WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS - THROW A TANTRUM!

If you've ever run long distance you know that you can't burn through all your energy in the beginning and expect to finish strong. Pace is important. During this program I have worked steadily - though I wobbled for a short period of time by not taking days off. The winning formula has been 12 hour work days with days off - completely off. The rhythm has been a good one; 4 hours client work, 4 hours picture book project, 4 hours current portfolio piece. Life gets even better when I can combine my work with my daughter's activities. Many days this summer I could be found at my outdoor studio on the grass outside the Rec Center pool while my daughter swam like a fish and made up games with new friends. Except for the bugs that became unwelcome characters in my storyboards, those were some of my favorite days. Swim days are over now and I'm back to my indoor studio exclusively. What does this have to do with tantrums? Read on...

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Two weeks ago, Yuyi and I connected by phone to discuss my first storyboard for the finished text. She had a lot to say. The pacing of the story and the way the text was broken down for illustrations was fine, but there was work to be done within the tiny thumbnail images of the pages. Storyboards are not foreign to me, but the ones I did in the past were very different. When I learned how to create storyboards in college, we did them for commercials. (After all, I would be going into some sort of advertising career right?) After college I did them for court cases to take people through specific scenarios. There was no place for embellishment in these boards - just the facts. I brought this mentality to the storyboard I sent to Yuyi. All I can say is she is being very patient with me while I shift gears from functioning in the adult world to communicating pictorially with kids. The images I sent her were a literal representation of the words in the story - period. I drew Yen, her grandfather, the water spirit, the Great Serpent, and the benevolent river turtle. Big problem. They existed independently of their environment. There was no sense of where the story was happening. I considered the surroundings in the story to be an inconsequential backdrop. Not so. Yuyi said I missed an opportunity to convey emotion. I left out a very crucial character. I remembered Jane Yolen talking about the importance of setting at the April Conference. She was speaking as a writer, but it is the same for illustrators. Readers need to be pulled into a scene so they can go there. If there is no there to go to, the readers are gone. I concentrated solely on my characters and figured I would throw in background details in the big illustrations. Yuyi said the river, trees, and sky can all help convey the mood of the scene and in a sense are characters themselves. Yuyi also encouraged me to throw a tantrum. Finally! Permission to do what only children have dared to do. OK, it wasn't literal...I don't think. This was offered as a way to get into my main character's mind so I could better position her entire body in line with her emotions. When I'm illustrating I often picture a character and their movements in my mind or move myself to get a gesture or expression, but there are a lot more characters to "be" in this project. Not only did I have to "be" the main character, but there was the grandfather, the water spirit, the turtle, and...the Great Serpent! I often listen to book audio while illustrating. This helps create another world for me to travel to while I work. For this project I made sure the book I listened to had serpent-like creatures in it to help with the emotional tone. This made it less necessary to "be" a giant river serpent on city property. The other thing about my storyboard was that it was emotionally subtle. I hadn't realized that. Probably because I am subtle myself. I suggested that I needed to exaggerate to get the proper emotions. Yuyi was hesitant to agree. Perhaps she was imagining I would go overboard. We both agreed it would be better to tone down the illustrations if I went too far than to have them be flat. Knowing myself as I do, I didn't think that would be a problem. I set to work, surrounding myself with dozens of beautifully illustrated picture books for inspiration and an equal number of reference photos to draw details from. I drew and re-drew and acted out each character's part in my mind. (No, I did not throw a tantrum on the Rec Center lawn.) Each tiny illustration took a surprising amount of time and even now, as I look at my finished revisions, I wonder if I should have exaggerated more! I am posting the first storyboard I sent to Yuyi along with the revisions I sent a couple days ago, so you can see the difference between the two. I also made the thumbnails a bit bigger so it was easier to indicate the environment and the difference in size between the serpent and the main character. The first storyboard page spreads were 2.375" x 1.5" and the new ones are 3" x 2.875". Just that little bit made a big difference. First Storyboard: Revised Storyboard: As usual, I showed my work to my daughter before I sent it off to Yuyi. She always likes what I do, but this time she became more animated in response to the new energy in the storyboard. Animated enough? I don't know. Stay tuned. If you are viewing this post from outside of it's originating blog, you can read it in its proper surroundings at http://www.aJourneyIllustrated.com.

