Having More Fun

Merry Widow
Persistent Faces – William Steig

I enjoyed posting some of my favorite fun picture book illustrations so much last month that I am revisiting the topic this week, only this time, I am pulling some well-loved images from sources outside of children’s books – more artists whose work conveys humor and playfulness.

Putty
Persistent Faces – William Steig

Many of these images have a doodle-like quality. The topic of doodling deserves an entire post of its own, which maybe I will write someday, but I think doodling has a universal appeal because of its apparent fearless exploration of goofiness.

Sphinx – Saul Steinberg

Saul Steinberg’s work has a sardonic wit.

March-April – Saul Steinberg

Ben Shahn’s images laugh a little more quietly,

Words That Read Both Ways
Ounce Dice Trice – Alastair Reid, illustrated by Ben Shahn

but still express a wise sense of humor.

Bug Words
Ounce Dice Trice – Alastair Reid, illustrated by Ben Shahn

John Rombola I imagine sharing a cigarette with John Waters for some reason.

Rombola by Rombola – John Rombola

Rombola by Rombola – John Rombola

The circus also inspired Alexander Calder. The Seattle Art Museum had a Calder exhibit a few years ago. I don’t think a museum exhibit before or since has ever put me in such a happy mood.

Circus Lion – Alexander Calder

Josephine Baker. Ooh la la and hallelujah.

Josephine Baker
wire sculpture – Alexander Calder

Even his large mobile sculptures evoke playfulness.

Yellow Whale
Wire sculpture – Alexander Calder

Inuit art also seems to contain a lot of humor. What is it about all that ice and snow? The long summer days? The long winter nights?

The Enchanted Owl – Kenojuak

Transformation
Inuit sculpture – Judas Ullulaq

And here is a contemporary Japanese printmaker continuing the 17th – 19th century tradition of Okubi-e (bust portraits of Kabuki actors).

Bando Tamasaburo V as Ochika in “Ikite iru Koheiji”- Tsuruya Kokei

When I was in Japan as a teenager I saw Tamasaburo perform. He is actually quite slender and graceful. I don’t know if Tsuruya Kokei intended parody or was just tweaking composition and form, but it’s makes Tamasaburo look like a high comedienne.

Below is a photo of a Panamanian mola that I bought a number of years ago. It is a modern take on a traditional art form. Usually the motifs include bird and animal forms. This is the only one I’ve seen about a hairstyle.

Mola – artist unknown

And in response to Julie Paschkis’s last Beastly post on this blog, here are a couple of my favorite prints by Jose Guadalupe Posada. Scary funny.

Sol en Escorpion – Jose Posada

I think I spied one of these bicyclists the last time I was in Brooklyn.

Calaveras de Ciclistas – Jose Posada

And speaking of Julie Paschkis, here is a drawing she made on a piece of paper from my notebook while we were at an SCBWI talk many years ago. She is the Queen of doodlers and her work also makes me smile. I kept the drawing (it was my paper after all…) and it hangs in my studio to remind me to let loose and have more fun when I am working (and not get my neck all twisted around like that).

doodle in pen and ink – Julie Paschkis

Having Fun

Clark
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish – Theodore Geisel

As I have been working on the illustrations for BOOM BOOM, I have been thinking about humor in children’s book illustrations – what amused me when I was a child and what I find funny now. I’m sure there is a common thread from one to the other, but I’m not going to delve too deeply. As E. B. White said, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”

Sometimes the images act as punch lines to the text, while in others the joke is delivered on a separate plate from the words. Many are visual puns. What I see as a constant is the amount of fun the illustrator appears to be having. In the best comedy for children, I believe joy, humor and art are a trio act, with joy having the leading role. Have you ever tried to illustrate a children’s book when you are not in a good mood? Unless you are drawing trolls or  gargoyles, cheer up or take a break.

To demonstrate, I’ve put together a small collection of some of my favorites, old and new. I have no idea if the artists were grumbling or grinning when they worked on these books, but they must have been giggling at least a little by the time they were done.

The Ziffs on the cliffs and the Zuffs on the Bluffs
Scrambled Eggs Super – Theodore Geisel

Dr. Seuss tops the list. In my early reading years, the library my parents and I went to shelved their Seuss books on two conveniently low shelves. Scrambled Eggs Super was one that I picked up whenever it was available, regardless of how many times I’d checked it out already, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish made learning to read worth the effort.

