Category Archives: Illustrator’s Perspective

Giving It Away for Free: Keys to Promoting Your Book at Events

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective, Tips and Tools

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

by Stan Yan, Author and Illustrator

This is the second part in a two-part series where I discuss keys to promoting my bedtime picture book, There’s a Zombie in the Basement, inspired by my 3-year-old son who wouldn’t come down to my basement studio, fearfully pointing at my zombie artwork on the walls. I’ve been promoting my other work at comic and fan conventions since 2001, but I’ve learned a lot about them and applied it specifically to promoting my book. You don’t have to feel overwhelmed by conventions and events! Read on for my keys to standing out and selling your work.

Continue reading →

Failing Before You Start: The Key Steps I Ignored to Crowdfund My Picture Book

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective, Tips and Tools

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

by Stan Yan, Author and Illustrator

This is the first part in a two-part series where I will discuss my “missteps” in crowdfunding my picture book, There’s a Zombie in the Basement, because sometimes you have to risk going against conventional wisdom to bring your book into the world.

In 2013, my primary job was drawing zombie caricatures at conventions. One day, my 3-year-old son wouldn’t come down to my basement studio, fearfully pointing at my zombie artwork on the walls. This inspired my foray into kidlit, which taught me some lessons.

Ignored Step #1: Don’t Self-Publish. Continue reading →

Emma Chichester Clark’s TOTO Illustration Process and Her Muse—Her Dog, Plum

08 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Illustrator's Perspective

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Emma Chichester Clark is the illustrator of the beautiful middle-grade chapter book, Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz. Its 250+ full-color images showcase Chichester Clark’s signature style.

CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! In Toto, you collaborate once again with author, Michael Morpurgo. How does illustrating well-known stories differ from working on new fiction? Does having a dog as the narrator change your focus when you work on the art?

EMMA CHICHESTER CLARK: In fact, it’s my sixth collaboration with Michael. We have also done versions of Pinocchio, Aesop’s Fables, Hansel and Gretel, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and a Christmas story called The Best of Times. Almost all of them were about well-known characters and I had to find my own ideas about that. This is a challenge because the images we all already know so well are imprinted in our heads. With each character, I have to draw and redraw them, over and over again, until I find someone that belongs to me but who is, at the same time, true to the character I’m representing. [In Toto], having a dog as the narrator was the most fun of all because I adore dogs. I have one, Plum, who is not unlike Toto in appearance and I spend a lot of my time trying to interpret what is going on in her doggy brain.

CVZ: You are also an author. Please give us some insight into your process, both as an illustrator and an author-illustrator.

Continue reading →

Author/Illustrator Stan Yan on Quitting Your Day Job, Joining the Con Circuit, & Halloween Picture Book Scares

27 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective, Industry Conferences

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

I met Stan Yan, a Denver-based writer/illustrator, caricature artist, and instructor, at his booth at San Diego Comic this year. I’m a bit of a zombie-aficionado and could not resist checking out his kids’ picture book – There’s a Zombie in the Basement (Squid Works Kids). We got to talking, and, when I found out he is an SCBWI member, I knew I had to interview him. He went to school at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he got his bachelor’s degree in accounting, but gave up on financial security to become a full-time freelance cartoonist. Stan also teaches summer camps, after-school programs, workshops, and helped to develop a degree program in graphic storytelling as an adjunct faculty member at the Community College of Aurora. His other recent credits include art and colors for Show Devils (Mother Mind Studios) and writing and art for Vincent Price Presents (BlueWater Productions / Storm Comics).

Sarah Parker-Lee: You’ve written and illustrated comics and books with horror themes for adults and older readers, but There’s a Zombie in the Basement is a picture book for kids. How did that come about? Were you worried it might be too scary?

Stan Yan: Even though I spent most of my life doing more adult-oriented comic book work, some of my major inspirations growing up were picture books, including anything Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. While many of my family continued to badger me to do children’s books, I had no interest until my son was almost 4 years old. One day, he wouldn’t come downstairs to my basement studio, and when asked why, he said he was afraid. When asked what he was afraid of, he started pointing at all of my zombie artwork decorating the walls. Over the next hour, I wrote the fast draft version of my rhyming bedtime storybook.

As I worked on the artwork I wanted it to be a bit unsettling at the beginning, not unlike Sendak’s Wild Things. And, it was precisely my fascination with these unsettling Wild Things that kept me checking that book out from the library as a kid. Of course, by the end of the story, they’re no longer scary, which is what I was going for too.

SPL: As a writer and illustrator, you’ve spent a lot of time with “horror” themes, monsters, and the like. Any advice for other kid lit writers/illustrators looking to translate some of these things into spooky stories kids can enjoy?  Continue reading →

Author and Illustrator Mary Ann Fraser’s Lessons After 60 Published Books and Counting

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective, Tips and Tools

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

mary_ann_fraser_400Mary Ann Fraser is the author/illustrator of 60 fiction and non-fiction books for children. Her latest picture book, Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call (Charlesbridge), was published in August.

Fraser is also the Regional Advisor for SCBWI’s Central-Coastal Region. She talks to Kite Tales about her prolific career and shares lessons learned over the years.

Erlina Vasconcellos: Congratulations on your new book, a nonfiction look into the childhood of Alexander Graham Bell. How did you choose him as the subject?

