Picture book spread
This one has been a long time coming! I first started work on this book idea two years ago. Ahhh, I remember it like it was yesterday - I was visiting my partner at Uni. We were in the Cambridge maths building, and I was using one of the big whiteboards to sprawl out all my ideas. Probably one of the first times in that building a white board had been used to plan out a picture book! It was just a seedling of an idea, to show the inner workings of a bug hotel through the lens of a child tour guide. I worked on this idea on and off for two years, spending a few weeks chipping away at it, then not touching it for a few months before picking it up again to rinse and repeat. The thing is, so much work goes in to putting together a picture book pitch, and none of it is paid work which makes it tricky. When the thing you are truly passionate about and want to turn into a career doesn’t currently make you any money, other things which pay the bills take a higher priority… hence the two year timeline!
Here’s everything I needed to make to be able to pitch this book to publishers:
Final manuscript (this required many, many drafts and revisions)
Complete story board (each spread drawn out to an acceptable standard with the text placed inside)
Finished designs of each character
Two fully illustrated spreads
Extra art work to flesh out the world and story
A physical miniature version of the book to show all the interactive paper elements (pull tabs, flaps, pop ups)
Email banner to grab the attention of the editor looking through book submissions
A short video introducing myself and the book
A big old PDF showing off everything I made
All this work, just to have the chance for someone with the ‘book making power’ to look at it. The world of picture books is a very tough world to get your foot in the door…
I must say, I haven’t been doing this completely alone; my picture book agent has been a valuable guide in this journey, offering much needed advice and amendments, especially when it came to the writing - something I really struggled with.
Making this illustration was one of the last jobs on my to do list for this submission, and I was determined to make something which showed off what I can do when I really put my mind to it. Above and below you can see the various stages of planning for page 1 of my book, ending with my colour mock. I put a lot of time in to this plan so that when I get to making the final, most of the decisions have already been made, taking some of the pressure off. This way I can focus more on deciding which media to use for which section. Working mixed media can feel a little bit like decision overload at points. Yes, I need to make a green patch of grass, but what to I make that green patch of grass out of when I have a desk filled with 8 different media which can all be layered in what feels like infinite possibilities… I’m prone to overthinking!
Time to start making. I started with a very blended watercolour wash over the whole piece. I love the contrast of a super soft background, with the sharper collaged focal points on top. I used a mix of Gouache and pan pastels for the base of the tree which I working back into with paint pens, crayons and pencil.
I started to paint the fore ground flower patch with gouache when i realised it was looking a little boring… luckily I had a trick up my sleeve. A few days before making this piece, I had gotten my self a gelli plate (essentially a squishy rectangle of plastic) which you can make some really fun prints with. I spent the day trying to wrap my head around this new texture making technique. I came away from it feeling mostly satisfied with my experiments, although theres a lot more for me to learn before I call my self a gelli plate master! I did make this lovely texture, and as soon as I pealed it up from the plate, I knew I had to use it somewhere in my bug hotel book and the flower patch was the perfect place.
After around 5 days of work, page one was complete! Time for page two. This one would be much easier!
To make the book I started by painting collage papers, trying to achieve a ‘this book has been well loved by a child gone rogue with art supplies’ look. I pieces this together using a template I had drawn to make all the shapes fit together, and had a lot of fun decorating it in a child like way!
After I spent the afternoon trying to draw like a kid, my non dominant hand was very useful, I had all the ingredients to start piecing the page together. This took a few days of photoshop work, which is too boring to type about, and finally it was complete. Here you can see what the book flap would look like open.
What a nice feeling to have finished something which has been bubbling around in my head for so long. And while I don’t know the fate of this book, when and if it will ever be chosen as good enough by someone with the power, I will forever be proud of myself for doing this. For completing this thing which I have thought about everyday for two years.
