It has been awhile since I've posted. The winter has slowed me down, but I've also been keeping busy. I started an online course back in January called "Illustrating Books for Children" with Joy Chu, art director, awesome teacher, and author of the blog Got Story Countdown. I just finished my last assignment, a 32-page dummy. For those who don't know, a dummy is a mock-up or "sketch" version of a picture book. Joy emphasized that we keep our drawings very simple because this stage of illustration is used to work out the important storytelling and to establish character, composition, sequencing, pacing, and readability. That last part is harder than it seems - there were times when I didn't question that what I was depicting was obvious, but then found out that someone was confused by it. Very important to get right!
I'm keeping this post brief because I'm feeling tired today (still recovering from staying up till 4 in the morning to complete the last assignment!), but here is some of the work I produced for the class. Each of the assignments was based off a pre-existing story, but modified or changed in some way to make the story our own. At first I was hoping to write my own original stories (the closest to that was my last assignment), but I realized it was a good thing we weren't trying to work on the writing and illustration at the same time. That would have been too much! Also, the emphasis was on being able to convey a story for the most part wordlessly, without relying on text as a crutch to explain what was going on. enjoy these little snippets, and I'll be back with more detailed descriptions later! You may also view all of my work for the class here.
I'm keeping this post brief because I'm feeling tired today (still recovering from staying up till 4 in the morning to complete the last assignment!), but here is some of the work I produced for the class. Each of the assignments was based off a pre-existing story, but modified or changed in some way to make the story our own. At first I was hoping to write my own original stories (the closest to that was my last assignment), but I realized it was a good thing we weren't trying to work on the writing and illustration at the same time. That would have been too much! Also, the emphasis was on being able to convey a story for the most part wordlessly, without relying on text as a crutch to explain what was going on. enjoy these little snippets, and I'll be back with more detailed descriptions later! You may also view all of my work for the class here.
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