Starting from Sketch. Inside the Picture Book with Will Hillenbrand

Transcription

1 Starting from Sketch nside the Picture Book with Will Hillenbrand

2 Get a little help can t always paint from my imagination or memory. ften, need to find an example of the subject want to illustrate, something artists call a reference. nce adopted a dog so could understand dogs better. Most of the time, however, just look at toys, photographs or books. For Down by the Station, started with the toy trains below. hen found photographs of a puffer-belly and a train station. hese photos became the basis for the pictures in the book. eferences help you make pictures that are recognizable to other people. But you don t have to copy your references exactly. se your imagination to embellish or transform your reference. Look at the photographs of the train and the station. Look at the sketches. Some things are the same, but some are different. Can you find the changes? 1 found a photo of a puffer-belly in the library. eferring to the photo, revised the engine, opened the car completely and added toy trains at the end to show puffer-bellies in a row. My first sketch of the train station was just a figment of my imagination My next sketch more closely resembled a photo found of an old station. Note the penny in the corner; it shows how small this sketch is. based my first drawing on the toy train. liked the way the giraffe stuck out of the roof. drew an engine based on the toy train, and opened the car up to show the animals better. he final station retained the simple lines in the reference photo, with the addition of a clock and arched windows.

3 2 Draw, draw again keep a journal with me all the time. t is a book of blank pages that fill with drawings as m working on a book. may draw a character or a scene over and over in my journal before m happy with the look. Sketching and resketching help me to develop the pictures in my head and on the paper before paint. My journal sketches tend to be quite small. hat allows me to work faster and do many sketches. Sometimes, the sketches are, well, sketchy. call those thumbnails. just roughly draw the elements in the picture, rather than worry about the details. When do thumbnails, m trying to figure out how things are going to work together on the page. hink about a scene you d like to draw. Quickly sketch where each element will go on the page and how big it will be. ry sketching the scene smaller than the finished drawing will be. hen make a final drawing based on your sketch. n these sketches, played with the arrangement of the elements for this page in Down By he Station. Compare the sketches to see the arrangements considered.

4 3 Look all around Another way to convey meaning in a story is to use a different perspective or viewpoint. n he Biggest, Best Snowman, Nell is described as little. could just draw her smaller than everyone else, but there are other ways to make her look small. ne way is to have her always looking up at her mother and sisters. Another is to have them looking down at her, even leaning over to talk to her. Later, when the snowman is finished, used a bird s-eye perspective (see below) to show just how big the snowman, and Nell s accomplishment, really is. By looking down from above, Nell and her friends seem very small. Stand in your room and look around. Now lie on your back on the floor and look around, up and down. See how different things look? When would you want to draw a picture looking up from the floor or looking down from the sky? First made a quick thumbnail sketch to test the perspective for this page in he Biggest, Best Snowman. A bigger, more detailed drawing followed. As the final painting takes shape, add more details.

5 4 Looks do count When draw a character, think a lot about the person or animal. ask myself many questions about how they look and how they behave. draw and redraw the character in different poses in my journal. As was developing BG Lizzie for he Biggest, Best Snowman, drew her face over and over again, trying to get the expression just right. But characters are more than just facial features. wanted the reader to see Lizzie as flamboyant, selfish and rather lazy. did this by making her wild hair multi-colored, putting her finger on her chin and giving her a doughnut to eat. n contrast, Lizzie s sister, BG Sarah, is more sophisticated, as evidenced by her perfectly arranged hair, jewelry and makeup. My first small sketch captured the basic look for each character. Nell looks small and defensive; Sarah is elegant; Mama is so big she doesn t fit in the picture. n one page, played with Lizzie s look. n the lower left corner, drew her with big eyes. Just above, tried closed eyes. Finally, bigger still, drew her in profile. Here, Lizzie s eyes closed and a bite came out of her doughnut. also experimented with how much showed of Mama. he sketches all came together in the final painting. hink about someone you know, perhaps a friend or a teacher. Describe that person what they mean to you and how they behave toward others. Now think about how you could draw that person to convey your description. Would you draw them in their favorite place a golf course, the kitchen, a park? Would they be wearing something special a hat, an apron, a fluffy coat? What would they be doing golfing, cooking, bird watching?

6 5 Get a move on Most picture books are 32 pages. o keep readers interested, look for ways to make them want to turn the page. ne way is to introduce an action on one page and have it pay off with a second action on the next. n Down by the Station, the elephant is drinking from the pond on one page and, on the next, he s spraying everyone with water. he action flows from one page to the next. When you page through Down by the Station, you ll see a red balloon, always in different positions on the page. sing an element in this manner throughout the book adds extra interest and action in a subtle way. Most of the story in Down By he Station is told not in the words, but in the pictures. Each page contains multiple actions and mini-subplots. his picture was inspired by a trip to the zoo took as a teen with younger children. remembered how the children were always getting into mischief. Here, it s the animals that create movement through merriment. As the page turns, each character s action corresponds to the previous page. Compare what each character is doing in this picture as compared to the one above. hink of situations that can be drawn in two parts to show action. n one page, show the first step. n a second page, draw the next step. ou might show someone with a hand on a doorknob, then the scene behind the door when it is opened. r you might draw a cat sniffing a vase, then running from spilled flowers and water.

