HELLO! HELLO! Welcome to bamboo country.

More or less, I have been pretty tried and true to the pen and ink with watercolor form in my life as an illustrator. I have experimented some, recently, with using pencil and watercolor and that's been fun and gone well, but I pretty much hold fast to drawing in pen and ink.

Some time ago, years back, my mom gave me these bamboo pens for an xmas gift. She gave me a bunch of random art supplies, many of which I'd never used. Including the bamboo. A relative creature of habit, I set them aside and didn't give it a whirl for a long, long time.

*I don't think I always need to say this, but I always do. Please click on any images here to get a closer, better view!*

bamboo pens

Then, still years back, I came upon the work of Serge Bloch.

I'm oft blown away by the Bloch. He draws in lots of different ways, with, I imagine, lots of different tools. One of his things is he has a wild, drippy, fluid line and it looked like he's using something unconventional. "Maybe this guy uses bamboo?" I guessed. (could be brush...) I also, at some point, noted that one of my fave pic book guys, David Ezra Stein, in one of my all time favorite pic books, Leaves, had employed the mighty bamboo.

An outtake from Leaves by David Ezra Stein drawn in, yep, bamboo. (I yanked this from Jules at her 7-Imp interview!)

So, at long last, I picked up the bamboo and started playing. It gave me some incredible results (not necessarily Bloch-esque, not necessarily Ezra Stein-esque) but incredible nonetheless. But also incredibly unpredictable. Drawing with, essentially, the pointy end of a stick dipped in ink, is not going to guarantee any consistency. So, I never quite got the nerve to use it for final art.

Close-up of the legendary bamboo. I am not bound to this brand, but it's one I use.

Until...

If you are loyal to this blog, you might remember that my game was wildly changed when I got this large format inkjet printer that will print waterproof ink on watercolor paper. (Read all about it here!) Which, to make a long story somewhat shorter,  means I can make my drawings on any old paper and then scan in, rework, and/or redraw/rescan/rework (if need be) and then print a final, possibly edited, drawing on watercolor paper ready to paint. This gave me a heck of a lot more freedom to experiment and draw freely without the consequence. Before, if I drew a drawing and the ink or pen totally screwed me, that would be one large sheet of expensive paper in the trash. Now, I can draw it, mess it up, mess it up, fix it, mess it up, etc. but then print when finally ready on the expensive paper. Ahhhhh. Breathe deep.

Having said all this, my upcoming picture book, hello! hello!, (available everywhere you buy books on October 23!) was the first book I had the guts to draw in bamboo. And, boy, was I/am I excited about it. It is such an expressive line. Very wet at times, and also very dry at times. When the ink's running dry on the tip of the pen, the line line has almost a a graphite texture to it. It's very loose. Very free. I dig it.

Now. Backing up a bit... I've always been one to try and play with ways to get the most expressive, characteristic line in my drawings. I've used different nibs and played with unconventional (possibly, um, unsophisticated) techniques when drawing. (e.g. Often times, I let the ink cake up on my nib so that when the ink flows, or doesn't, the line gets totally jacked and weird.) Here are a few different styles of nibs I've toyed with over the years, and some sample art from each nib.

Ink I'm currently using. Again, not so much loyal to the Speedball, but it's done right by me lately.

This piece is from my book, Trouble Gum, which was drawn with a calligraphy nib.

This piece is from Another Brother, which was drawn with a crow quill nib.

Here are some samples of art I created for my first pitch of hello! hello! to accompany the manuscript. The bamboo is in full effect!

 (That bottom drawing's done with a crow quill. I was toying with mixing styles within this book. More on that factoid at a later date...)

And here's a couple of sample finished pieces from hello! hello! drawing with bamboo.

And here are some other things I've done with the bamboo.

Since hello! hello!, I have continued to work with the bamboo. Like I said, it is wildly varied and expressive, but also wildly unpredictable and this can wreak havoc on the nerves. But all in all, I'd say it is quite worth it.

I might also add, I incorporated some graphite to my drawings in hello! hello! Sometimes, the ol' bamboo wasn't cutting it, so I nabbed a graphite stick to get, you know, some roughly drawn fur on a bison. Or something like that.

At any rate, as you can maybe tell, I'm plainly stoked with the results here. Maybe, I mean possibly, you are too. I mean, I get that the average picture book reader will give zero cents about what kind of pen I use, but this is, true enough, the kind of junk that keeps me awake at night.

Hey, any other bamboo users out there? Bamboo solidarity! I mean, bamboo-4-eva.

I might also reiterate... hello! hello! is available anywhere you buy books on October 23! And my personal preference always lies with the brick-and-mortar stores. Buy books!

hello! hello!

