When we were in Ipswich MA with Barbara and Ed we went to see the wolves in nearby Wolf Hollow. Wolf Hollow is a centre dedicated to educating people about all things wolf and it was fab to see these beautiful animals up close.
I bought some wolf cards to send home. Ed, Michael and myself had some fun doodling on them.
Everyone got an Ed wolf, a Michael wolf and a Mel wolf…
…and for once the cards got home before we did.
…told mostly through images. Click on any image for a closer look.
The idea for The New Kid started when I observed a small girl in The Happy Pear coffee shop. Something about the way she was wearing her coat resonated with me, reminded me of myself as a child… the above on-the-spot sketches and first version of text are dated 3rd January 2010.
Early draft of the text which I printed out and immediately covered in edits. There were many rewrites and edits through-out the process, right up until I sent off the final art.
Early thumbnails as I tried to work out the story visually. I did this alongside shaping the text. Again, I wrote notes to myself all over these – change this, change that. These are working roughs, all about getting the idea out onto paper, not about making nice drawings.
Then I did sketches to find my characters. Ellie is based on the little girl I saw so I had her set from early on. The others had to emerge…
These images are from a set of more coherent roughs – I’m still working small, three spreads to an A3 sheet of paper – but I’m getting closer each time to how the book will look. I did at least three versions of the book at this size, copying the images which were working and changing/tweaking/losing others with every layer of reworking.
When I was happy with how it was working I made up a full size dummy and sent a copy to my agent (now I’d make a PDF and send it too). She showed it to Hodder and I had a contract! Yay! This was, I think, mid 2011. The work described above was done in two/three/four week runs, with gaps in between doing other things.
The editors then sent me comments, suggested some changes, pointed out weak spots…
…and I took most of these onboard as I knew they would improve the book. One or two things I didn’t agree with, so we discussed and compromised, or I left those out. I did another set of full size roughs, there were a few more tweaks and finally…
…a set of ‘finished’ roughs – a set as close as I could get to the final images before going to colour. Last chance for major changes, so everyone looked at them very carefully. I roughed in the text as already planned with the design editor. Text needs to be placed where it reads well, looks well, and is not too near gutters or edges. There needs to be room to allow translations into languages, such as German, which will need more space. As the text in this book is sitting on the images I needed to make sure I didn’t paint fussy texture or dark tones underneath.
It was finally time to begin the finished art:
I worked in acrylics. It was very labour intensive and took about six months to complete – 15 spreads averaging two weeks a piece (some 1 week, some 3), and of course a few hit the bin along the way.
I referenced loads of images as I worked, some to ensure drew the animals/vehicles correctly, others were for colour reference. I had taken many photos a friend’s dog, and of a street in Cobh, other images were from books and the internet.
Then came the endpapers and the cover. The cover is very important as it is what makes people pick up the book in the first place – I’ll blog about that journey another day.
I sent off the art by courier and then a month later a set of colour proofs arrived – my absolute last chance to pick up errors in the text and tweak the colours if any of them looked strange. The colours in the final book will never exactly match the art; the best that can be accomplished is a close match with no odd colours. A few changes were needed – a spelling fix on the title spread, one spread looked rather dark, and the skin tones in two had gone a little peachy.
The book headed off to China to be printed and bound. It can take six months to a year to arrive back and be distributed to shops. I got my first copies in May 2014, so it had taken 4 years and 4 months from initial idea through to published book. About 10 months work spread out over that time, it’s hard to tell exactly; I was working on other books in between.
It was a fairly typical picturebook journey for me; other writer/illustrators have different or similar processes and take less or more time. Michael discusses his process here: miss-brooks-story-nook-the-art-part-1
This post is especially for the students and staff at Marino Institute of Education, where I have very much enjoyed being this year’s writer-in-residence.
When I’m finishing a book I’m already anticipating the day I can start the new one pulsing inside my head. This time there are three ideas – an older picturebook idea which wants a sample colour illustration, a new one which needs to be roughed up into a dummy, and a novel. To be honest I’ve already begun sneaking a few hours on these over the last few months – I wrote three chapters of the novel while we were in the US and did some work on one of the picturebook texts. In fact, both of us snuck a little work on other projects while on holidays…
…so you’d think that the minute I sent off Owl Bat Bat Owl I’d be straight into the next project, right? I thought so too. I always think so and I’m always wrong. After a few euphoric hours end-of-book ennui sets in and has to be gotten over. Himself was also at the end of a book. We took a few days off and went west.
