Featured Illustrator: John Shelley

This month's Featured Illustrator is our Friday editor, John Shelley. Having formerly lived in Tokyo for many years, John has developed a uniquely international career, working directly with publishers in Japan and the USA as well as the UK on over 50 books. But how did his journey start? 
Check the Featured Illustrator Gallery to see a broad selection of illustration from John's recent titles. 

The Banner

from Crinkle, Crackle, Crack! (Holiday House USA, 2015)

The banner illustration is from my next picture book, Crinkle, Crackle, Crack!, written by Marion Dane Bauer, released in January. A child wakes at night and is guided by a bear through the cold, dark winter towards a nameless destination. Joined by other animals, they eventually find a giant egg that bursts to reveal the warmth and colour of Spring. Crinkle, Crackle, Crack! is a book very close to my heart. Though written by Marion, it's also my story, I've often felt like a child stumbling along an unexplored path towards an intangible goal in the dark. 

Where it Started

The truth is I've only reached this far down the path through luck.

The shipwreck from Peer Gynt, on the left from my music study book aged
around 12 or 13, on the right the same scene from the picture book Peer Gynt 
 (Hyoronsha, Tokyo, 1990), drawn when I was 30. Some things don't change!

I was the quiet mouse of the school classroom with an obsession for doodling and collecting Airfix plastic models. I covered the margins of school books (and sometimes desktops) with renderings of old battles and dogfights, painting model aeroplanes and Napoleonic soldiers were my first lessons in how to handle a detail brush. When Sutton Coldfield was incorporated into Birmingham City Council all our school books were replaced by new ones, which meant I had loads of old and unused exercise books to scribble away in, my first stroke of luck! I spent a lot of time filling these up with my versions of Commando war comics in the style of Josè Maria Jorge, my first big art hero. Through his work I learned a lot about light and shadow. At the same time through my local library children's illustrators like Edward Ardizzone and Alfred Bestall instilled a love of fantasy.

When I was fourteen, my dad bought me for Christmas a set of the Adrian Hill "teach yourself" guides to drawing and painting, and I turned to sketching things directly from life, still entirely in ballpoint pen on old exercise books. 2nd bit of luck... one day the class bully threw my school bag across the art room, scattering the contents everywhere.... Out came all my sketchbooks and drawings, to the surprise of the art teachers, who barely seemed to have noticed me until then. I was "discovered", suddenly the class mouse became the class master artist. For some reason I never got around to thanking the bully. 

School exercise books turned into Biro sketch pads

Here's the third stroke of luck - at the seaside in Cornwall one year I picked up a couple of whimsical bookmarks as souvenirs. My holiday reading was pretty dull, but something about the illustrations on these bookmarks sucked me in like no other art ever had before. They were organic, they were mysterious, like windows into another world. I found out they were by Arthur Rackham - soon I was engrossed in the world of Edwardian "Golden Age" illustrators: Rackham, Heath-Robinson, Dulac, and later Beardsley, I was enraptured, entranced - THIS was what I wanted to do with my life. Now I spent my time in the deepest, dark woods of Sutton Park looking for mythical creatures. If before I had my head in the clouds flying Spitfires, now I was definitely away with the fairies - there really was no hope.

I was impatient, I wanted to be an illustrator, now. So I spent sixth form years writing a sprawling fantasy novel. It seemed a logical way to begin - write the book so I could illustrate it! After being sensibly rejected by two publishers, the manuscript was consigned to my dad's loft. I swore I'd never write a children's story again, packed my bags and set off for art school.

How NOT to submit a novel - one sole copy, close typed on a 1930's Corona
typewriter from notebooks (school exercise books again), no editing whatsoever...
and if you wonder if I'm going to show you the quaintly derivative illustrations,
think again! Argh!

Manchester and London

My fourth bit of luck was being accepted onto the Illustration course at Manchester Polytechnic, run by Tony Ross. This was 1978, Manchester was a factory of iconic music that brought me screaming into the contemporary world. Tony and the other tutors did their best to shake up my illustrations too - out with goblins and fairies, in with urban streets, primary colours and strong character. They were right, I had to move on, develop, constantly refresh! On the last day of the degree course in an act of post-punk pantomime I threw most of my student work out of the college window.