My 2012 offerings (and more) at 7-Imp!

Please take a moment and head over to one of THE best kidlit blogs in the biz, 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Today, Julie (Jules!) Danielson has posted an extensive interview that talks up and shows off the books I have coming out in 2012. As well as my road to publication, my process, my filthy cluttered studio, and a weird bit about turkey butts. Jules does an amazing job, and it always shows. Please have a look here and leave a comment if just to say, "what up, bruh?"!

Stampede at Sunset

For a better view, click on that image above. It's actually pretty big.

It's important to me to have a certain level of spontaneity in the look of my drawings. As an illustrator, this can be difficult. Final art is not created out of thin air. A first sketch is created out of thin air. A first sketch is completely spontaneous, but every step after can eliminate more and more of that look and vibe. Break it down:

A. Sketch 1--spontaneous
B. Revised sketch (a sketch based on a sketch)--most likely, less spontaneous
C. Final art (finished drawing based on a sketch of a sketch)--perhaps not very spontaneous

Add more revisions between B and C and spontaneity may be more and more corroded. I don't always have the courage or time or faith to experiment with this in contracted work, but I do like to play around between jobs and see how I might achieve more spontaneity in finished drawings.

For me, final art is pen/ink drawing with added watercolor. One way to reach this goal, is to eliminate the pencil drawing or planning stages (not possible, actually, in illustration) and draw right out of the gate in pen and ink (which, as we know, cannot be corrected). The drawing above was done with no planning whatsoever. No pencil ever touched this paper. (And, in spots, it certainly shows. But in my mind, these are some of it's best moments.) Also, very little image reference. Most of it came from memory and mental pictures.

More or less, this is pure spontaneity in final art. Does it work? Who's to say?

These are good little brain-limbering excercises that shall go unpublished. Good for the blog, though.

c-c-c-color...

Makes me shake in my boots. My shoes. My moccasin slippers. That's right, I rock those.

One of these days, I'll get more guts when it comes to starting color. Anyhow, thought I'd share some of my color studies for current final art I'm finishing up. I'm happy with these three. My team--Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers (S+S BFYR)--chose one direction. Guess which?

There Will Be Blood... er, Sketches.

I just finished up the first round of sketches for a new book I'm working on. This book is a book of poems written by the uber-talented, critically acclaimed novelist Gail Carson Levine (!). The publisher, HarperCollins (my first with them).

Anyhow... the first thing I do before sketching is... panic. Then procrastinate. Then read and re-read the manuscript and panic and procrastinate. Drawing, I've said, is a scary, scary thing. OK. Cue that "world's smallest violin".

Then, I'm ready. I pull up a cup of coffee and print off the manuscript. In this case, the manuscript has been very graciously laid out by my wonderful art director here, Martha Rago. Type is set and placed and paginated. This is very helpful.




For less distraction, I usually do my sketches offsite. So I need to assemble my arsenal. First, I grab a ream of the finest drawing paper a guy can buy (koff-koff).




Yeah, it's just flimsy old printer/copy paper. But I've found this to be the best for sketching. For the following reasons: a) if I scrap a sheet (it happens), it's not gonna break some bank; b) it's semi-translucent and good for a quick trace should I need to trace something I've just sketched to rework, overlay, etc.; and c) it's the perfect size for my flatbed scanner (more on this later).




I will also be needing a pencil... your everyday Dixon Ticonderoga HB will do (those "no. 2" pencils they asked you to bring when you took the SAT's). And a new favorite, the click eraser.




Last, not least, I need a trusty portable pencil sharpener. I bought mine at one of those "everything's a dollar" stores when I was a senior in high school. Apparently Disney ordered way too much Rescue Rangers merchandise so a lot got dumped into the ol' dollar bins. This little guy's done me good (more than he might say for me--looks like he took a dip in some ink sometime, somewhere).




Weeks (if not months) later, I end up with a pile of paper (51 sheets to be exact), a nubbier pencil and quite a few clicks taken off the eraser.




Exhibit A: Let's take a look at a sample. What I needed was a drawing of a cow chewing away at a tall, tall plant that stretches high up into the sky. You may be able to see, at the bottom of the sheet, several failed attempts at a cow's face and head. By the time I got it right, I was up at the top left corner of the page. So I drew the rest of the plant off to the right. Instead of re-drawing the whole thing as one successful piece. This is the digital age, brothers and sisters, and that would be a waste of time. I will scan and splice the two successful pieces together later on the computer.




