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Released last fall from LEE & LOW BOOKS, The Story I’ll Tell is a gentle and moving story of adoption and parental love that is sure to touch the hearts of readers everywhere, no matter how they came to be a family. It has received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, which called it “an unabashed love letter, one that many families will treasure.” 

We asked illustrator Jessica Lanan to take us behind the scenes of her art process bringing The Story I’ll Tell to life:

The process for illustrating The Story I’ll Tell started with research and brainstorming. I read books about adoption and collected evocative images from magazines and the internet that I thought might be useful references. There were a lot of questions to investigate as I tried to piece together the identity of the characters and the overall look and feel of the artwork.

As I researched, I also began sketching thumbnails. My art director and editor provided feedback on these, and through several rounds of revisions we worked to get the concept and flow of the art just right. The thumbnail sketches were also essential in order to work out the composition of each page. For each round of revisions I made a printed dummy in order to simulate the flow of the book.

After the thumbnails were ready, I worked on more detailed drawings, using reference images and models as needed. Here you can see a rough clay model that I used as a reference image for one of the drawings:

Once the drawings had been approved, it was time to move on to the final art. I was using watercolor for this book, which is a rather unforgiving medium, so, I made a miniature version of each painting first in order to get all the mistakes out of the way. Then I transferred my drawing to the watercolor paper and started painting!

Each final piece was done with watercolor and colored pencil on 300lb watercolor paper.

Jessica Lanan has been in love with illustrated books since an early age. Besides The Story I’ll Tell, she has also illustrated Good Fortune in a Wrapping Cloth from the Shen’s Books imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she enjoys thunderstorms, crunching autumn leaves beneath her feet, and leaving footprints in freshly fallen snow.

You can purchase a copy of The Story I’ll Tell on our website here.

Alto, allá arriba en los Andes brilla un bosque bordado de bromelias…
High up in the Andes blooms a brilliant forest embroidered with bromeliads . . .

Set to be released this spring, ¡Olinguito, de la A a la Z! / Olinguito, from A to Z! : Descubriendo el bosque nublado / Unveiling the Cloud Forest takes readers into the magical world of a cloud forest in the Andes of Ecuador. We discover the bounty of plants, animals, and other organisms that live there as we help a zoologist look for the elusive olinguito, the first new mammal species identified in the Americas since 1978. It has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews, which called it “a breath of fresh air in the too-often-contrived world of bilingual books.”

We asked Lulu to take us behind the scenes of her exquisite art process to make the cloud forest come alive:

I spent an average of ten days working from eight to ten hours per day creating each spread.

The first thing I did was to transfer the sketch to the Arches watercolor paper. Then I decided which areas would be collaged printed patterns and which would be painted in flat acrylic colors.

I prepared the patterned backgrounds pressing leaves gathered in the cloud forest dipped in ink and stamped onto rice paper.

With an X-Acto knife I cut out the shapes of texturized paper and pasted them into the background. I used archival glue and micro tweezers to affix the collage elements in their precise positions.

Next I prepared all the shades of acrylics that I would need for the spread and stored them in small clear jars. Each section of a color required several thin coats to achieve the rich look I was looking for. 

Once the spread was entirely painted I had fun selecting pressed ferns from the forest to affix to the art. This was a delicate process as some of the pressed leaves and ferns are paper thin.

The last thing was to create the letters for the spread. I wanted a layered look, recreating the natural layers of flora in the forest, so I drew the letters on vellum paper and cut out them out. I taped the letters onto a vellum square and with careful precision affixed the letter in the spot it was intended to be. 

Check out the final spread!

Lulu Delacre has worked with LEE & LOW BOOKS on several award-winning titles, including the Pura Belpré award-winning titles The Storyteller’s Candle/La velita de los cuentos and Arrorró, mi niño: Latino Lullabies and Gentle Games; How Far Do You Love Me? (English and Spanish), and Jay and Ben. Delacre has been named a Maryland Woman in the Arts and served as a juror for the 2003 National Book Awards. A native of Puerto Rico, Delacre lives with her husband in Silver Spring, Maryland. For more information about Lulu Delacre visit luludelacre.com.

You can purchase a copy of ¡Olinguito, de la A a la Z! / Olinguito, from A to Z! : Descubriendo el bosque nublado / Unveiling the Cloud Forest on our website here.