Whilst dabbling with music journalism for a year I worked on a new portfolio, and so came another lucky break, my first ever commission from Jill Coleman at A & C Black, to illustrate Fatbag, a children's novel by then-unknown Jeremy Strong, a book which still remains in print in paperback with my black & white drawings today, 32 years later. Other book commissions for text illustration followed - Get Lavinia Goodbody! (Andersen Press) and A Canoe in the Mist (Jonathan Cape). By 1984 I was in a communal art studio in London sharing a room with Jane Ray, being fed a steady diet of pen & ink editorial jobs and colour book jackets.

London opened my eyes to art from other eras and countries. I began researching styles that had influenced my illustration heroes, particularly Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints... a new world was sucking me in. Pam Royds at André Deutsch then gave me my first trade picture book commission, Val Willis's The Secret in the Matchbox. 

from The Secret in the Matchbox (Andre Deutsch/Farrar, Straus & Giroux) 1988

However this proved to be the last thing I did in the UK. A chance attendance at a Japanese festival in Battersea had pulled me into the Anglo-Japanese community in London, the lure of the East had it's grip on me. The Secret in the Matchbox was a big success, especially in the US, and led on to two more follow-ups. In the UK I was runner-up for the Mother Goose Award but my publisher had to receive the award on my behalf, for by then I was in Tokyo.

Japan

A year off in Japan seemed like a great idea - zip out, study the culture and language, zip back and carry on in old London town. Clients would hardly know I was gone. Oh little did I know! After months of soaking up the atmosphere in Tokyo's downtown Yanesen area and watching my funds evaporate, in another stroke of luck I was introduced to fashionable Parco Department Store. Parco commissioned me to do a series of posters, which led on to other big advertising jobs. Suddenly I was the latest "thing" from London. A simpler stripped down graphic version of my children's book style seemed to hit a nerve with the Japanese zeitgeist, one year turned into two, then five - in the end I spent twenty-one years as the resident overseas illustrator in Japan (also fashion model/actor and sometime DJ, though that's another story!).

At the peak of things in the early 90's you couldn't get on a train without seeing my drawings somewhere.

I also continued to illustrate children's books, including some self written and translated into Japanese. On the whole, Japanese publishers approached me with very clear ideas of what they wanted. I was an authentic European illustrator so was often asked to work in a traditional English style on folk tales like Cinderella, The Month Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen or Jack and the Beanstalk. Editors felt I could give a more faithful rendering to these stories than Japanese artists.

Various picture books for Japanese publishers

The Ball, from Cinderella (Hikari no Kuni, 1996)

I particularly loved illustrating Japanese translations of Western novels that had no illustration in their original UK/US editions, like Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone books, or works that required a style more acceptable to Japanese tastes than their original Western editions, like Robin Jarvis's The Deptford Mice.

Text illustration to the Japanese edition of Charlie Bone 
and the Castle of Mirrors (Tokuma Shoten, 2006)

 

Cover and interior cut from the Japanese editions of The Deptford Mice 
(Hayakawa Shobo, 2004)

As times moved on, I shifted more and more away from advertising back towards children's publishing. The internet opened new avenues, I joined SCBWI in 2001 and soon after was persuaded to co-found the Tokyo chapter. I re-connected with Stephen Roxburgh, the US editor who had bought the rights to Secret in the Matchbox, who commissioned me for new titles. I found an agent in the States. Through SCBWI I had the chance to travel to many countries, doors opened and connections were made that have led to several book commissions. 

from The Boat in the Tree by Tim Wynne-Jones (Front Street Inc, 2007)
editor Stephen Roxburgh

My first commission from Charlesbridge in the US was Julie Danneberg's
historical novel Family Reminders (2009), a connection with the publisher
first made through SCBWI at Bologna.

Then lady luck came knocking again, only this time it wasn't good fortune she brought.

Return to the UK

At the end of 2007 my wife died very suddenly and unexpectedly. Soon after, in the consequent fall out, I found myself with my 4-year old daughter on a plane back to the UK. Everything changed once again. I'd been away for 21 years, it felt like starting over again from scratch. Fortunately I had friends in children's publishing. I especially thank all my dear colleagues in SCBWI British Isles for the support I received since our return here, I'm indebted to you all.

Returning to the UK has had a very beneficial effect on my work. Largely freed from editors with stylistic agendas, my books in recent years are closer to my core as an illustrator than they've ever been. 