Here is what I have to do every French morning…
Eloise in Paris – Hilary knight

I am all over the Etoile…
Eloise in Paris – Hilary Knight

When I was about eight I discovered Eloise on a family road trip visiting friends of my mother’s in Vancouver, Canada. I slept in their daughter’s room. She was at least fifteen years older than I and long out of the house, but her collection of Eloise books by Kay Thompson, illustrated by Hilary Knight, were still there. I poured over Knight’s exuberant illustrations for hours. Eloise is truly all over the Etoile and all over the page. Her gestures and body language are as much choreographed as drawn.

He didn’t look where he was sitting…
The Story of Ferdinand – Robert Lawson

The Story of Ferdinand, the sensitive bull. While beautifully composed and exquisitely drafted, Robert Lawson‘s illustrations for Munro Leaf’s text are also wonderfully fun to look at.

The Outer Sanctum
The Bedside MAD – William M Gaines

The Outer Sanctum second spread
The Bedside MAD – William M Gaines

At about age nine, my taste in humor took a sidestep when I purchased some old MAD Magazine paperbacks. These books compiled early issues that featured artists like William M Gaines (also the magazine’s founder). He specialized in spoofing popular radio dramas from my father’s era such as “Inner Sanctum” with goofy yet surgical expertise. I think their intended audience probably wasn’t me, but take a close look at the details and you will see why I liked them so much as a nine-year-old.

I know an old lady who swallowed a bird
I Know an Old Lady-Abner Graboff

I didn’t discover the work of Abner Graboff until I found a copy of I Know An Old Lady by Rose Bonne at a school library sale a few years ago, but I wish I had found him sooner. Thank you, Abner, for breaking all the rules.

And lest you have the impression that I only look at children’s books published before 1960, here are a few more contemporary works that make me laugh.

Arnie looked around and saw all sorts of doughnuts…
Arnie the Doughnut – Laurie Keller

Laurie Keller is funny, in both text and imagery (And in person too. I was lucky enough to meet her). She could make a stand-up comic out of a golf ball.

Ed
Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks – Calef Brown

This image by Calef Brown is wonderful even without the poem that accompanies it (sorry, you will have to go get the book yourself and read it). Which came first, the image or the words? Who cares. I’m glad for both.

The Walking Stick
Insectlopedia – Douglas Florian

Douglas Florian is a poet who is also an artist. Or maybe he is an artist who is also a poet. Either way, he creates books with a graceful blend of sophistication and whimsy (sorry, you are going to have to go get this book too). His humor is subtle and precise and beautifully rendered.

…potatoes however…
Glasses, Who Needs ‘Em? – Lane Smith

And Lane Smith. Smith has made numerous hilarious books, but I think I like this image from Glasses, Who Needs ‘Em? best of all. Do you see what I mean?…

I hope this small sampling has made you laugh, tickled your funny bone, or at least improved your mood. If you are going to be illustrating children’s books, you might as well be smiling, right?

A Window on a Doorway to a Launching Pad

I’m pretty busy these days working on the art for Boom Boom, so I am re-posting a piece that I wrote for my other blog, Pebbles In The Jar, a site I created to be a resource and forum for people interested in connecting public schools to the arts community. I have worked as a volunteer arts liaison in Seattle public schools since 2000, when my eldest daughter started first grade.

This is one of my favorite posts that I’ve published to date, largely because it grew out of a conversation I had with my dad about his experience of the arts in education when he was a teenager in New York. I couldn’t help but compare it to the situation I’ve observed in schools here in Seattle.

I’m lucky that my father got the encouragement in the arts when he did. He went on to study ceramics at Alfred University, where he eventually met my mother.

A long time ago in a school district far, far away…

Well not that far away really, just the Bronx.

At the beginning of World War II, when New York was still heating up the melting pot of immigrant cultures that would define the five boroughs, my father started his Freshman year at DeWitt Clinton High School, class of ’45.

My father’s father had come alone from Russia at fourteen, eventually finding steady work in the garment district in New York City. His family lived in a one bedroom apartment in the Amalgamated Co-op on Van Cortlandt Park South. My dad and his older brother shared the bedroom. Their parents slept in the living room on a Riviera hide-away bed.

