent on getting the story and pictures accurate.
We gals here at IFK are re-posting our Illustration Friday submissions along with giving a little insight into the why and how we created them.
--As for the 'why' (the concept) concerning my illustration, in this case, I executed one of the first ideas that came to my mind. It rarely goes that way, though. I tend to either just come up blank on the subject matter and/or go through idea after idea (making thumbs) until I settle on something. And even the idea I settle on usually goes through different variations and forms. For this week, though, it just happened. How I wish it were that way all the time!
--And as for the 'how' (the execution), I worked from start to finish in Painter X, working in layers. I chose to do this in a pen & ink & watercolor style which is very nice for working in layers. I didn't really have a rough as I wanted to work loose and fast. As you can see above, the ink/line work was ultimately flattened to one layer. I will create different layers for the elements (like the image of me, and then one for Bobby, then one for each floating thing, etc.). At some point, I'll compress the layers because getting too many makes it hard to keep track of and I get too lazy to have to name them all. I like to work with my hand-lettering in a separate layer as I do a lot of rewriting to make sure it's legible. That way I don't have to concern myself with doing harm to the main ink drawing.
--Once the inking is done, I move on to colorizing. The last week or so I've been experimenting with Painter's Digital Watercolors, so that's what I used here. For me, the DWs are best for simple & quick pieces I want to look more 'raw'. The DWs default to a transparent layer working over the inking. The DWs aren't as complex as Painter's Watercolor brushes, but you're still able to manipulate the diffusion & something called "wet fringe". These control how much the WC will 'bleed'. Once that was completed, I duplicated the piece which gives you a flattened copy. At this point, I felt it was a tad washed-out so gave it more contrast.
--One thing that I've been dealing with lately is being fed up with over-working my pieces. It's been happening way too often and I've just been plain ruining some pieces as of late. So this is one of several illustrations I've done in the last week which are done rapidly, forcing myself to back off and move on when appropriate. Folks, it's really not that easy to do! But I can tell you I have been REALLY enjoying the the end products much more as well as the process. I tend to feel like the MORE I work on an illustration, the better. No, for me right now, less is more.
This is actually a rough vs. a finished piece. Well, not even a rough. I was doing sketch after sketch of two dogs playing, hanging out, etc. I always like the free-flow of line at the sketching-concepting stage, so thought I'd showcase that. It's probably not that far off from how I'd finish it off, but I'd make sure that most lines connect and that the doggy's foot doesn't look mangled.
By: Paula Becker
For: Living The Good News
The postcard with all our images came out great! Above is my image depicting spring.
By Paula Becker
For Focus on the Family/Clubhouse
Client: Self-Promotional
Blog: http://www.paulabecker.com/blog
...So don't be late! A very oooold piece.
Paula Becker
Client: Focus on the Family
...for an ethnically-diverse group of kids to make a lot of noise.
Paula Becker
Client: Morehouse Publishing (one drawing from a poster)
I just realized I'm working on a piece now with a 'cat' in it!
They had some of the originals from this book on display at the Fitchburg art museum last month. And I bought a copy of it for my kids. The original art was lovely but I was surprised that the paintings were actually painted slightly smaller than they are reproduced in the book.
Jenn: Lucky you to see the originals! That's a bit unusual, I'd think, that the print size is larger than the originals. It's usually the other way around. Thanks for sharing your experience with this book. : )