From Marion Dane Bauer's Halloween Forest (Holiday House, 2012)

I'm creeping down that uncharted path of creativity with ever greater curiosity. Almost like the theme of my last book Stone Giant, I feel as if my art is going through a personal renaissance.

from Stone Giant - Michelangelo's David and How He Came to Be
written by Jane Sutcliffe (Charlesbridge, USA, 2014)

So, like the child in Crinkle, Crackle, Crack!, whatever bumps and potholes are on the way, as long as I keep drawing, exploring and following the path, all will be well. I feel luckier than ever now. And I've my own three warm, fluffy companions - my daughter, my cat ...and SCBWI!

from Crinkle, Crackle, Crack! (Holiday House USA, 2015)

Publishing Tips

It's tough to maintain a career as a children's illustrator today. The key is to diversify, explore widely and think laterally. Identify where your work fits in and exploit opportunities.

Always maintain the integrity of your imaginative world. Developing your style to the requirements of the marketplace is important, but never lose sight of the essence of what it is that makes you draw or paint. Your personality should flow through your work. Like chameleons we match our styles to the market, but our DNA remains the same. 

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John Shelley is the Illustration Feature Editor of Words & Pictures and current Central East Network coordinator. See more of his recent work in our Featured Illustrator Gallery

John's website is  www.jshelley.com.
His English language blog is Shelley Scraps. 
Twitter: @Godfox
art@jshelley.com

Children’s Magazines and the Working Illustrator

One page of an 11 spread story,
Doudou du Loup,
for Belles Histoires Oct 2012
© Bridget Strevens-Marzo

Illustration is not only for books! With broad experience of working internationally in a wide range of published media, Bridget Strevens-Marzo looks at opportunities to work for children's magazines in this country and overseas.


Have you ever considered working for US or French children’s monthly magazines as a worthwhile sideline to your career as a children’s book illustrator?   If you are starting out, seeing your work in print for the first time will give you some hope.  If you are published, perhaps there is a gap  to fill between the last book advance and the next.  That’s how I first started, filling in gaps to keep my bank account in the black.

Why not UK children’s magazines?  Well I’d be curious to know if anyone is getting decent pay from original illustration work here.  Please say if you are!   What happened,  for example, to the lavishly illustrated Look and Learn and their stories, features and games? Aside from increased production costs, I suspect it was all about hard competition with good children’s TV not to mention the licensed TV character take-over of UK kids magazines. From the 1980s most of those titles offered far less, if any, space for original illustration. The good news now is that some new and exciting print magazines are now seeing the light, including Okido (for 3-8s) Anorak (for 6-12) and the bi-monthly Stew.  Fingers crossed that they’ll prove as successful as the US and French magazines.  That way they will be able pay illustrators properly and let’s hope they can then call upon an increasing variety of talent.

American and French children’s magazines which are mostly monthlies, have survived ups and downs and pay illustrators fairly, thanks to  a large and loyal family of subscribers, good distribution and arguably less competition from quality TV.  Highlights magazine is the oldest established magazine -  for 6-12 year olds – of a range published by Highlights Corporation has been going for over 50 years.  Like many of the French magazines it is a veritable institution.

Small selection of Highlights High Five Mags

“The Highlights staff are a lovely bunch of people to work for" writes UK author-illustrator and active SCBWI member, Mike Brownlow.

“(Highlights High Five) gives me roughly two covers a year plus the occasional double page spread illustrating a story or a poem. They’re always polite and complimentary with lots of positive feedback, and they always pay on time. They’ve been a repeat client of mine for about 3 or 4 years now. I never did find out how they came across me, but I know they have links with SCBWI. They decided to award me ‘Best Cover of the Year’ for 2012, so I’ll always be fond of them.”  You can find out more about High Five here.

Here’s Mike’s Highlights High Five prize-winning cover

Like Mike, I’ve been illustrating a couple of stories a year in an occasional series for High Five.  For 4-5 illustrations on two spreads I get around $1800- 2000.  Some illustrators may perhaps balk at the work-for-hire terms – they buy both copyright and authorship.  I see it as all about quick turnover and a window onto another market – a refreshing counterbalance to the slow book publishing world  - and it keeps you busy!

Even more plentiful are French children’s magazines. I took this snap of a small area of the children’s magazine section in a French railway station this summer and you might think they all look pretty similar.  In the summer many come with freebies which sadly means you can’t flick through and marvel at the variety of features, stories and illustrations they contain. And inside they do look different, though full of variety. Each magazine is aimed at a distinct age group and market. Milan’s Toboggan for example, has a very different feel to it from Bayard’s counterpart for the same 3-7 age group, Pomme d’Api.