The DeWitt Clinton student body at that time drew from the immigrant families who lived in the neighborhood; largely Eastern European Jews but also Italians and Irish as well as black students coming up from Harlem–thousands of them pouring out of the Mosholu Parkway station on the Lexington Avenue line every morning.

As my father describes it, DeWitt Clinton was an all college-bound high school. When he attended, there were over ten thousand students, all boys. I have his Arista pin, signifying his membership in a city-wide honors society which came with enviable perks like unmonitored access to the hallways between classes.

In addition to the core curriculum of math, language, science, history and English at this college-prep, ethnically diverse, public high school, students at DeWitt Clinton also had a full spectrum of arts classes to choose from. These included drawing and painting, theater, choir, band, and sculpture. My father particularly enjoyed sculpture.

They also apparently used what we now refer to as arts integration. My father’s Sophomore English class studied “Macbeth” with each student being given lines to memorize and recite. My father’s assignment was Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy. “Come to my woman’s breast and take my milk for gall.” I’m quoting my father, not Shakespeare. He still remembers a few choice bits.

And then there is The Magpie, DeWitt Clinton’s student literary magazine.

Read this for example, written by a young James Baldwin, ’42,

Black Girl Shouting

Stomp my feet
An’ clap my han’s
Angels comin’
To dese fair lan’s.

Cut my lover
Off dat tree!
Angels comin’
To set me free.

Glory, glory,
To de Lamb
Blessed Jesus
Where’s my man?

Black girl, whirl
Your torn, red dress
Black girl, hide
Your bitterness.

Black girl, stretch
Your mouth so wide.
None will guess
The way he died

Turned your heart
To quivering mud
While your lover’s
Soft, red blood

Stained the scowling
Outraged tree.
Angels come
To cut him free!

–The Magpie, Winter 1942, v. 26, n. 1, p. 32.

And look at this illustration by his brother John Baldwin, ’40.

A Stroll Down Broadway, End Paper (Part 1) January 1940 issue

And this image by Robert Blackburn, ’38,

School Yard, p 21. 20.

James Baldwin served as The Magpie’s literary editor for a time. Richard Avedon was his buddy. Neil Simon was there then too, probably wandering the hallways wearing his Arista pin.

Countee Cullen, Will Eisner, Avery Fisher, Paddy Chayefsky, Frank Gilroy, Fats Waller–DeWitt Clinton has graduated an amazing list of illustrious people, as well as my father, who went on to become a high school and then a community college teacher in both ceramics and math.

Keep in mind that this was the high school you went to for a good education. If you wanted to be an artist, you went to The Music and Art High School next to CCNY.

So here was a public high school in a working class, immigrant neighborhood, during wartime, following the most traumatic economic period in US history, before fundraising auctions or walk-a-thons were a twinkle in any PTA member’s eye, providing art for its students without questioning art’s educational value or requiring significant data or RFQs in order to continue its funding, turning out some of the most creative American minds of the past century.

Yes, I am naive and no historian, and that was New York and this is Seattle, but still, the contrast is pretty awesome. What happened? Why don’t we value the arts in education anymore?

I think the answer may be that we don’t value education anymore. We value stuff. Lots of stuff. And Power.

And our culture no longer perceives knowledge as power. Instead, money and fame are what we respect most. If you asked the American people what they would rather have–a 55” Class Edge Lit Razor LED™ LCD HDTV with VIZIO Internet Apps® and unlimited cable access, a you-tube video of their overweight cat going viral resulting in an interview spot on the Ellen Degeneres Show, or a free, excellent, public education–what do you think the majority would answer?

What if that changed? What if education became the priority in our society across all learning areas? What if the entire population rose up to support schools, teachers, students, learning? What if knowledge was part of the American Dream?

If not, how many creative minds of this century will be left under-nourished?

Shopping For Art Supplies

Things are heating up in my cluttered, but lovely little studio. I am working on the finished illustrations for BOOM BOOM, and I need to replenish my stock of art supplies.

First stop, Daiso, the Japanese dollar-store franchise and my idea of a fun time.