Mary Ann Fraser: First, thank you for the opportunity to share my journey toward this latest book. As always, I am so grateful for the support and encouragement of my friends and peers that make up this amazing community we call SCBWI.

alex_graham_bell_jkt

In 2012 my husband and I visited the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. I was amazed at Bell’s endless curiosity, inventiveness, and desire to help others, particularly the deaf, and was struck by how his life’s work seemed inevitable from the time he was a young lad. His mother was deaf and his father and grandfather were speech therapists. At the museum bookstore, I asked if they had any picture books on Bell. The cashier said they didn’t but wished they did. That’s when bells (excuse the pun) started ringing, and I realized I had my next project.

EV: After 60 books, how do you stay inspired and keep things fresh? Is your method for generating ideas different from when you began?

Continue reading →

Debut Author and Illustrator Jennie Palmer: A Speedy Path to Publishing

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective, Tips and Tools

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Jennie Palmer. Photo by Serena CreativeThe book industry is filled with tales of people who toil on a story for years before being published. Author and illustrator, Jennie Palmer, isn’t one of them.

Palmer had taken classes on the art and craft of picture books at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she was an illustration major. After graduating, she put that knowledge aside when she became a production designer whose credits include work on the television show Blue’s Clues and 12 years designing floats and balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

And then came the idea for a picture book about witches – a glimmer of an idea that solidified as she was cleaning up after her family’s weekly pizza night.

In 2014, she attended her first SCBWI Summer Conference with an outline. She didn’t have a dummy or a portfolio, but three years later that story, The Wompananny Witches Make One Mean Pizza, would be published by Abrams.

Continue reading →

Author/Illustrator & Nickelodeon Story Artist Ashlyn Anstee on Pitching an Agent & Leveling Up Your Illustrator Skills

04 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

 Ashlyn Anstee is a story artist at Nickelodeon on Harvey Beaks as well as the author/illustrator of Are We There, Yeti? and No, No, Gnome! (Simon & Schuster, 2015 & 2016), a comic artist, film maker, and devourer of cookies. She talks with us about finding her agent through SCBWI, how professional relationships are just like any other relationship, and how she keeps her skills sharp.

Sarah Parker-Lee: You’re an illustrator, author, and storyboard artist for animation. Which came first and how do you find time for both?!

Ashlyn Anstee: It helps that all of them are a little different, so it’s actually been fun to jump between them, thank goodness. I started out first as a reader–I was a voracious reader as a kid (and my mom’s a teacher-librarian). I didn’t really start to draw until my teens. I fell in love with animation, and it wasn’t until I graduated from college that I started to rediscover illustration and kids’ books. I find writing the hardest, so I’ve been focusing on that, lately!

SPL: For those unfamiliar, can you tell us a little about being a story artist? How does it compare to illustrating a book? Continue reading →

Marla Frazee: From Picture Book to Big Screen

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

The Boss Baby, a 32-page picture book written and illustrated by Marla Frazee was published in 2010 (S&S, Beach Lane). Since the book’s publication, more than 200,000 copies have been sold and, in 2016, Frazee followed up with a sequel, The Bossier Baby, introducing the Boss Baby’s infant sister. On March 31, 2017, the animated DreamWorks film was released with Alec Baldwin voicing the main character. Frazee’s book depicts the newborn as a tiny suit-wearing boss who dictates the household. Simon Spotlight released several movie tie-in editions—two board books, a junior novelization, and a leveled reader—and the original picture books have been labeled as the inspiration for the movie.

Christine Van Zandt: Has being part of SCBWI contributed to your career?

MARLA FRAZEE: I have a career because of SCBWI. I attended my first conference in the early 1980s; Jane Yolen was working the main desk and Trina Schart Hyman gave a keynote. I think there were 80 people in attendance. After that, I went to the national conference as often as I could afford to and I attended local Southern California conferences, too. I tried to introduce myself to the speakers, which was super hard because I felt so shy about doing it and I didn’t have much to say. But I forced myself. During those years I was also sending illustration samples to art directors and picture book projects to editors, so I would occasionally meet someone who I’d sent something to. A few of them recognized my name and told me they liked my work. Those exchanges truly kept me going. I met Linda Zuckerman, who at the time was an editor at HarperCollins, at a local conference, and she eventually became my first editor. And 25 years ago, after meeting at Illustrators Day, I became part of a critique group—which is still going strong. Continue reading →

Writers & Illustrators Day 2017: Lynn Becker, An Illustrator’s Perspective

17 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Illustrator's Perspective, Writers Days

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

WID-ByLynnBecker2Author and SCBWI member Lynn Becker reports on this year’s Writers & Illustrator’s Day.

This year, the Los Angeles Writers & Illustrators Day at the Skirball Cultural Center added a strong illustrator component to the mix. Along with a double dose of illustrator challenges and paid portfolio reviews, there were two breakout sessions specifically geared toward illuminating the intersection of picture book art and text. These presentations offered a chance for writers and illustrators alike to think about picture books as intertwined parts of a medium. Continue reading →

Brian Won: Author/Illustrator Perspective, Writers & Illustrators Day Faculty

10 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Author's Perspective, Contests & Grants, Illustrator's Perspective, Writers Days

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Author/illustrator Brian Won was one of SCBWI’s 2016 Crystal Kite Award recipients and faculty for this year’s Los Angeles Writers & Illustrators Day, where he was a judge for the illustration contests and critiqued illustrator portfolios. He wore many hats–busboy, shoe salesman, library shelver, art director, and designer before making the leap to children’s books. Brian graduated from California’s Art Center College of Design with an honorary ninth term before co-founding National Television, a design and animation company. Read on for his insights and advice to author/illustrators and thoughts on illustrating for others as well as news about his current and upcoming projects!

Continue reading →