Writing a picture book and drawing people
No. 07 | February Newsletter
Hi Friends,
Happy February!
January began with the kind of optimism and momentum a new year brings. I kickstarted the year with lots of writing and even began building new healthy habits (like exercising and eating well), no doubt contributing to a positive start. Although many of these habits have already started to fall by the wayside — oops!
I wrote my first picture book draft
After spending the end of last year plotting out ideas, I finally sat down and wrote my first complete draft of a picture book — a huge feat for me. Even though the process has been challenging and mildly terrifying, I’m really enjoying it. I feel excited to keep working on this story and more.
My next steps will be to collect feedback, re-write, and edit as much as needed. Then, I’ll work towards creating a picture book dummy with rough sketches and a few examples of finished spreads. Now that I’ve got something on paper to work with, it doesn’t feel nearly as daunting.
There’s so much potential when it comes to writing and illustrating your own stories — you have full control over what you get to make. That means I can fill stories with everything that makes my heart sing to draw and paint.
A typical picture book is made of 32 pages (multiples of 8 due to the printing process). Whether it’s a separate-ended (coloured ends) or self-ended layout, minus the endpapers, copyright page, and title page, you are working with about 12 or 14 double-page spreads.
Thinking about the physical structure of a picture book helped me think through the pacing and page turns. Once I had a rough idea of the images, it was easier to get words down on the page that I could keep tinkering with.
Drawing more human characters
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, one of my goals this year is to draw more people for my picture book portfolio. For a long time, I’ve avoided drawing human characters, mostly because I had a hard time settling on a stylistic approach. After lots of deliberate sketching and experimenting, I’m finally starting to feel happy with the direction I’m going.
I often feel like my sketches are full of energy and emotion which can be hard to translate into the final art — a never-ending struggle!
Of course, the more I practice, the more I notice areas I can improve upon. This awareness can feel a bit frustrating, but I choose to see it as a sign of growth and an indication of what I can focus on. Specifically, I’d like to work on creating more dynamic poses and emphasizing facial expressions to make the emotion read more clearly. To do this, I’m going to try to practice more gesture drawing and create expression sheets for characters.
My perfectionist tendencies creep in every now and again and I find myself placing too much pressure on every piece to be “portfolio-worthy” when in reality they don’t all have to be. By regularly creating lots of work, there will surely be winners throughout. It’s best not to dwell on one piece for too long and keep moving forward. I hope this reminder can be helpful to you too if you struggle with the same.
In the shop
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Things I’ve been enjoying lately
Oni: Thunder God’s Tail on Netflix by the incredible Tonko House animation studio — everything they create is so beautiful and whimsical.
Ulla Thynell’s blog post describing their process of painting with alcohol ink — super inspired by the experimentation and unpredictable nature.
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver — brushing up on poetry basics as I dive into the process of writing picture books.
I cherish this newsletter and the space we have here together.
Thanks for reading!
Till next time,
I love behind the scenes peeks!
Thanks for sharing a bit of your behind the scenes. Looking forward to follow you along the whole process.