This is what I call a good haul: a sink mat (“prevent slips without scratching dishes efficiently”), sink drain covers (“hair prevent sheet for overflow of a bath”), foam craft stickers, cellulose sponge cloth, plastic lace doilies, various shaped erasers, silicone container wrap, silicone hot pads, silicone coasters and a silicone cleansing pad (“It fits the form of the nose!”).

You see, as a printmaker, I can use whatever I want to make images. As long as I can cover the surface with ink and print with it somehow, it’s worth toting back to my studio to test out.

I keep my test swatches in a large binder. When I want to embellish an image with a texture or pattern, I look to see what I have that might work. I’m not sure which of these new supplies will end up being used for the images in BOOM BOOM, but I’m sure at least one of them will.

I also find items to print with at hardware stores, fabric stores, and thrift stores. I store the materials in drawers in my studio. You can see I’ve accumulated much stuff.

When I get to talk to kids about the books I’ve worked on, I like to show them some of my art materials and have them try to find where I used the textures in my illustrations. And I tell them that you don’t have to get all your art supplies at the art supply store. You can make art out of all kinds of things, you just have to keep your eyes open and think like a printmaker!

Small Favors

Every so often I am contacted by someone, a student usually, who is working on a project and wants my input or advice. A few months ago, I got another such request.

The subject line was “small favor…”

Margaret,

I was wondering if you might be able to help me. I’m an illustration major at Brigham Young University and I’m taking a Business Practices for Illustrators class. For that class we’ve been asked to contact an illustrator whose work we admire and who we consider to be a successful illustrator and interview them (either through e-mail or on the phone, whatever works best for you) about their techniques and get their thoughts about the business side of illustrating and how the illustration business has changed in the last few years in particular. This would only be shared with the class, it wouldn’t be published on the internet. Does that sound like something you might be able to help me with? I completely understand if you’re too busy, please just let me know.

Thank you for your time,
                                         . . . . .

In spite of the fact that one should never assume that any favor being requested is “small,” (though I’ve done the same myself – don’t we all wish that the favors we ask of others not be perceived as big?), the articulate and complimentary prose won me over. When I was in college my university didn’t even have an illustration department, much less practical instruction for making a living in the arts. I could have learned a thing or two the easy way if it had.

The questions the student asked were broad but insightful. I tried to answer them as succinctly as possible. I’m including the interview here to perhaps inform others looking for input on the same topics. Disclaimer: I am not an expert, I’m just speaking from my own, personal experience. And this was my opinion a few months ago. My ideas might be quite different in another year! Feel free to let us know what answers you might have given if asked the same small favor!

Q: From your point of view, how has the illustration industry changed in the last decade or so (if at all)?
A: It changed significantly in the ’90s due to the proliferation of online stock images for sale. The effect of technology advances has made it easier for non-illustrators to create images using software like Photoshop and Illustrator. It also has changed the style of illustration, as technology has made some techniques possible that would have been too difficult to produce manually. The market has gotten narrower. Fees have gone down or stayed stagnant for many. Clients expect quick turn-around, with availability 24/7.

Q: What do you do differently now than then?
A: I don’t work as a commercial illustrator much anymore. I have focused on children’s books, so I am not really active in the market these days. Children’s books are a smaller arena on which to focus.

Q: What do you see happening to the industry in the next decade?
A: Things will continue to tighten, I imagine. It will be harder for illustrators to keep rights when negotiating. Clients will want more for less.

Q: It seems that currently digital media is taking over, yet from what I’ve seen you have stuck with traditional mediums and methods in your work. Has the abundance of digital media affected the way you work much at all? What do you see as the advantages or disadvantages of digital versus traditional media?

A: I am a printmaker, working mostly with relief printing methods. I do use software to make alterations to images after I have completed them, but only to fix flaws or assemble pieces that would have been too hard to create manually (such as placing very small figures in a full spread – in that instance I might create the art for the figures separately at a larger scale so that I can get the detail in, and then digitally reduce them and place them into a scan of the background image afterwards). The ability to fix things after the fact has removed some of the stress of making images for books. For example, if a glob of ink gets on an image as I’m printing something, I don’t necessary have to print the whole thing over again, I can make the repair in Photoshop. Also, if the editor requests a change to an image after I’ve turned in all the artwork (a situation I always try to avoid) I can make the change and alter the finished art digitally and not have to reprint the entire piece.

