Merry Christmas!

                                                ©2013 Deborah Melmon

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a 

happy and creative New Year!

The Picture Book Junkies

Summer with Albert and Wanda

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.  Before we see the last of August, I thought I'd show you what I have been up to with the latest editions of Mouse Math by Kane Press. 

Albert decides to make a beach of his own in the People's backyard sandbox in "A Beach for Albert," written by Eleanor May. The only problem is how to fill up his "beach" with water. Albert learns a big lesson on Volume and Capacity in this story. 

As he begins his plan to fill up a "pool" with his own tiny bucket, he soon realizes it will take him the  rest of summer to get the water high enough so that all the mice can go swimming. 

That's where Albert's creative thinking comes in. And, of course, his older sister, Wanda, is not all together sure he knows what he is doing.

 In "Albert is Not Scared," also written by Eleanor May, Albert and Wanda visit Mousey World and this time, it is Albert who is unsure of the amousement park rides. He's not really afraid....he just doesn't like rides that go up and down, or left and right, or around and around.

Albert decides he will go on the Chew-Chew Train, because it only goes "forward," but what happens when Albert and Wanda accidently get in the wrong line for the train? This super fun and fast story teaches Direction Words.

These books are the eighth and ninth books in the adorable Mouse Math series and are available on Amazon.  Additional materials can be downloaded on the Kane Press website. I'm currently illustrating the next book in the series which involves Albert baking in the kitchen!

What's On My Desk? PBJ Postcards!

What's heading out my door to publishers everywhere? These oversized postcards featuring work from all five of the Picture Book Junkies! I'm excited to roll these out along with our new branding. I'm lucky to know Roz Fulcher, Alicia Padrón, Kathy Weller and Deb Melmon. You'd be lucky to work with any of them. OK, me (Gina Perry) too. This is a self-promo after all!

Back to School with Lilla Rogers

Well, we've wrapped up the first session of Lilla Rogers' e-course, Making Art That Sells. Five weeks went by so fast! We have a couple of months off, and then Part B starts up in the Fall. Can't wait!

The assignment for this final week was to create a Hyper Lush zipper bag. Basically you throw in tons and tons of imagery. Busy is good. I fight with this concept all the time in my picture book work as I can get very busy and have to edit, edit, edit. But with this assignment it was all ok. Open the flood gates!

I added patterns, textures and icons from previous projects with this class, and also from some of my past picture books. There is a flower pattern from "Picnic at Camp Shalom," and photos of flowers from my garden. This project is great for mixing photography and painted art.

The work that has come out of this class is outstanding. I've learned so much, not only from a licensing point of view, but also techniques that I can carry over into my picture book work.

Lilla's class starts again in the Fall. If you have the time, I highly recommend it. You can find all the information on her website here. 

Back to School with Lilla Rogers

One of my goals this year was to spend a little more time on personal art projects that would stretch me a bit, loosen up the creative flow and just allow me to play around. Unfortunately, I tend to put personal things on the back burner when I'm busy with deadlines for clients. And then a whole year goes by and suddenly you realize you've done nothing about what was once such a great idea!

So when I saw the posting for Lilla Rogers e-course on Making Art That Sells, I thought it would a perfect opportunity for me to get charged up to create and experiement with some new art and have a specific framework of goals to keep me on track. The class is five weeks and each week we explore a different aspect of the licensing world. This week happened to be picture books.

The story we illustrated was a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson called the "Snail and the Rose Tree."  We could illustrate the cover of the book, or a spread, but the requirements were that we needed to create a compelling character (the snail), an environment, and incorporate some hand-lettering.

The snail was a thinker, but also pompous and arrogant and he sheltered in place his whole life living within his shell.

But the rose tree lived a very charmed and easy life with great meaning, blooming year after year.

There are only a few days allowed to complete the assignments, so I had to limit the amount of time I obsessed over this piece. Otherwise, I probably would never have finished it. I learned some new things with the hand-lettered type (not so easy to do, but adds a lot of charm to an illustration). Drawing from life for reference keeps elements of the illustration from being too generic looking. I tend to draw from my head, but if I look at reference, I can find all kinds of little details that make the illustration more interesting. The green vine growing over the snail was a plant I found out on my morning walk and I added it in at the very end. One of my favorite elements as it gives the feeling that the snail has been sitting in the same spot for a very long time!

Lilla Rogers is an international licensing agent, teacher, author and award-winning artist. You can visit her website here. This class will be offered again in October.

It's a Puppy Parade!

Last year I illustrated a book called "Ready or Not, Here Comes Scout!" Written by Jill Abramson & Jane O'Connor, the picture book, published by Viking,  is based on Jill's real-life pup, Scout. I posted some images from the book last fall, which you can see here.

