Wendy Martin illustration

by Wendy Wendy

Mar

Red Lemon Club: Online Self Promotion for Creatives

Red Lemon Club: Online Self Promotion for Creatives.

I am still working hard on the final illustrations for Smoky and the Feast of Mabon by Catherynne M. Valente. The book is now up on both the publisher’s web site and amazon for pre-order which really puts the pressure on me because people are ORDERING the book already. LOL

After I finish up with the book, the next big project on my to-do list is to make this site fully functional and work harder at bring me paying illustration jobs. I am learning all about marketing and SEO specifically geared toward creatives. The link above is my newest find.

Of course, having the info and taking it and implementing it are two entirely different animals. I have yet to figure out a good way to go about the implementing part where I actually follow through before another project distracts me. I have been on Twitter for a few months now (@lyonmartin) and the community I have found there tells me this is a common failing among my fellow artists. Seems we are all easily distracted.

I am itching to get back to my daily doodle. And my daily exercise routine. I don’t know why, but the stuff I do to keep myself sane the rest of the time slips away when I am finishing a book. The drug of choice this book has been cheese doodles. Go figure.

Tags: Catherynne Valente, cheese doodles, Illustration, self promotion, Smoky and the Feast of Mabon
Posted in: Books, New Releases, Thoughts

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by Wendy Wendy

Feb

Interview with illustrator Wendy Edelson

(Sorry this interview is a little late in being published. It seems that every working artists I know has very tight deadlines this month. — Including me!)

Please extend a warm welcome to a fabulous artist and friend of mine, Wendy Edelson.

Born 6 weeks early, Wendy Edelson spent her first couple years in New York, then moved with her parents to California, It was there in the back of the station wagon with the country speeding past the windows that she began to draw, and draw…and draw and hasn’t stopped yet.

She now lives on Bainbridge Island and has recently begun licensing her images for all sorts of products, such as puzzles, cards and banners and is currently busy with her new favorite passion, creating fabric collections.

Visit her at http://www.wendyedelson.com/

When did you get started illustrating for children? What did you do before?

I illustrated my first book, “Whose Garden” published by Harvey House in New York when I was 18, following my first trip to New York with my portfolio.

Tell us a little bit about the recent book you illustrated, “Saturn For My Birthday”

“Saturn For My Birthday” by John McGranaghan/Sylvan Dell, is an amusing story about a small boy who asks his father for the planet Saturn for his birthday. Using humorous situations, facts about the planet are presented.

What are you working on right now? Do you have any other books or art projects you’d like to talk about?

I have recently completed illustrating “Bartholomew’s Gift” by Diane Dignan and I am about 2 days away from completing the illustrations for “Pobble’s Way” by Simon VanBooy.

I am also working on the illustrations for a pop up book about Bahrain, a commissioned “shaped puzzle” and a new fabric collection.

Your artwork has been showing up as puzzles and other items. What project are you currently involved in? How do these usages differ from picture book illustration?

The puzzles are really something I enjoy…..this will be the third commissioned shaped puzzle that I have done. I enjoy painting “one offs”, pieces that stand alone and have a LOT of detail. It’s sometimes a bit of relief to only paint a character once!

I’m also working on my second fabric collection. I love doing these, The first was a Christmas collection, this is an Animal ABC, for a soft book, quilts and accompanying print fabrics.

The lovely thing about licensing is that one piece of artwork can be used as a puzzle, as fabric, as a card etc etc…..it’s wonderful to have them out there earning their keep, rather than sitting in a flatfile, or even on a wall after a book is published.

I also do pet portraits.

The guy on the motorcycle with the Wheaton Terrier in the sidecar was a pet portrait. Richard owns the local art supply store and rides around with Duffy in the side car. This was a pet portrait I did for him. I included my sketch, as well…this is what my finished drawings look like
before I paint them.

You spent a while living in Mexico. How long did you live there? How has living outside of the USA influenced your art?

I lived in Mexico for a little over 3 years.

I did write my first picturebook while I was there, “The Cajeta Colored Dog Who Loved Tortillas” The book is set in the town where I lived so it was wonderful drawing everything. The colors are what really have stayed with me……my kitchen was painted Rosa Mexicana, which is a deep, vivid pink, it made perfect sense there. The memory of bright orange and salmon bougainvillea spilling over a turquoise and violet wall is one that I think of often. Also Pitahaya, an amazing cactus with hot pink and lime green fruits…inside they are bright white with black flecks. The colors were truly swoon worthy.

Do you illustrate full time? If not, what else do you do?