WEEK ONE OF THE SCBWI MENTOR PROGRAM

While I was getting ready for the beginning of the Mentor Program, I was very excited and quite nervous too. I could have done without the unexpected visit to the vet for a wounded cat and the car trouble the day before I left, but it all worked out. The cat only needed a "lampshade collar" instead of surgery and the car...fixed itself. Go figure. I guess it kept my brain occupied. Since my return I have been processing everything I learned at the beginning of the 2009 Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program. (Beetle illustration copyright by Kristen Schwartz)

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I don't know if it was the genius and authenticity of the faculty, the timing, or a little bit of everything that made this the best SCBWI event I have been to over the years. (Of course, Suzanne Morgan Williams and Ellen Hopkins did a brilliant job organizing it!) Overall the tone was hopeful and the information accessible with each presenter giving lots of examples for better comprehension.

I have read and read about illustrating picture books and gone to conference workshops, but there is nothing like being in a small group with the luxury of asking lots of questions. I was able to get answers to questions that had been worrying or hindering me in some way. Some questions seemed silly to ask, but from my roots illustrating botanicals, notecards, and logos, children's publishing is a foreign land with lots of mysteries. Each question was treated respectfully and seriously. (Not to say there wasn't plenty of humor.)

Yuyi Morales walked us through her picture book process from beginning to end and Laurent Linn, Art Director at Simon and Schuster, took us through his process of art directing a picture book. Laurent Linn said that children's publishing is an industry that truly cares about children. I would take it further and say that children's publishing also gives generously to the people that aspire to work in the field. No wonder it feels like home.

It's a humbling experience to start over as an illustrator in a new genre, but with Yuyi Morales mentoring me, it feels obtainable. In our first meeting I shared the "thumbnail storyboard" of my folktale. If you are unfamiliar with thumbnails or storyboards in this context, they are a very very rough and small map of the layout of a picture book. I wasn't completely happy with my first layout. I guess you might say it wasn't consistently magical. It became clear after talking with Yuyi that I needed to think from a different point of view to stir up the visual magic. That night I woke up and realized that I was in the middle of rewriting my folktale. I continued on - awake this time - taking out the elements I didn't like and emphasizing the ones that I did. In the end I felt more connected with the story.

Laurent Linn gave a presentation on the difference between picture book illustrations and non-picture book illustrations. He presented examples of both - comparing and contrasting - emphasizing the fact that picture book images are not static. They make an emotional connection with the viewer and tell a story. They are also not portraits. This presentations was pivotal for me. My illustrations for Faery Medicine are character studies for the stories that accompany them and are not necessarily for the children's book industry. They are definitely more in line with portraits. As I pondered more of my work, I had to laugh when I remembered that I used to call my botanical illustrations "botanical portraits". What Laurent said clicked. I get it. It's the big simple secret that was right in front of my nose...the one in the portrait.

I could go on and on listing every pivotal moment. The truth is, every moment was pivotal. Even listening to writer Jane Yolen affected my illustration process. I looked forward to hearing her speak because I like her work, but I was surprised at the outcome. It was truly an amazing conference.

Since I've been back, I sent Yuyi the rewrite on my folktale and I'm waiting for feedback before I do another thumbnail version of the illustrations. Well, actually I already did another one. I was too excited not to, but I expect to do another one after she reads my rewrite as she will probably have suggestions for revisions and pacing on the story. It's all good practice. So, I leave you with my most recent storyboard inspired by a Vietnamese folktale. Stay tuned for more!

(Horizontal lines on the page represent text placement. The vertical line down the middle of the illustrations represents the gutter or space between pages.)