Tapir lives
in the jungle.
Pig lives in
the village.
But when
they meet at the waterhole, they discover they are the same in so many ways.
They might
even be Brothers from a Different Mother.
While
each picture book is unique and demands different illustrative solutions, the
process for creating the illustrations remains essentially the same.
For
me it begins with brainstorming, which is a bit like getting your emotional
responses down in shorthand form. This can include word lists or scratchy little
scribbles that are essentially meaningless to anybody else. The process is an
outpouring. Basically, I put down on paper any ideas that I think will
highlight the emotions, structure or theme of the book.
Character
Studies
I
filled up pages and pages with character sketches—little scribbles of pigs and
tapirs—trying to capture some personality, expressive gestures and body
language.
In Brothers from a Different Mother the two characters discover that they are the same in many ways, so I explored visual ways that I could express “same but different”.
These early character sketches are pretty scratchy and most are discarded, but a few made it almost unchanged into the final illustrations.
Storyboards
Once
I have a general idea of my characters, it’s time to put them through their
paces. I filled up my notebook with miniature scribbles for the page layouts,
rapidly scratching, exploring and discarding. At this stage I try to turn off
the part of my brain that self edits and gets caught up in detail.
I
create lots of the little scribbles until I get closer and closer to how I
might treat the book as a whole. I keep the sketches small and loose to keep
the ideas fluid but as a bonus it’s much easier to discard ideas if I haven’t invested
much time or emotion in them.
Once I am happy with my ideas for the page layouts I pull them into a storyboard format that I can show to the publisher and art director. These are still very tiny and loose but I work proportional to the final book size and include placeholder text so that I know they are solid solutions—or at least a jumping off point for negotiations!
For Brothers I played with ways to mirror and bookend the characters to underpin the “same but different” theme and to echo the rhythm of the text.
From Roughs to Final Artwork.
The
illustration process begins with an impressionistic and emotional response that
is slowly refined. After the initial burst of intuition and emotion, it is time
to engage the analytical brain and make design decisions that hopefully best
communicate the story.
The
small storyboard roughs provide a road map for the book but it is process of refinement.
I had continuous feedback from my editor and designer at Penguin and we worked
closely to finesse the storytelling, page layouts and typography.
Once I had approval on the page layouts I advanced to value studies. This is an essential stage in planning the illustration but it is still pretty loose. I block in the basic lights and darks, in this instance using contrast and silhouette to highlight the important story telling focal points.
For this particular illustration I had the opportunity to contrast the shadowed and enclosed jungle with the open expanse of field in the village. The characters are sitting isolated on the page, backs to each other in poses which are “the same but different”.
When creating the illustrations for a picture book I take my cue from the major themes, or emotion or the structure of the words. I know that Phillip carefully chose and edited each word to tell the story of Brothers from a Different Mother and it’s only fair that I try to apply that same level of craft to create the illustrations.
Marjorie Crosby-Fairall is an
award-winning illustrator whose books include Brothers from a Different Mother (Penguin Random House), One Christmas Eve (Black Dog Books, and
imprint of Walker), Mrs Dog (Five
Mile Press), The Croc and the Platypus
(Walker Books) and My Little World (Omnibus,
an imprint of Scholastic). She was awarded the CBCA Eve Pownall Award for her
first picture book Killer Plants
(Penguin). She lives in Sydney and works as a freelance illustrator
undertaking an eclectic range of projects, including illustrations for
educational publishers, trade book publishers, and magazines. www.crosby-fairall.com
Here's the books trailer to inspire you.
