Getting Near to the End....

By Lynne Chapman

Yesterday I was out doing a school visit in Nottingham, but for all the rest of last week, I have been working away on my Swap! artwork. On Wednesday morning I finished off the school room illustration I was half way through last time we met: 

Since Wednesday was a nasty, overcast day (hence the slightly dingy-looking photo), I pulled the blinds and set-to at my light box, tracing up the last two pages I've yet to do. Of course that doesn't include the cover artwork and the front endpapers (which you remember are different from the back ones on this book, which I already coloured, just before the first batch of artwork went off to Frankfurt). At last the end of the actual story is in sight though.

I decided to tackle the other 'school chaos' illustration next, as I could use the image above as reference. It's so tricky making sure the various kids remain constant across the different spreads - who has teeth showing, who has freckles, which child has which hair colour, which hairstyle, which hair slides... 

I got it finished by mid-afternoon yesterday. This is Sparky's favourite part of the school day: the lunch hour. The publisher asked me not to make the food too obviously English, so I gave them a choice of pasta or good old sausages and mash. I don't know if you can make the food out - the light was bad again, so it's a wee bit fuzzy:

Before the end of the day, I just had time to sort out all my gear, ready for my visit to Ambleside Primary School, where I had a whole day with a single Y3 class, which is quite unusual. We started with an illustration workshop in the morning, then used the images we created to weave stories for a creative writing workshop in the afternoon. Great fun!

Creating the artwork for my new book

By Lynne Chapman

I'm a bit behind with my 'Swap! artwork, so no more time for filming: it been head-down-time this week.

This was my desk on Friday night. I have decided to treat myself to some bigger, bolder bits of artwork for the next few days, having focussed on vignettes for quite a few days now, which are so fiddly. The joy of these bigger, simpler images is that you cover vast areas of the paper really quickly, so get a great sense of achievement.

Of course, having blocked in the main areas, I still have to slow down and fill in all the detail, but at least I have the sensation of having got lots under my belt to start with.

I'm working on two at once like this when I can: it helps to speed things up when the images contain similar content. If you want to learn more about how I create my pastel artwork, take a look at my YouTube channel or the films page of my website. 

Filmed Demonstration: Creating a Picture Book Illustration in Pastels

By Lynne Chapman

From time to time, people have asked me if I could make a film demonstrating the pastel technique I use in my picture books. I wrote a step-by-step illustrated guide, talking through the creation of a cover illustration for an educational project, but it's taken a while to get round to an actual film.
John and I did done a couple of try-outs earlier in the year, with the how to draw a cat and how to draw a dragon films. We've learnt from those and this new film is tighter and more adventurous, showing me working on a real project in the studio.

It's the perfect time, while I am creating the artwork for my next book, Swap!: I wanted to show something 'real', rather then re-create artwork. John filmed me doing this piece, where Lucy, having enjoyed swapping places with her dog Sparky for the morning, starts to feel a bit bored:

Of course, the artwork took more than twice as long to do, what with all the messing about getting the lighting set up and working out the best way to talk through what I'm doing, and continually stopping and starting, but I'm really pleased with how it's come together, so it was well worth it. 

A big thanks to John, who did all the filming, as well as getting his head round all the technical editing stuff. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends, so we can get the hit-count up a bit. Cheers!

Starting My New Picture Book Artwork!

By Lynne Chapman

I've finally had the go-ahead from my publisher on those last few redraws of the illustrations for my new picture book Swap!, so at last it's all go! I've only done about half my tracing-up, as it's such a tedious task, tracing all the line work onto my pink pastel paper on the light box. I have to do it in the dark too, despite the sunshine outside (groan), as the pastel paper is too thick to see through otherwise. 

It was great to get stuck into colour though. I started with the first spread of the book, not because I like to work through in the correct order, but because I had clear ideas about the colours things needed to be (pretty much pink, pink, pink), so it was a safe place to begin. 

It was also a comfortable way to find the main characters, as they are very large on the page. I  was imagining Lucy blond, but concerned that might not jump out of the page as much as brunette, especially as I am rather fond of soft, pastel coloured backgrounds (which we will drop in later, digitally).

I wasn't sure what colour to do Sparky. Black would be tricky for showing details, white a little boring, brown a bit dingy and dull... I wanted him to stand out from the backgrounds too, so I chose white with tan bits, to make it more interesting and colourful.

Watch this space for the rest of the artwork.  

Itsy-Bitsy Book Cover

By Lynne Chapman

Remember the issues we had with Waterstones not liking the yellow cover which I originally designed for Baby Goes Baaaaa!? Well, I thought we had sorted everything with the new duck-egg blue cover, but I suddenly remembered something...

On the inside, there is this illustration of Nana Croc reading to Baby Croc. Now, whenever possible, I include my own books in my illustrations. Cheeky, but why not?

I thought for Baby Goes Baaaaa! is would be sweet if, instead of one of my other books, Nana Croc was reading the actual book she was in! Clever eh? Except trouble is, that book no longer has a yellow cover... Uh-oh.

Remember the patch I made for Baby Croc's bare bum on the cover of Baby Can Bounce!? Yep, you guessed it: 

It was so very tiny, it was a bit of a nightmare to do, but quite cute, I think you'll agree. When it was finished, I scanned it in and pasted it over the professional scan of Nana Croc from repro. Then, in Photoshop, I tinkered with it until it fitted like a glove. What do you think?

Baby Goes Baaaa! - creating the artwork

By Lynne Chapman

I started on the pastel artwork for my latest book Baby Goes Baaaa! last week - yikes!

Fortunately, it's all going pretty well so far. It's taken such a long time to get to this stage that I'm really enjoying getting down to it.

To keep on schedule, I have to do one page a day, but that's not as tricky as it sounds, as none of the images have backgrounds this time - we are going to drop bright pastel colours in later.

Here are the ones I've managed so far. Egmont has kindly given permission for me to blog the entire process so, if you are interested, you can see in-progress images and read more about the project every couple of days on my blog An Illustrator's Life For Me!

Wish me luck for this week - I'm working on a baby hedgehog's first kiss today...