Yes, mostly 7 days a week, unless I’m in a garden.

When you illustrate a picture book how do you decide what scenes and details to draw?

I spend a few weeks reading and rereading the story, thinking about it all the time while I’m doing everything else and it seems as though the story reveals itself to me, scribbling blobby shapes that would make sense to no one else helps the process…..mostly it seems to simply evolve, either it feels right or it doesn’t.

When illustrating picture books do you include a visual storyline not mentioned by the text or include animals or people you know?

Yes, I do. In Saturn there is a group of pets that are never mentioned in the book, In The Cajeta Colored Dog I have added people I know in the scenes of people in the shops…..that’s one of the really fun things about being an illustrator. Once I wrote all sorts of little messages in the bark of trees.

Can you explain your art process?

All my work starts out with a very finished, detailed pencil drawing on my favorite Clearprint Design Vellum. I LOVE this paper because we all have days when we must draw a foot 25 times to get the foreshortening right and one can erase and erase on this paper and it doesn’t ghost or become damaged in any way. Once I have my drawing how I want it I scan it and then print it out on one of my beautiful Epson wide format printers right onto 140 lb watercolor paper, usually in a light Sepia. I vacillate between papers and cold and hot press, depending on …what’s left in my flatfile, my mood….the piece itself. I love being able to do this……it used to take so much time to trace my own drawing on a light table , besides being mind numbingly boring, plus every generation away from the original sketch takes away from the freshness, life, of the line, I think.

All the pretty paint and painting techniques cannot make up for a stilted drawing….I think. Great drawing is the most important part, to me……one can pull anything off if the drawing is good. My father was a wannabe, weekend sculptor and we used to draw together all the time…he was a big stickler for accurate anatomy and good draughtsmanship.

Do you have a favorite color or palette?

Not really….but I do love granulating watercolor pigments, love the mystery and surprise of them.

What is your favorite medium to work in? Have you always worked in this media? If not, why did you switch?

I started out just drawing. When I was 13, the father of a friend in school was artist Henry Koerner. He introduced me to rapidographs, technical pens and I used them for years, most of my work was black and white. Then I found Dr Martin’s dyes and Luma colors and started using those with the pen line and then I began teaching myself about watercolors. Those have been pretty much my mainstay, but the black line became a sepia line. The rapidographs gave way to very fine line brown, waterproof markers which now have pretty much disappeared, except for occasional use just on the outside contours of a person or animal. Now I use watercolors in combination with Golden liquid acrylics and everything is build up of glazes. Occasionally I’ll use colored pencils in the mix, as well.

Did you always want to be an artist when you grew up?

Yes, I began drawing in the back of the family station wagon when we moved from New York City to Southern California when I was two. After that trip, I spent pretty much every waking moment drawing.

Do you use models/source pictures or do you draw from your memory/imagination?

Yes, I draw people, animals, landscapes from life and also use photos that I take and from magazines, the internet etc……my work is stylized but definitely realistic, so I like to know how things really look, to start with.

If you could be anything other than an artist, what would you be?

Some sort of landscape designer…….my second favorite thing is gardening.

What gets you through an illustration when you’re stuck for inspiration?

Sheer Taurean grit and determination. One of the blessings of being an illustrator are deadlines. Deadlines have no patience with waiting for one’s Muse to make her appearance. Sometimes one simply has to work through it and waste a bunch of paper, but the effort is almost always worth it. A looming deadline can be very motivating.

What book do you remember from when you were young?

The Wonder Clock illustrated by Howard Pyle.

Is there a children’s book illustrator whose work you gravitate towards in the bookstore now?

I love looking at the work of artists like David Shannon …I’d love to be freer, more able to exaggerate features and bodies , to loosen up more.

It’s all a process….I suppose when one finally totally arrives and has nothing left to learn, I guess one is ready to shuffle off this mortal coil

If you could illustrate any writer’s new work, who would it be?

I’d love to illustrate another book for Simon Van Booy, the author whose book I’m currently finishing up…..

Tags: illustrator interviews, picture book illustrator, Wendy Edelson
Posted in: illustrator interviews

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by Wendy Wendy

Jan

Making a children’s book Nathan Jensen

While trawling the internet for reference for my book art I came across this little gem of a video. I just wish there was more of the speech instead of excerpts.

I have been hard at work with the book art spreads for Smoky and the Feast of Mabon. It is official. I have “book brain.” This is the place I go when in the final throws of book illustration before the deadline and final art goes out. I call it book brain because my characters take over my head. I think of nothing else and even dream my characters. I wander around the house in a blur and I am amazed I have not managed to injure myself while cooking.