It’s true. You can’t deny it. Freya Blackwood‘s art is so exquisite that whether it’s for a Christmas or birthday gift, or a ‘just because I want it’ gift, every household should own a piece of her talent. And of course, coupling with superb artists of writing makes purchasing decisions all that much easier. Two […]

Is it possible to grow out of picture books? Because I HAVEN’T YET. The highlight of my week is taking my pre-schooling niece and nephew to the library and getting to reread all my favourite childhood picture books. Young Adult books are totally missing out. Seriously. But there are some YA books that make use of art and […]

Released this month, Amazing Places is a collection of original poems hand-picked by acclaimed anthologist Lee Bennett Hopkins that celebrates some of the amazingly diverse places in our nation. It has received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly, which calls it “a broadly appealing testament to the American landscape and people.”

The gorgeous illustrations in Amazing Places are a uniquecollaboration between artist Chris Soentpiet, who created the rough sketches, and Christy Hale, who brought those sketches to life by adding color and detail. We asked Christy to take us behind the scenes and show us her process for working with Chris Soentpiet’s illustrations to make Amazing Places come to life:

Christy: I have selected the longhouse piece to show the art process used for creating the art for Amazing Places:

1. Chris Soentpiet’s rough sketch

2. The editor and art director requested modifications. Below is Chris’s tight sketch reflecting those changes.

3. The printer scanned Chris’s sketches and then I received the digital files and my work on the art began. I made some additional changes to the original sketch based on editorial suggestions.

4. I changed the pencil line to sepia to give it some richness.

5. To add color to the art I needed some reference for longhouses. I did some image research. Here are two of many pictures I found.

6. I added colors in transparent layers in Photoshop. I wanted to simulate the beautiful watercolor effects Chris is known for. Each layer was a different color. Sometimes there were multiple layers of the same color in varying transparencies for more subtle effects.
Below you see the sepia line with one color added.

7. Here is the sepia line with seven colors added.

8. Here is a screen shot showing the many layers in the Photoshop file.

9. Here is the final image with all the colors. For each piece in the book I worked with a limited palette. In the long house piece there are many, many different neutral colors in varying values. I used color value, intensity, and hue to help direct the eye in each composition.

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Christy Hale is the author and illustrator of The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan, a Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year selection, and Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building, winner of a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor. As an art educator, Hale has written about artists for Instructor magazine’s Masterpiece of the Month feature and workshops. Hale lives with her family in Palo Alto, California. Visit her online at christyhale.com.

Purchase a copy of Amazing Places here.

Who loves Stephen Biesty's wonderful cross section books?  I do, for sure.  Look what goes on sale this month.  Check your bookstore and library for his other illuminating books,  Visit his website for a slideshow of his illustrations.

If you're a picture book writer, how do you handle the illustrations?

http://www.underdown.org/picture-books-illustrations.htm

Sunday Shopping, our new spring title released this month, is a whimsical and fun-filled story of a young girl and her grandmother who use their big imaginations to go “shopping” through the Sunday paper. We asked illustrator Shadra Strickland to take us behind the scenes for creating the art work used in Sunday Shopping.

Making the Art for Sunday Shopping

Making the art for Sunday Shopping was almost like making two different books. The two art styles were distinctly different. The illustrations of Evie and grandma in bed were painted in watercolor, much like the paintings I made for Bird. The second set of images were made with a combination of line drawings, acrylic paintings, and assembled digitally.

The most challenging part of making the art for Sunday Shopping, was making sure that all of Evie and grandma’s “bought” items were consistent in all of the small paintings. I had to draw the same small bits of paper in every scene as the wall of items grew and grew.

Once the watercolors were done, I drew all of the Evie, grandma, and cat characters on pieces of Bristol board. They were all painted in the same week to make sure that the clothes and skin tones were consistent. Even then, some colors had to be adjusted after I scanned them into the computer.

Once the characters were all done, I made drawings of the imaginary world with a wax pencil (also known as a China Marker). I drew on sheets of smooth plastic like drawing vellum. Those drawings were then scanned into the computer.

Next, I painted different pieces of newspaper in different colors based on all of the elements I needed in the book. Some colors were adjusted digitally, but not many. Most of the paper was used as it was painted.

After everything was scanned in, I began to “cut” shapes out in photoshop and compose them within the line drawings.

The last step was digital retouching. I had to go back into a few faces and digitally paint over some faces to make sure that skin tone was consistent throughout.

My wonderful editor checked all of the art for consistency, and after a few passes back and forth, we made sure all of the elements were lined up throughout.

Once all of the art was assembled, I worked closely with our designer to discuss page color and type design for the book. My favorite thing about making books with Lee and Low is how truly collaborative the process is!

You can learn more about Shadra Strickland and her creative process on her website.

It’s been about 4 months since I’d last posted anything on this ‘ere blog. With back to back deadlines and prepping for the arrival of our first newborn, the end of 2014 throughout the beginning of 2015 has been at the least to say chaotic and life changing..