Well, Scout is back in a really cute Penguin Young Reader, called "Puppy Parade." It was so fun to get another turn to develop Scout's character.

 I worked with a fabulous Art Director, Giuseppe Castellano, and if you are a kidlit illustrator, you should definitely be following him on his Twitter feed! @pinocastellano.

The process I used to create the art was the same as the picture book. I painted Scout and the puppies traditionally, but created the backgrounds in photoshop. This gave me more options to move things around, but still keep a loose feel on the art and stay compatible with the first book.

In some respects, the book was easier to work on. The format was smaller and images were bigger and simpler. However, there were a few spreads showing the town, the crowd and all the puppies that were a bit more labor intensive. A bit of controlled chaos....!

A second Penguin Reader is in the works with artwork beginning later this year.

What I'm Working on This Month

©Deborah Melmon 2013

Having a great time working on several jobs this month. One of the more brain-teasing projects is work for Highlights on new Hidden Picture Books for the very young. I was thinking very young meant "very easy," but I was wrong. Hidden picture puzzles take some doing to find creative and interesting ways to hide objects! Since the puzzles are in color, you can't just add objects willy, nilly. They have to fit the illustration so that their color is reasonable in a real world context, i.e. no blue tomatoes. And objects can't be hidden in logical places either.  If you're going to hide a leaf, it can't be in a tree :) So far I've hidden a zipper in a stalk of corn, a mop in a haystack, and a horseshoe in a trumpet. Some have come easy, and some I've had to work at, but it's been super fun to combine a puzzle with an illustration.

It's Publishing Day!

It's publishing day at Amazon Children's Publishing for Baby Wants Mama, which was written by Nancy Loewen and illustrated by me!

At the end of the day, everyone in the family wants something....but what do they ALL want? Dinner!

© 2013 Deborah Melmon

Baby wants Mama.

Cat wants Fish.

Daddy wants supper.

Pup wants Dish.

The sparse text was a dream to illustrate as it gave me so much room to have fun and play with lots of fun details. I envisioned each page with big, colorful images. 

Here is the sketch for one of the spreads. I inked the line and painted each image on watercolor paper. I then scanned in the images, cleaned them up and added details like stripes on the sweaters and dots on the baby's clothing. I was also able to adjust skin color so that all the images looked consistent.

Baby Wants Mama is available on Amazon with a "look inside" so you can see more images.

This is the second book I have illustrated for Amazon Children's Publishing. Give Up, Gecko!, written by Margaret Read MacDonald, was released earlier this year. 

Look What I Got in the Mail!

Always the best part of illustrating a picture book....the big box of books that arrive on the doorstep and  finally getting to see it all put together! This is my latest, "Baby Wants Mama," written by Nancy Loewen and published by Amazon Picture Books. It releases on May 7th. You can read more about the book on Nancy's website here.

©Deborah Melmon 2013

 

The Author-Illustrator Relationship

I've been meaning to post about this picture book for some time now. A friend of mine is a teacher and read it to her classroom and knew that I would love it, since I am a picture book illustrator.

Have you ever wondered what makes a picture book successful? The story or the pictures? Author or illustrator? In reality, one cannot live without the other. But this story about Chloe and the Lion has a very funny tug-of-war side-story between the clay figures of Mac Barnett (author) and Adam Rex (illustrator). This video, produced by DisneyHyperion will definitely give you a few laughs.

The art in the book was made with basswood, balsa wood, oil and acrylic paints, pencil, Sculpey clay, modified doll clothing, toilet paper, photography, and Photoshop. So fun!

You can see more of Adam Rex's artwork here.

My Latest Picturebook is Out!

 Over the weekend I recieved a big box of books! "Give Up, Gecko!" is a picturebook I illustrated last year for Amazon Picture Books. The author is the prolific Margaret Read MacDonald, who has written over 60 books.

This book is the retelling of a Ugandan folktale about animals searching for water by stomping a big hole. None of the animals are successful until a tiny Gecko takes a turn. He's determine and he's not going to give up!

The book is a fun read for kids to participate in as there is lots of chanting by the animals. Here are some of the illustrations of the Gecko stomping. 

The book is available on Amazon where you can get a sneak peek into more of the interior illustrations.

Happy New Year!

Very excited to announce that the Mouse Math series for Kane Press has three new titles being released sometime this month. A great way to start the new year! Albert and his sister Wanda and fellow "Squeak Scouts" have quite an adventure exploring the attic in "Count Off, Squeak Scouts!" written by Laura Driscoll.

I had such a great time illustrating this story because the attic was full of clutter! The tiny mice scurry all over the attic, while their troop leader, Agnes, keeps track of them by asking them to count off the numbers on their vests. Great for teaching young ones how to count to five.