Tomorrow, I have to drive my DD into the city. I have two fears. The first is that I will space the trip entirely. And the second is I will be so immersed in book brain hi-jinx, I won’t remember to stop at red lights or look before merging.

Hopefully my characters are happy with all the attention I paid to them today and will let me get a good night’s sleep without demanding I attend to them at 4 am in the morning in a repeat of this morning. I can only hope.

Posted in: Books, Illustration, New Releases, Thoughts, Uncategorized

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by Wendy Wendy

Jan

Children’s book illustrator – John Lechner

Say a big hello to John Lechner. He is the author and illustrator of four books for children, A Froggy Fable, Sticky Burr: Adventures in Burwood Forest, The Clever Stick and Sticky Burr: The Prickly Peril, all published by Candlewick Press. Thank you for joining us today.

When did you get started illustrating for children? What did you do before?

My first book, A Froggy Fable, was published in 2005, but I have been writing and drawing my whole life. Before being published, I worked as a graphic designer, puppeteer, animator, interactive designer and art director.

Tell us a little bit about the recent books you wrote and illustrated, The Clever Stick and Sticky Burr: The Prickly Peril.

The Clever Stick is a fable about a stick who is sad because he cannot speak. He has many thoughts he wants to share, but doesn’t know how. In the course of the book, he discovers his “voice”. My other recent book, Sticky Burr: The Prickly Peril, is about a group of burrs who live in the forest, and what happens when their village is attacked by the wicked Burweena and her spiders. It’s part comic book, part storybook, part nature journal.

What are you working on right now? Do you have any other books or art projects you’d like to talk about?

Right now I’m working on a novel, which is very different from my other books. I also launched a blog last fall called The Untended Garden, where I highlight artists and writers inspired by nature. I think it’s ironic that even though we know more about nature than ever before, we are becoming more and more isolated from it. Art and literature have always helped us see our world in new ways, and I hope to bring that sense of discovery and exploration to today’s readers.

You work in animation and interactive storytelling. What project are you currently involved in? How do these disciplines differ from picture book illustration?

Lately I’ve been very interested in interactive storytelling, combining the elements of an illustrated book and an animated film into something new. I’ve been working on my own interactive story for over a year now, which I hope to launch this spring.

I love animation because it’s a unique kind of visual storytelling, and combines many different art forms. It is a lot like book illustration, except you multiply the number of illustrations exponentially, and look at them REALLY fast. You are still telling a visual story, but showing every action and scene, leaving less to the viewer’s imagination. In this way, it is a less intimate experience than reading a book, since much of a book’s reality takes place inside the reader’s imagination. But you can also add things to animation like music and sound effects, which can enhance your story in ways that a book can only dream of.

Do you do non-children’s book art (licensing, fine art, etc.) or art just for fun? Is that art similar or different from your children’s book art?

Besides book illustration, I love to draw and paint for fun. I like painting with watercolors outdoors, though I don’t have much time for it. You can see a lot of my miscellaneous work on my website gallery http://www.johnlechner.com/gallery/index.html. It’s not too different from my children’s book art, but a bit more eclectic.

Do you illustrate full time? If not, what else do you do?

I work full-time as an Art Director at the children’s media company FableVision. There I do everything from animation to web design. One of my recent projects was designing a new website for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood which was very exciting and humbling to work on. My latest project is co-directing the animated film The North Star, based on the book by Peter H. Reynolds, which will be released later this year.

When you illustrate a picture book how do you decide what scenes and details to draw?

I usually visualize the story in my head, and draw what I see. There is no system or structure to my sketching, I just try out different views and angles until I have something that flows together. I try to give each scene some visual drama, even if it’s just a field of flowers. And it’s important for the drawings to work together as a sequence, both visually and dramatically. You can’t just focus on each page as a self-contained picture, you always have to think of how it fits into the book. That’s what separates great picture books from ordinary ones, when the pictures flow together so seamlessly that you don’t even notice you’ve turned the page. That’s something I’m still striving for.

When illustrating picture books do you include a visual storyline not mentioned by the text or include animals or people you know?

I draw many things that aren’t in the text, such as recurring background characters, or changes in color or composition to reflect the mood. Since most of my stories are about animals or insects, I don’t usually include people that I know (at least, not consciously!)

Can you explain your art process?

