A Poem Grows Inside You, written by Katey Howes, Published by The Innovation Press and illustrated by me!
Hello friends! It has been a while since my last post, mostly because I spent the last year saying “Yes!” to every opportunity that came my way, and while it was a fantastic year of learning and growing, one of the most important lessons I learned is that I actually can’t do everything… who knew? (Ok lots of people knew that) But that isn’t what I want to talk about today. In this post I want to share my experience illustrating this beautiful manuscript by Katey Howes!
Every book has a story, the story that happens before the story. Actually several stories because everyone involved in making a book has their own story for how they came to be part of it. My story for this book begins with— it was the first time a traditional publisher offered me a picture book to illustrate. This was HUGE! Something I had been working towards for a few years, and the theme and manuscript and publisher were all so appealing to me, I could not have been happier. Some of you might notice that this is actually the second book I have illustrated, and that is because publishing can be like that but also largely because of the pandemic. I got the offer for A Poem Grows Inside You in March of 2020… yup. I remember standing outside the elementary school while my dog and I waited to walk my daughter home from school, I had just gotten off the phone with my agent, and looking forward to spring break with my kids…. which ended up lasting a year and a half. Because of those Uncertain Times, (remember when every sentence started with “In these uncertain times”?) The Innovation Press decided to delay the book for a year, which made perfect sense as absolutely no one knew what was coming at us.
It was hard to wait, but also everything was hard and I was very busy doing things like buying too much spaghetti squash because what if the stores ran out of spaghetti squash. And it gave me a long time to think, and to experiment with different mediums. And without that time I doubt I would have discovered the process I used for this book.
This is an early style guide I made once I decided on a medium, to show the publisher the technique I had in mind and the character design. We made a few tweaks, including the color of the raincoat.
For me, everything starts with thumbnails. This is probably the hardest part of the process for me- lots of talking to myself and tugging on my hair and making cups of tea I never finish. But once they are done, I feel like I have a roadmap to follow. I get lost really easily so I love maps.
Now for that technique I mentioned. I really don’t know if I would have discovered this without the pandemic keeping us all at home and giving me so much time to experiment. I would trade not knowing this for COVID never having happened but, here we are. It starts with sanded paper- the kind usually used for pastels. I am not a pastel artist so I can’t even remember where I got it. It’s literally sand paper, very fine white sand glued to a paper backing. When I painted on it with acrylic gouache, it would behave like watercolor or gouache depending on how much water I added, and going over that with colored pencils created a rich, bold line and a texture I fell in love with.
Some books start with the cover, and with others the cover comes last. It all depends on the publisher and their marketing schedules. This book came cover first, and I decided to paint the background and character separately so things could be tweaked and nudged in photoshop. I have done this for all my book covers so far- you really get the benefit and security of working in layers while still using traditional media.
Here are a few more process images. I really loved painting this book, Katey’s words are just wonderful and I would find her phrases repeating in my head as I painted various spreads. And the Innovation Press has been such a fantastic publisher to work with, with great taste in books I might add! I hope you will all enjoy reading and sharing it with children as much as I did illustrating it!
If you have any other comments or questions feel free to drop a comment below! Thanks for hanging out with me :)