'Halloween Forest' process

By John Shelley

The awful secrets are revealed! Please check my blog to read how I created the artwork for my latest creepy picture book Halloween Forest, the evil planning, the pain, the dark horrors of it all....

Well, actually it's mainly about how I created the sketches and production of final artwork.

...and if the mood takes you, I've posted in Japanese as well. Yoroshiku!

Halloween Forest (text by Marion Dane Bauer) is published by Holiday House in the US. Amazon link is here.

John

Tokyo Exhibition

By John Shelley

I'm back in the UK now after spending the summer in Tokyo (some may remember I used to live there for over 20 years). It was very good to be back and the show was a great success. Part of the exhibition was the original artwork to my Jack and the Beanstalk book [Jack to Mame no Ki], which has just been released in Japan, but as these were not for sale, the gallery made a series of 2 very fine limited edition "Neograph" prints from the book.
Neographs are double printed: a light silk screen is run over high resolution giclée print, resulting in work that is virtually indistinguishable from the original.

Also, in addition to book artwork I filled the remainder of the wall space with small images developed from sketchbook ideas, most in black and white, the theory being that in these hard times small images could be sold at an affordable price within most people's budgets. Also small means they fit easily on compact Japanese apartment walls! Here are some of the small images, many were sold during the show, but a few are still available via the gallery online shop.

Red Town

Bird Tree

City Spiral

Tall Ship

Underground Town

These were a lot of fun to draw, being a step away from commissioned work and thus with more freedom of expression. In most cases I simply took an original sketchbook drawing, traced it off on a lightbox and coloured. The down side is that the redraw often loses the immediacy of the original sketch, but these worked pretty well.

I would love to develop some of these into picture books, but therein lies the pinch - the pictures stand alone at the moment and tell their own story. Associating them with a plot is always a challenge.

Getting back to Drawing: SketchCrawls

By Lynne Chapman

Lots of us illustrators don't really draw any more. We draw as part of our work, we might sketch as part of research for a book, or to create a character, but many illustrators haven't gone out with a sketchbook, just for the joy of it, since college. 


I rediscovered sketchbook drawing a few years ago and have never looked back. The fun and freedom of exploration and experimentation, of drawing for no other purpose than being in the moment, is exhilarating after years of drawing illustrations to commission.

I now run a group called SketchCrawl North, which has members from Sheffield, Hull, Manchester etc. We go out for day trips to various locations to share a love of drawing, and to inspire and learn from one another. The excellent film Mark Lomas has made, of our recent SketchCrawl at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, really captures the idea. Take a look:

Contact me if you fancy giving it a go with us. If you love drawing but are too far from us or from an existing group, try getting together with a couple of friends and starting your own SketchCrawl group. Here are some tips to get you started and help you organise a day.

Other things that might be of interest are my top tips on how to draw people in public places, and my film about my sketchbook work, on the film page of my website. Power to your pencils!

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.  

Jack and the Beanstalk

By John Shelley

I posted some of the linework to drawings before painting from Jack to Mame no Ki (Jack and the Beanstalk) before, here are some completed pieces in colour from the finished book, which will be released by Fukuinkan Shoten publishers in Japan in September. I don't know of any deals struck outside of Japan as yet, it would be wonderful to see an English language edition of course!


Here are some of the interior images (without text)