Endpapers: Now in Glorious Technicolour!

I finished off all the digital finishing-work, on the inside illustrations and on the cover for Swap! before the Easter holidays. It felt like I was nearly done. I thought I would be able to rattle off the endpapers and be ready to send it all off to the publisher pretty soon after getting back to work this week.

I don't know why I thought that: it was very silly.

front endpaper illustrations

I wasn't really taking into account the fact that, not only are the illustrations different on the front and back endpapers, but there are six independent illustrations on each, every one of which is fiddly. Also every illustration features Lucy, whose head is a very similar pink to the pink of the paper I use, making it a bit of a technical nightmare to cut free.

back endpaper illustrations

The illustrations will be put into a spot repeat pattern across the double spread of each endpaper:

I thought that, because the illustrations needed to be different - a sort of 'before and after' - I would use the same lilac coloured background for them both, to give some unity.

You can follow the progress of Swap! (as well as Baby Goes Baaaaa! and Bears on the Stairs) from my first sketches and plotting sheets, through pitching the idea to publishers, creating artwork, as well as all the miriad issues that have arisen during the book's life so far, by clicking the Swap! label, or other relevant label, on the right of the posts.

You can watch me create a piece of the original pastel artwork from Swap! in a short film here.