This book, plus "Mice on Ice" and "Albert's Big Idea" are available on Amazon for pre-order.

Christmas Shopping

Are you looking for a great gift to buy your favorite illustrator? (Like maybe you???) The Art of Peter de Seve is one of my all time favorite books. I purchased it for myself earlier this year and find inspiration (and major envy!) in every page. 

Peter de Seve is a prolific artist, probably most known for covers of the New Yorker Magazine and character design in numerous animated films, including the Ice Age series. This guy designed my

favorite character of all time, Scrat...:)

And this image from the cover of the New Yorker.....I still have this one in my inspiration file of art that I've collected over the years.

Click onto the Peter de Seve website to see so much of his art and process. He has a store!

Monday Crunchies

These days, I've been lucky to be working on several projects that are books in series. I am working on a sequel to Underpants, Thunderpants! for Parragon UK, and the Mouse Math series for Kane Press.

Here are a few characters you will see later next year in a Penguin Level 1 Reader, which is part of the Puppy Diaries series that I am working on, written by Jill Abramson and Jane O'Connor. Ready or Not, Here Comes Scout! released a couple of months ago, is a picture book Jill wrote about her puppy, Scout, and companion book to her adult book Puppy Diaries. You can read about it here. She and her sister, Jane, are continuing on with Scout's adventures in this adorable reader, with another one to follow. Can't wait to share them with you!

Ready or Not!

I worked on a book last January for Viking that was written by Jill Abramson and Jane O'Connor. Jill is the Executive Editor of the New York Times and her sister is the author of many children's books, including the Fancy Nancy Books. Ready or Not, Here Comes Scout! is about Jill's puppy, a goofy and over-eager, cream-colored Golden Retriever and her adventures at the dog park.

I go to the dog park every day. I have my own goofy, over-eager Airedale Terrier named Mack, who demands time with his dog buddies, so the book seemed like a perfect fit for me. The hard part was that it was on a fast track to get published and ride the coat-tails of Jill's adult book called Puppy Diaries, that had just been released. 

Now that the book is out and on the book shelves, I have forgotten all the late nights and panic to make the publisher's deadlines. But, I have not forgotten Scout. I am currently working on two new books about Scout. Written by Jill and Jane, they are Level Two readers for Penguin. 

©Deborah Melmon

It's fun to work on books that are a series. Obvisously, because the character is already worked out, it is much easier and quicker to get started. And a second book gives you a chance to get better. I feel like we're just hitting our stride!

Lynne Chapman

                                                            © Lynne Chapman

You must check out Lynne Chapman's blog post today. She has posted a  fun video on how she creates her illustrations with pastel. She's working on a new book called Swap! about Lucy, who turns into a dog.  Very fun! Watch the video all the way to the end as she does with the palm of her hand what I do in Photoshop.  :) So cool to see an artist have the nerve to create artwork with delicate pastels and not fear making a mistake. I guess it's much like painting in watercolor. I, on the otherhand, would have put that delicate pattern on the chair in a photoshop layer!

Also check out her previous posts, as Lynne generously talks about her process throughout the creation of this book. She is just one of my favorite children's illustrators!

Mouse Math

So excited to see that the Mouse Math series of books that I worked on through the winter have been released. Four books are out now and I'm working away on four more super cute stories. The concepts for these books are first class. Math fundamentals intertwined into the lives of Albert and Wanda and all their mouse friends. You can see them here at Kane Press. They are also available on Amazon. Perfect for ages four and up.

The PBJ's will be doing a fun celebration week in September and, of course, a book giveaway. So stay tuned!

Monday Inspiration: Pascal Campion

I've been very busy working on sketches for several projects. Although I love what I do, the mundane existance of sitting at my computer day after day grows tiring. To keep myself from going totally bananas, I like to listen to interviews with other artists. A great source is Schoolism. Although most of the artist that are interviewed are animators, rather than picturebook artists, their interviews are so inspiring and translate to any field of creativity. One of the common themes that runs through all the interviews is the dedication and hard work that successful artists put into their careers. It does not happen overnight. It is hours and hours, day after day of hard work that makes an artist who he is.

Today I stumbled on Pascal Campion on the Facebook newsfeed. I'm sort of embarrassed that I don't know anything about  him as he has a huge international following and lives right here in San Francisco. He is all about drawing everyday and pulling from your emotions to tell a story. Here is a link to a beautiful film about him on Vimeo.

Campion is a French-american illustrator and animator, working for Dreamworks, Disney TV, PBS, to name a few. He believes that art and talent is not something that you are magically given at birth. The art of drawing is purely mechanical. The more you practice the better you get. (There is that theme again..) There is no secret involved, no formulas, no crutch. If you want to become an artist...DRAW!

You can find more about Pascal on his website. Especially his store....there are at least 100 prints for sale!