After I have the final sketch dummy (which is the result of many revisions with pencil and paper), I will sketch out the final illustrations on watercolor paper, actual size. I prefer actual size because I like to work small, and it also shows me exactly what the final page will look like. After sketching, I will draw the final lines using black India ink and a fine brush. Then I will erase the pencil lines, and paint the illustration with watercolor. I usually work on several paintings at a time, since the watercolor has to dry after each section so it doesn’t run. I will often do the whole illustration over, if it doesn’t turn out the way I want. I think the entire book A Froggy Fable was illustrated twice, because I wasn’t satisfied with my first attempts.

Do you have a favorite color or palette?

Most of my stories take place outdoors, and I love greens and browns, especially yellow ochre.

What is your favorite medium to work in? Have you always worked in this media? If not, why did you switch?

I prefer watercolor and ink, which I have used for all my books. I’ve tried other mediums over the years, but watercolors seem to best express the ideas and feelings that I’m trying to convey.

Did you always want to be an artist when you grew up?

Yes, along with a musician, puppeteer, writer, filmmaker, and many other things.

Do you use models/source pictures or do you draw from your memory/imagination?

I mostly draw from my imagination, though I often model my scenery on real places. For instance, the tree at the beginning of The Clever Stick is an old apple tree from my backyard. And for the Sticky Burr books, I research all the animals and insects that I draw, then simplify them to make them fit the style of the story.

If you could be anything other than an artist, what would you be?

If I weren’t making books, I would love to be a musician and composer. I play the violin, guitar and ukulele, and I actually wrote the songs in the back of my Sticky Burr books.

What gets you through an illustration when you’re stuck for inspiration?

Deadlines.

What book do you remember from when you were young? (list one or multiple books)

I had many favorite books as a child, including everything by Richard Scarry, Bill Peet and Dr. Seuss. I liked books with lots of visual details, but also a good story.

Is there a children’s book illustrator whose work you gravitate towards in the bookstore now?

I’m always drawn to illustrators whose work is very different than my own, particularly those with a bold sense of texture and design like Lane Smith or Melissa Sweet. I love artists who can create a unique world that the reader can get lost in.

If you could illustrate any writer’s new work, who would it be?

Lately I have been very inspired by Diana Wynne Jones. Her writing is so rich, so imaginative, it would be an honor to illustrate even a single sentence of hers.

Who do you want to be when you ‘grow up’?

I don’t plan to. In fact, I think I might start growing younger instead of older, and spend more time making things, jumping in puddles, and exploring the world around me.

Tags: illustrator interviews, John Lechner, picture book illustrator
Posted in: Illustration, illustrator interviews

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by Wendy Wendy

Jan

Tale of Going Bovine and reader-fail

I have been hearing wonderful things about the YA novel “Going Bovine.”

I spend a lot of time haunting the children’s section in the local public library, so when I saw a copy on the new arrivals bookshelf, I snatched it up.

It took me several weeks before I had a chance to pick it up and begin reading it. In fact I had to renew it once or twice. I had a huge stack of books on my to-be-read pile, so it took a bit for me to work my way down to it.

It was not my type of book. I mean, usually I am a bit more of an escapist in my reading material, I like bits of magic and fantasy. I’m not much into the teenage angst stuff, most likely because I have an emo teen occupying a room in my home at the moment. There is only so much angst and drama any one adult can deal with and remain relatively sane.

But, the writing was well crafted and there was more than one well turned phrase, so I figured I would persevere and maybe learn something about craft and “what sells” to use in my own writing.

I determined to read two or three chapters a night for my before sleep treat.

I followed through until last night. (SPOILER ALERT) The main character was diagnosed with a terminal illness and was admitted to the hospital.

I couldn’t read any further. My own stint in the hospital is still raw. It will be a year at the end of this month, but I still can’t watch some hospital scenes on TV either.

I closed the book in the middle of a chapter, in the middle of a sentence. And cried myself to sleep.

Now, I did not have a terminal disease (obviously cause I am not dead and/or dying) but I did almost die because of someone else’s actions. I went to surgery directly from walking into the emergency room. And spent almost two weeks in recovery, and months beyond that getting back to ‘normal.’

I am not usually one to dwell on the past. I am just too busy most of the time to worry about more than what I have right in front of me. So this nagging phobia of hospitals and emergency rooms and surgery is troublesome, to say the least.

Hopefully, this will pass. Before I need surgery again. Which I am told I do. For completely unrelated things. Honestly, I have too much to do to lose more time in a lengthy recovery.

Tags: eek hospitals, Going Bovine, medical issues
Posted in: Thoughts, Uncategorized

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