7 6 alking pictures o be a true picture book, the pictures must be readable. A reader should be able to look at the pictures and understand what is happening in the words. When illustrate a story, make pictures that match what the words say. also take the readers beyond the written word, to help them get a better understanding of the story. Sometimes a picture can tell another story, in addition to portraying what the author wrote. his enriches the story and makes the pictures even more captivating. ou can see a secondary story unfolding in he Biggest, Best Snowman as Nell and her animal friends are making the snowman. n each page, the action shows a letter, starting with S. Eventually, the pages spell out S-N--W-M-A-N. n he Biggest, Best Snowman, had seven pages to show Little Nell and her friends making a snowman. he challenge was how to make a basic, repetitive action interesting. thought about how a mark is left in the snow as you roll it into a ball. made those marks into letters that spell out a word, creating another level of interest and learning on these pages. ake a simple statement, such as t was a beautiful morning, and draw what that looks like to you. hink of ways you can make a picture that goes with the statement, but that says much more to the reader. What season is it? What is the weather doing? Where are you? What do you see around you?

8 7 Color your world After m happy with my sketches, scan them into my computer. Now can make them bigger (or smaller) and arrange them on the page with the text. can move the text around to see where it fits best. When like what see, print out the pages. don t always get the page to look exactly the way want on the first try. By using the computer, can experiment with different angles and sizes. Sometimes work and work and still don t like anything ve done. hen, put it all aside, get a good night s sleep and try again the next morning. A piece of vellum, a heavy type of tracing paper, is taped over the computer printout that shows my sketches and the text. sing a pencil, trace the sketches onto the vellum. n the reverse side of the vellum, put down a base coat of color. While my final sketches are fairly complete, many details are added as color. Sometimes, like with the tiger cubs here, flip the sketch and make it face the other direction.

9 Now it s time to paint. use an unusual technique ve developed through trial and error. tape a piece of vellum, a translucent sheet of paper, over a printout of the pages m going to paint. hen redraw the picture on the vellum. Flipping the vellum over, start coloring the reverse side, creating an underpainting. he vellum gives a texture to some of the color and lets me leave the pencil marks undisturbed on the front. Later, turn the vellum back over and dry-mount the vellum to poster board (you could use a spray glue to mount yours). hen can lighten or darken areas and add more color, detail and texture. don t just use oil paint, however. use anything that will give me the look want for the page watercolor, crayons, colored pencils, chalk pastels and pencils. Sometimes my drawing board doesn t seem big enough to hold everything need for a final painting At the top of my drawing board are some of the tools use to add color to the final drawing. Artists call this mixture of different ways to color paint, pastels, crayons, pencils - in one painting mixed media. My paintings are created at the same size as you see them in the final book. ncluded in this book is a piece of vellum. t s the see-through paper in the front and back of the book. Carefully pull it out. ou ll have two letter-sized sheets that you can use to redraw your own sketches. Color part of your drawing on the reverse side of the vellum. urn it over. See how the translucency of the paper affects the color. Now finish coloring your drawing on the front side.

10 Start from sketch Now that you are familiar with some of the steps that take when illustrating a picture book, you re ready to make your own illustration. ou might even make several and put them together in a book format. ake the text from his Little Pig, just as Mrs. Siriano s classes did on the previous page or from another story, maybe something you ve written. hink about the text and what it means to you. hen, follow these steps to illustrate the story. ake your time and think about your work. ou don t have to rush enjoy yourself 1 Get a little help ou may need to find a reference for parts of your drawings. Look for an example in your own books or at the library. 5 6 Get a move on How can you put action into your pictures? hink about ways to surprise the reader by creating two sequential drawings to communicate part of the story. alking pictures Make your pictures tell a second story, one you can see only in the illustration Draw, draw again ake your time and draw lots of simple sketches to get an idea of what your final illustration will include. Look all around Consider the perspective for your drawing. Are you looking straight ahead, or from above, or maybe from below? Looks do count How can you portray your character? s it funny or sad? s it an adult or a baby? Does it wear clothes? s it messy or neat? Sketch different looks. 7 Color your world Carefully remove the vellum from the front and back of this book. edraw one of your drawings on it. se anything you have to add color to the picture crayons, colored pencils, watercolors, tempera paint. a-da Now you ve made your first book illustration. ou can see how much fun have at work everyday. Even if you don t become an illustrator, remember it s always interesting to think about things in different ways.