Process

 Illustration for Books

When I am working on a book, I start by reading the manuscript and jotting down notes and thinking about the characters. I will often come up with a few character designs before I start anything else. I then reread the story and start on thumbnails. These are small sketches that give a general idea of what an illustration will look like. I often do several of these for each page of a book. I like to see how they work together before deciding which to use. An illustrator divides the text of a book into 32 pages (sometimes 40). In this phase, I'll often work out the general colour palette for the book too.

Then, I go on to the sketches. I often rework the sketches, making sure there is room for text, that there is consistency throughout, a nice balance of perspectives and just a general flow to the book. I like to see where I can give information with the image that might not be in the text. This is when I work with an art director. They help with deciding which sketches to use, make sure the flow of the book is working well, etc.

Once the sketches are approved, I move on to the finals. It generally takes me about 2-4 months to do this part of a book. It is important that the final illustration be close to the sketch. Since I am dealing with 3 dimensional scenes, I've had to learn a lot about depth, lenses and scale. The nice part about working this way, is that if something isn't quite working, I can adjust it, and rephotograph it. I can also play with the lighting, and find the right atmosphere for a scene. 

Personal Work

With layers to create the setting, individual characters, lighting, filters, camera lenses and settings, there is lots of play that goes into getting my images and sometimes interesting surprises. When I am making personal work, I have a fluid process. I begin an illustration by sketching or creating figures. I then build the layers. For the most part, I use ink on Yupo paper. Once I have my layers ready, I install them in one of my theatres, like a tiny stage set. My husband has made me several theatres for different purposes, though I usually work in the smallest one. He gave it to me for Christmas in 2009. Below you can see how I play with the composition and lighting during an afternoon working in the theatre. Personal work like this, gives me time to explore ideas and give up some control. I like the element of chance.