One down-side to technology that I’m aware of these days is that artists who create digital images can work much faster than I can. Some art directors and editors have come to expect that.On the other hand, digital art often lacks evidence of the artist’s hand. There is too much control of the medium. It’s too easy to be slick. There is no opportunity for happy accidents which is why I like the process of making my art by hand.

I am an old-school craftsperson at heart. I enjoy getting my hands dirty,  and doing computer graphics requires too much time sitting on one’s butt staring at a screen. That’s not my style.

Q: What advice do you have for new illustrators just starting in the industry?
A: Be assertive. Don’t let a fear of failure keep you from trying. Look for inspiration everywhere. Don’t look at your competition for inspiration.

Always work with a contract. Don’t do “work-for-hire.” Keep the rights to your artwork unless the client is willing to pay substantially for a total buy-out and unlimited usage. Run your business like a business. Be polite but be strong.

Handwritten

    

The article I read recently that got me thinking about handwriting: The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting and Why It Still Matters

Script and Scribble, by Kitty Burns Florey, a book that Julie Paschkis gave me because I talked with her about the above article (and yes, I know Julie’s handwriting quite well).

Drawing in Blue

Yesterday I sent off a revised, “tight” dummy to my editor at Beach Lane Books for Boom Boom. Today is a day of reprieve – I can take a bit of a break before I hear back from her, but it’s too soon for me to start worrying because I haven’t heard from her yet.

So here I am, rearranging the furniture in my brain to focus on writing today’s post.

Since I am fully immersed in illustrating Boom Boom, it’s hard for me to think about much else, so you are going to get another how-to from me today.

When working on final drawings for a picture book, I use a technique I picked up from watching Sylvain Chomet talk about animating The Triplets of Belleville in the video extra that came with the DVD. If you have not yet seen this French animated film, you have missed a witty masterpiece. It’s rated PG-13, (there are some naked ta-tas spinning briefly in the opening sequence, and a bit of implied mob violence), but the film’s rating is deserved most in that its sophisticated, satiric humor isn’t built for young children. If Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is a Three-Musketeers bar, then The Triplets of Belleville is Cuisses de Grenouille. (Really, see the movie).

Anyway, in this “making of…” video, Chomet demonstrates how he first draws his sketches in non-photo blue, and then hones in on the refined outline in black, which is the only color the camera will read. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a copy of that video on line, but I did find something similar in this clip about his animating The Illusionist.

Chomet says finding the right lines is “discovering something” that was already there, like Michelangelo freeing figures in marble. I am in no way trying to imply that I am on the same level as either of these artists, but I always feel like I’m trying to carve out an image when I draw, so this approach struck a chord with me.

This is my humble, homey version of what Chomet and Michelangelo do.

A photocopy of my rough:

A blue line drawing on tracing paper over the photocopy:

The blue line drawing alone:

I haven’t gone to black pencil on the above sketch quite yet. I will do that once I have the editors go-ahead on the full dummy. In the drawing below, I’ve gone halfway using a darker blue pencil, inching my way towards black.

Then I scan my blue line drawings into Photoshop, adjust the gray-scale levels to eliminate some of the lighter blue, and place the images in the dummy lay-out with InDesign. It’s not exactly what the animators do, but it works for me.

Well, during the time it took me to write this post, I heard back from the editor and have full approval to proceed with the final art. That was a short, but welcome reprieve! Back to work!

Library Love

What! It’s my turn to post again? Already?? Four weeks go by like nothing these days.

I am not a person who is comfortable (read, confident) as a writer. I always feel like I am sitting in someone else’s chair. It takes tremendous will and discipline for me to settle into the task, especially when there are so many other things I would rather do (like, say, the laundry). I find it wise to just remove myself from the distractions of home and studio.

I know some writers like plunking themselves down in the middle of some bustling social hotspot to write, but I don’t know how they do it. I’ve tried coffee shops and cafes, but I usually can’t handle the playlist and/or I keep eavesdropping on other people’s conversations (I mean really, do you think he’s worth the effort?…). On top of that, I feel slightly guilty spending hours sitting there having purchased one measly cup of tea.