Exhibit B: Occasionally, while sketching, I may rethink my choices on a face. Or position. Proportion. If I've got a basically good drawing, instead of starting all over with the pencil, I'll draw a better face or make notes off to the side on how I should rework (cut/paste, resize, etc.) this on the computer, after it's all scanned in. Digital. Age.




Below is my spliced, resized, reworked sketch in place of a finished layout. I blurred GCL's poem cause it ain't mine to share.




And below is that other sketch reworked.




Stepping back a minute... This desk is where I bring that pile of 51 pages of sketches. Power up the computer and scanner and settle in for a marathon scanning session. Followed by a marathon Photoshop (for dummies) session.




My not-very-fancy-but-does-just-fine desktop scanner. Thank you for being you, lil' guy.




And when I'm done, after, I'm sure several rounds of sketch revisions, when everyone is happy and ready to proceed to final art, I will move everything over here. The drawing table.



And yeah, I know what you're thinking. I should probably go clean up this place now.

Nib Love

A few months back, talented kid book author/illustrator and e-pal o' mine Frank Dormer, read a line on my blog where I was whining on about the love/hate relationship I have for my nibs of choice. He very graciously offered to send me a fistful of the nibs he's had good luck with. I got Frank's nibs in the mail and was ever so thankful, but had to set them aside to keep up work with the sketches, sketches, sketches (the pencil, not the pen).

Fast forward to now and I finally had a minute to settle down with these new nibs. Man they are like butter! Glide across the paper. Ink flows like dang water. Line thickness is all over the place (that's a good thing) and ever so easy to control. I asked Frank where he got these and he said he bought a box at an art supply shop 20 years ago. Gulp. Better handle these babies with care.


Below is a sample of how they drive. Plus another drawing I did with a brush from my dirty ink water (used to wash up the pen afterward). Just for kicks.






Thanks again, Frank! Us pen/inkers gotta stick together for sure.

The Art of Shipping Art

Yesterday, I finished up a batch of original art for my next picture book. I'm really pumped about this particular book. But that's not actually why I'm here today.

I'd like to share a part of the illustration process that's likely been neglected. Too boring? I guess. But I take it very seriously. It's the part of the process when the art is completely done, yes, but it still needs to make it to the publisher. Seeing as this illustrator lives nowhere near his publisher, the art has got to be shipped.

What to do? What sort of packaging is worthy enough to hold these precious pieces of paper I've lived, loved, and screamed at for the past several months?

Here's how I do it.


Exhibit A: The "original art". As you can see, my work is done on paper. And that, my friends, is why it's gotta be shipped. If I worked new-fangley and on the computer (think J. Otto Seibold), I could just zip it all out via email. But I don't roll that way.



Here's the whole book. I think for this particular one, there's about 45 or 50 originals in this pile. I need to divide this up so I can get it in a not so shuffley state.



So, first I separate the big pile into little piles by size. At the end here, I usually have a variety of paper sizes to accommodate for different size drawings--smaller stuff (spot illustrations), medium size (one pagers), and big ones (full spread drawings). Hmm. Looking at this picture, it sure looks rather insignificant. Hard to believe there's about a year's time laying there on the rug. Ah, well. Moving on...




Once the piles are stacked and jogged, I unroll a large roll of white butcher paper...



...and tightly wrap up each stack like little Christmas gifts (Hanukkah ones, for my Jewish family). Tightly wrapped because I do not want any papers sliding around, rubbing ink or color up on each other. That could get ugly.

Then, I'm off to find some large pieces of cardboard.



Luckily, with a 19 month young babe running around the house, we've had lots of recent purchases that came in large cardboard boxes. Large panels of cardboard I've hoarded for just these occasions. I cut down four identical oversized panels of cardboard and set them aside.



On one piece of board, I then slap strip after strip of white paper tape to each xmas gift, securing each into an unmovable position. I don't want anything sliding around in transit. Like I said, no papers sliding around rubbing ink or color together. And none of those xmas gifts should be sliding around either, getting knocked corners or bruises. I sometimes include a full set of the latest round of sketch revisions for the art director to refer to when laying out the book. I did that here. And I always include a letter with some (meddling?) notes to my A.D..



Next, I squeeze all four cardboard pieces together like a tasty sandwich--two boards on each side of the art, for extra-double protection. Then tape, and, tape, and tape some more. Re-re-reinforce.



All that's left is to slap the shipping label on the top of this hopefully-sturdy-enough, custom-made carton.

The package is dropped off at the shipping center by my house. A whole lotta faith. A little bit of prayer.

And there you have it. Tomorrow, I will be tracking the package to check for its delivery, followed by an email or two to my lovely editor, Liz, until I know the mailroom has brought it up for a final stop at her desk.

But now, for some much-needed studio clean-up time. What a dump.