If you follow me in any of my social media accounts you’ll notice an exorbitant amount of pictures {I apologize by the way..new mom syndrome you know..} of this little peapod,

Meet the new little addition to our growing family, Aria {yes we’re Game of Thrones fans} Rose. Born March 25th 2015 at 3:15 in the morning. It’s been a whole month since her arrival and aside from being sleep deprived, the late night feedings, milk vomits and spit ups, and her constant need to shriek at the top of her lungs..like ALL THE TIME…she hasn’t stopped putting a smile on our face since then.

she finds this all too amusing..

Now to top all that off I’m officially back to work! Hopefully the transition from old schedule to new schedule won’t be too bad

…who am I kidding!?..

..Ah well..wish me luck!

In the meantime here’s the artwork I did for Highlights this past month!

Happy Monday!

I have the best kind of insomnia right now.  I sometimes have a hard time falling asleep because I'm so busy thinking about this book project.  Imagining the images, hearing the translations…

This weekend, I received the almost-final German translation of Moonflower and the Solstice Dance.  It is absolutely beautiful.  When I read it out loud to my kids, however, they looked a little horrified.  For those who don't know, our kids are trilingual.  They can speak and understand English, Turkish, and German.  "Mummy, just give it to me, let me read it," our oldest son said.  He read it beautifully!  The melody and rhythm could have put me into a trance...

As some of you know, I have a 9-month-old baby at home.  Who wakes me up multiple times at night. This morning, he woke me up at 5:45 a.m. and I never managed to get him back to sleep.  He's a cheerful and sweet little guy, and a great reason to get up at 5:45.  And this morning, I really didn't mind because my e-mail inbox contained some new sketches by the illustrator!  It is so exciting to see my visions become reality.  I can imagine, but I can't really draw or paint.  Ok, I can draw and paint, but my drawings and paintings never come out as I want them to.  I can see the final image I want, but I can't get there.  Fortunately, Solongo has been able to read my mind, so to speak, and put into sketches the visions that I have.  Right now, she's working on the cover, and it's magical to see it come to life.

When I set out on this new publishing adventure, I didn't realize it was going to be such a different adventure.  Putting together and publishing an illustrated children's story is a very different experience than publishing a coming-of-age novel.  In fact, one has very little to do with the other.  Let me count the ways:

1. With a novel, you paint a picture with words.  Lots of words.  With an illustrated children's book, you paint a picture with words, but it also needs real pictures.  And because I am by no means an artist, I can only hope that the illustrator sees what I see (or sees better than I see).  Finding the right artist is of the utmost importance.  And because the story is under 600 words instead of 90,000 words, every word is heavily weighted.  Add to this the fact that the text in this case rhymes… and that some words have no rhyming friends, this is HARD!  And a great challenge.  
2. There are lots of options for self-publishing a novel.  Createspace. Lulu.  Ingram Sparks.  The list goes on.  When it comes to self-publishing a full-cover book, the list is significantly shorter: Ingram Sparks.  That's one company.  One option, at least in the POD (print-on-demand) market.  Because I live in Germany, it's really my only option.  I can't order 5,000 copies of the book from an offset printer and store them in my garage and offer people autographed copies and send them out when they're ordered and go around to bookstores begging them to carry my book.  No, I will have to rely on the worldwide distribution and shipping options offered by Ingram Sparks.  Captive customer I am.
3. Ingram Sparks is significantly less user-friendly than Createspace, and it's significantly more complicated to get an illustrated book print ready.  The IS manual for preparing the PDFs is overwhelming.  Welcome, Elance.  It is there that I hope to find someone who has done this before and who will do this for me for a reasonable price.  If they manage the first version (English) correctly, they will get the job for all the other versions.  Incentive for them to do a great job, I hope!  But I'm really nervous about this part.  
4. Ingram Sparks is slower than Createspace.  I will actually have to wait a few weeks for the print version once they have everything.  Which is still significantly less time than I would have to wait if this were being published by a traditional publisher.
5. It costs a heck of a lot more to self-publish a full-color book.  Thus the Kickstarter campaign.
6. If this book is going to be available for tablets, I'll also need someone to convert it to ePub.  Some things are really beyond my capabilities. 
7. I'm used to doing things myself.  Instead of being a one-woman show, from the writing to the cover art to the formatting and technical details, I now need a whole team:
1. Me, writer and project manager
2. Solongo Drini, illustrator
3. Translators (who knows how many there will be?)
4. Layout person from Elance
5. And let's not forget my editor-support team-inspiration, my husband :)  He was there for me with the novel, too, so I guess I was actually not a one-woman show, but a one-couple show.  Because yeah, I quilled the cover, but he took the pictures, fixed the lighting, moved things around… basically made it all look good. Because people do judge a book by its cover.