You don’t have to be French to work for French children’s magazines.  I know of Spanish and Japanese as well as several English illustrators who work for one or more of Bayard’s range of 27 magazines for children from 0- 16. One famous name long associated with Bayard is Helen Oxenbury who created a long term series Leo et Popi (Tom and Pippo in the US)  which gave its name to Bayard’s youngest magazine for 0-3 year olds Popi. Helen Stephens (guest illustrator at the SCBWI Picture Book retreat) has also worked for them more than once as you can see from this English language version of a story she illustrated for Belles Histoires.  She writes “I first met Bayard when they came to London to meet some British illustrators in about 2003 (ish) I think. They seemed to like my folio, but didn't get in touch. So the next time I was in Paris I went to see them, and a lovely relationship ensued!” 

The first page of Bayard’s English language Storybox magazine
with Helen Stephen’s illustrations to a story for Bayard’s Belles Histoires.

My own contact with Bayard started when I met David McKee of Elmer fame in Bologna in the late 1990s. I was then in publishing limbo and David suggested I show my work to an art director at Bayard Presse. He said he did the odd commission for Bayard and it was good for expanding your repertoire. It certainly did mine!

Around 15 years ago I started by illustrating countless graphic games for Bayard’s general magazine for 3-6 year olds in Bayard’s Pomme d’Api  which has been famous for its games features since the 1960s. I’d never have tackled  this kind of work in the UK and it taught me to be bolder and work with limited colour palettes. Some of these illustrations were the springboard for two big doodle books published by Bayard Editions co-edited with Tate Publishing UK in 2006 -7. The first, Les Petites Mains Dessinent has just been reprinted in paperback.

Bayards’s Popi, for babies and toddlers has very short stories and sometimes, like this spread I illustrated, a novelty element. In this instance, a baby rabbit you can punch out, and slot into bed.

Bayard’s Tralalire magazine for 2-5 year olds, also has the odd novelty element as well as great regular features by well-known names including Herve Tullet, UK illustrator Tor Freeman and Jennifer Darymple.

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In recent years I have been lucky to have had several commissions for the main story in Bayard’s Belles Histoires. At 11 spreads, this story is virtually a picture book though the magazine contains other features, including at least one comic and a science-based article.

You’ll find more information about the full range of Bayard’s 27 magazines here but to appreciate just how wide the range of types of illustrators they and other magazine publishers use for kids of all ages, it might even be worth going to the illustrator heaven of the French national kids book and press fair in Montreuil, Paris this year from November 28 - December 1 or at the very least spending some time in a newsagents in France.

If you want to work for magazines, you’ll have to be able to work to clear specifications and layouts – and be supple enough to adjust the content to the feedback they’ll give you on your roughs. As for payment – there are fixed prices. For an 11 spread story I am currently illustrating I will get €4000.  You’ll get a contract for a limited term of usage, which ensures you will get additional payment for any reprints in other children’s magazines across the world (and there are plenty from Spain to China) and the promise of a separate contract if ever your work becomes a book.

Talking of foreign reprints, here are some covers of Storybox
alongside a couple of Belles Histoires covers I did

Storybox is the youngest of the three monthly Bayard Box magazines for English speaking children. Like its older siblings, Adventure Box and Discovery Box (ages 9-12 ) it offers an excitingly varied compilation of features translated from several of the French magazines using the illustrations that went with them.  So there is no point submitting your work directly to the Box Magazines. There is every point in looking at them and considering a subscription for any English-speaking kids, school or library you know. You can see more about the kind of content they cover from the editor here.

Interested in getting in touch? Here are some links.

Marianne Vilcoq, my Bayard art director at Belles Histories and Tralalire, has kindly agreed to me sharing her name, if you’d like to send a PDF of samples to this address which she can pass on to another Bayard magazine if relevant. Like most French publishers, she’s happy to work in English with foreign illustrators.

Milan Presse, another reliable publisher, publish 17 children's monthlies as well as books. It is based in Toulouse, and in the past held an open day or ‘portes ouvertes’ for illustrators to meet with their ADs online or in person. There is talk of this happening again in June so follow this and practise your French.

Oh and don't forget that SCBWI has a Magazine Merit award! Deadline for submissions is Dec 15 in the year of publication.

Now I'd better get back to work on the next 11 spread story for Belles Histoires. 

Here’s a rough with a layout and  art director comments in yellow.
The final colour spreads for the January 2015 number are  due on September 20th
and I have not begun them yet – help!

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Bridget Strevens-Marzo is a former SCBWI board member and International Illustrator Coordinator. Based for many years in France, she now lives in London and is a key member of the illustrator's committee. www.bridgetstrevens.com