I prefer to go to my neighborhood library.

My branch

My library isn’t silent, but it is quiet. There are the sounds of pages turning, toddlers “reading” books to their parents, people (like me) tapping away on their laptops, and the occasional hum of check-out receipts being printed. A few afternoons when I’ve been there a rosy-cheeked elderly gentleman has come in, placed his cane on the table, sat in one of the oak reading chairs with his newspaper, and gone to sleep. Neither he nor I have had to buy anything to claim a seat, and best of all, nobody bugs us. We all understand that we are gathered here to respect and immerse ourselves in the written word without fear of intrusion. It’s like a church without a pulpit, and more than one book.

All libraries are wonderful places to hang out in, but I must say my branch is particularly pleasant. A Carnegie library originally built in 1910, it has high ceilings with tall windows rounding the perimeter and a skylight in the middle. It feels downright holy sometimes.

The venerable check-out counter

The view

It also has a display case in the entryway that has become a showplace for children’s favorite collections and accumulations. My daughters both staged exhibitions in this case many years ago – my eldest her rock collection and my youngest a massive array of button pins. I always check the case first thing when I come in. Today Ashly is showing off her plastic horses.

Ashly’s herd

I love my local library. I have spent many comfortable, un-distracted hours in this space, and I know I couldn’t have gotten this post out today without it!

Books By The Bay

Last night I participated in the South Sound Reading Foundation‘s Books By the Bay Gala fundraising event, (made possible with help from Rhonda Munzinger at Barnes & Noble Books), with Julie Paschkis, Robin Cruise, Judy Bentley, Eric Brooks, Ken Mochizuki, and Jim Lynch.

The South Sound Reading Foundation’s principle: To ensure that every child is read with for 20 minutes a day starting at birth, in an effort to increase the number of children entering school prepared to learn, read and succeed. Reading just 20 minutes a day with young children is the key to healthy brain development, family bonding, and success in school.

There was champagne. There were hors d’oeuvres. There was music beautifully played by a youth chamber ensemble. There was a chandelier. All against a backdrop of the Puget Sound.

Never have I had it so nice at a book signing. But best of all, there were people there supporting the cause and buying books.

While listening to foundation members tell about their heartwarming experiences of opening up the world of books to children, I was reminded why illustrating children’s books feels like a slightly higher calling than just being a run-of-the-mill, free-lance commercial illustrator.

I spent much of the past week (while waiting to hear back from my editor on the sketches I sent in a few weeks ago for BOOM BOOM . . . this is the sound of me sitting here, patiently . . . ) writing a post about arts integration for my arts-in-education advocacy blog, Pebbles In The Jar. Arts integration is a method of partnering arts and non-arts curriculum to more fully engage students and deepen learning. Doesn’t writing and illustrating children’s books kind of do the same thing?

That might explain why so many of the people I have met in the children’s book realm are caring, thoughtful, intelligent people. They use their art to get kids to read. They also tend to support the arts, schools, libraries, racial/religious/gender equality, social justice, world peace, and walk-a-thons. They’ve got your back.

And some of the kids are pretty cute, too.

A Movable Wall

I shipped off a book dummy today. It’s a good feeling.

The dummy is for the book Boom Boom by Sarvinder Naberhaus that I am illustrating for Beach Lane Books. It’s a pretty minimal text, so there is lots of room for me to develop my own story line for the images.

I like to see the whole storyboard as I’m working on initial sketches. It’s easier for me to keep track of my ideas if I can see them all, but my drawing table is not that big. My story line was getting buried in mountains of sketches, which caused me frequent frustration and occasional cursing.

I decided that I needed a wall to pin everything on, but as you can see, I’m a bit short on wall space in my cozy little studio (I’m a bit short of anything space, but that’s another issue).

So I bought the biggest cork bulletin board I could find and perched it on my inking table.

I used colored tape to divide the board into “spreads” and added stickers with page numbers and post-its with the text. Ta-da! Instead of piles of sketches I have a portable storyboard wall where I can layer my sketches as I develop each spread. All there right in front of me. Much better!

Now I just have to wait for feedback from the editor. If she approves of the direction I’ve chosen I can move forward to the next step: refining the images. If not, then it’s back to the drawing/bulletin board!