When we got back I was raring to go. The novel was first on my list but I decided I couldn’t write another word until I made character sheets. I cleared the kitchen table to spread out the profiles as I made them. I’d written two when I realised I needed to hoover. The whole house. And put on a wash.
Then I realised I couldn’t possibly write about my characters while the ones in the book I was reading were in my head. I made a hot chocolate and curled up in a chair to finish reading it – totally necessary from a work point-of-view, I promise.
Next day a couple more character descriptions made it onto A4 coloured card and hit the table before I found myself on my knees cleaning the kitchen cupboard doors. I couldn’t possibly ignore the drips and fingerprints on them for another moment, despite managing to do so perfectly well for three years a fair while.
Meanwhile Michael, having sent off all the interior art for his book, still had to design a cover. But first he headed off to Woodies to get some plywood to make the bullet-proof case he will post the finished cover in – art is sometimes damaged in transit.
However Michael came back with plywood PLUS several lengths of wooden plank. The piles of books and work dotted around the house were getting on his nerves so much he absolutely had to make a new set of bookshelves and some work-in-progress shelves to go beside the computer desk. Twenty-four hours later we had new furniture and he finally began his cover designs.
I now had a table full of character sheets but felt compelled to sort and arrange my projects into the new work shelves. At the end of which I realised I wasn’t ready for the novel – it needs more research. Instead I will get cracking on the two picturebook ideas… though I’ll need to clear off my drawing desk first. I’ll go do that now.
I will. Cross my heart. Just as soon as I finish writing this blog.
Finishing a book can turn into a cascade of endings. I’ve been ‘finishing’ Owl Bat Bat Owl for months. All the main interior art was ‘done’ before we headed to the USA for Thanksgiving, but that still left the title page, endpapers and cover, so I set to REALLYÂ finishing it when I came back.
Then came the tweaks and corrections. Bits and pieces which my editors had spotted – these post-its adorned the print-out of the art they sent me. I peeled them off as I fixed them…
But there was even more fickity feckity stuff I spotted myself. And stuff Michael pointed out – it often takes a fresh eye to notice things this late in the game. So many things to sort that I had to list them image by image, then go through methodically and tick them off as done.
This is my first time illustrating a book digitally and I found it involves way more tweaking than usual. With physical art there is a point at which tweaking could destroy the piece so you have to just let it be – with digital you can go on messing indefinitely.
So there were tweaks to the tweaks… some from the editors and some more of my own. I felt as if my head and shoulders were actually inside the computer and my depth of focus was permanently reduced to two feet. I was vacillating between ‘I hate this book, I don’t care what it looks like’ and ‘steady…steady…not long now…one more push and it will all be over…’
There have been books where ‘I don’t care’ won the day so I’ve got to live with those flaws I was too tired to fix. This time ‘steady, steady’ won – I even pulled the cover back from my art editor for more tweaks (one for Michael, two for me) after she’d already given it the thumbs up. But the thing is there will always be flaws, stuff which could have been better. You could go on fixing and polishing indefinitely – how do you know when to STOP?
Usually it’s the publishing schedule that dictates when you have to let go at last but the problem with all that final polishing is you risk your art losing vital energy, spontaneity, freshness, so at some point IT HAS TO END. It’s the same with a novel. In theory you can keep reworking; in reality (in my opinion) books can die from overworking. You’ve got to abandon* this book and take what you’ve learnt onto the next one. When I finally put the memory stick of files in the post I was at the stage where I could no longer see the images as images, the characters as characters – they had become just so many pixels. I was way beyond doing positive work on it so it was time to let it go.
The End.
And then, having already downed my celebratory whiskey, an image bounced back with some comments I couldn’t ignore because I agreed with them… grrr! Three days later…
THE END.
Until, that is, the proofs arrive…
*A poem is never finished, only abandoned. Paul Valery
We’re in the US for a fairly long visit. Both of us need to get some work done while we’re here and Ed has kindly lent us his studio spaces. Top photo is Michael at work in Ed’s computer room, bottom photo is me sketching in Ed’s studio, snow on the ground outside. Both rooms were Michael’s bedroom at some point in his childhood!
Ed has worked in this house for over fifty years creating some of his most famous books and like all visual artists he has surrounded himself with stuff – images, books, items which interest him, tools of the trade. The photos below will give you a taste of the space – watch out for a couple of family photos lurking in the background, Ed Emberley originals, and a sketch from another famous illustrator.
Fab new book out on Ed Emberley’s art -link here: http://ammobooks.com/products/edemberley
The Belugas are Watching 