Children's Book Illustration: Online Demonstration

Hello all! I just wanted to let you know the good news that my book illustration masterclass is in a big sale again - hurrah! So, if you haven't had a go already, now is the time.

There are 7 lessons of non-stop drawing demonstrations by Yours Truly. I start with simple techniques and build it up, until you can do all sorts of exciting drawings which you didn't know you had in you - promise. Even if you don't think you can draw. Which means that it's suitable for older kids as well as adults. Could be good fun to do together as a family, now I think of it... 

The on-line system is really flexible too: you can do it at your own pace, anytime you like, and the class is yours forever, so you can watch it as many times as you want, to practise your character drawing over and over. There's homework too, which you can post to a gallery and share with other students, if you like.

What makes it a little bit special though, is that you can ask me questions at any point and I'll offer what help I can. Even if you think of a question a year later, I'll still be here with my Words of Wisdom (!).

At risk of slipping further into sales patter (sorry), Craftsy are keeping the sale going until the New Year, which means that this could be the unusual Christmas present idea that you were looking for, for that creative friend or child...

Anyway, if you haven't had a look already, take a peek and see what you think. There is a trailer which tells you all about what I will be teaching you and gives you a flavour of the workshop.

One thing: please don't access the class from the main Craftsy site. If you use this link instead (anytime between now and Jan 15th) I get a better commission (and every little helps!).

Finished my First Spread!

I had a bit of a time, trying to get the first spread of Class One Farmyard Fun finished off. It was SO fiddly. Unfortunately, there are quite a few spreads in the book with this level of complexity (I have only myself to blame, since I designed them!). Fiddly and pastels do not go very well together, so my pastel pencils had to be brought into the action quite a bit. The pencils are great for detail, but the colour is not as rich and dense as the pastel sticks, so I then have to go over the top of the pencil elements with regular pastel, to give it oomph, trying not to blob where I don't need it. 

Yep, a nightmare, and very slow, but worth it in the end: 

The other tricky thing is keeping track of who's who with the children in the class. There are so many of them, all with different complexions, hair colour and outfits, it will be very easy to get them mixed up along the way. So I added little colour swatches to my 'crib sheet' - the original sketch-sheet where I designed the various children. I can use this as an aide memoir on my desk, as I work my way through all the artwork.

I was working until 7pm on Saturday night, despite having a nasty cold (pause for violins...), because I was desperate to get this first spread finished, before I started Book Week and had to stop work until March 7th, because of being out every day in schools. 

I just got done in time and, on Sunday afternoon, I headed down to Bedford, ready for Monday's school event at Cotton End Primary. Since the school is near to where Julia Jarman lives, John and I drove down and stopped overnight with her, which was lovely (thanks Julia!). Every day of this week has been a different place - I've been zipping all over. It's always the busiest week of the year. Back to normal and making a start on my next spread on Monday.

My Illustration Masterclass - Big Black Friday Sale!

Okay, much though I personally hate the whole Black Friday bonkers shopping thing, it turns out that there is an very definite up side... (pause for drumroll)... 

... because my Craftsy class is going to be offered at a special SALE PRICE for the whole weekend - just over £12 (think that's about $20) - hurrah!

So, if you haven't got around to signing up yet (shame on you :-D ) here is the SUPER-DUPER BLACK FRIDAY SALE link to my illustration masterclass, which will teach you how to draw the most expressive and funny picture book characters. I make it easy. Promise.  

Just think what an amazingly original Christmas present idea it would be for an arty friend. Or maybe just an early Christmas present for yourself (the best kind of present...). Go on, treat yourself...

My Very First Sketches for a New Picture Book

Do you remember absolutely ages ago, I was telling you about how Julia Jarman and I often talk through her ideas for new picture book texts? Well, the text I was talking about was successful: it got contracted by the publisher, so we are off! The huge delay is entirely my fault, because I have had too much work on until now with my Sketching People book and my Craftsy workshop to be able to start the work. 

It's called Class One Farmyard Fun and is a sequel to Class Two at the Zoo and Class Three all at Sea - both big favourites of mine and really good fun to illustrate, because of all the crazy things that happen on their ill-fated school trips out and about. 

I'm really enjoying getting stuck into this new one. I started with characterisation, as always. All this series feature an entire class, so my first job was playing around, designing lots of different kids:

It's important that they are all different and suggest different personalities, like any real class of five year olds. They'll evolve a little I'm sure, as I draw, but I was very pleased with my first efforts. 

I went on to have a think about the teacher. It's a woman again. This was my initial sketch sheet, trying things out. I've gone for the person on the far right:

I wanted to make her kind (she's always a touch incompetent in the stories, but never a nasty teacher). The teachers in primary schools are usually pretty young too. It was important to make her different to the other two class teachers, in Class Two and Class Three though:

I am now waiting for the designer at Hodder to send me a set of page layouts. They will chop Julia's story up into spreads and set the font size and style, so I know how much text I need to work around on each page. In the meantime, I am itching to get going, so have played around with one or two scenareos from the story. This introduces the bull, who is going to be the source of all the trouble! 

Julia came to visit us last week, which was lovely. She was doing an event in a Sheffield school, so she came to stop at our house the night before. She was of course desperately curious to see what I had been up to. Luckily, she loved the drawings - phew!

Online Workshop: Drawing Picture Book Characters

My special half-price deal has ended, but fear not - you can still get my class at a permanent 20% discount if you click through from this blog and from my website.
If you haven't seen it already, this little trailer shows you the kind of thing I cover in the 7 lessons:

I am thrilled to bits with how it's recruiting and I already have three really lovely 5-star reviews on the class. Here are highlights from what my new students had to say:

"This is a terrific course. Lynne Chapman is an excellent teacher who knows how to make it seem easy and fun to draw. I am a retired illustrator, and I've been rather stuck in my ways of doing things but I have enjoyed learning Lynne's approach and it is giving me new inspiration. This is carefully planned and well presented. I recommend it. A five star course for artists young and old." 
" Lynne is so clear to listen to and really helpful. The homework seems really doable and the accumulated knowledge is applicable to all kinds of illustration regarding a younger audience" 
"This course is absolutely the best I've seen. I've watched it several times. Lynne is a great tutor. She immediately makes you feel at ease and, although she makes it look so very easy, she encourages everyone regardless of ability." 

Thank you guys for that smashing feedback. I'm so glad it the class is coming across so well!

So, click this link and you will get the class for 20% of the regular price. Have fun!!

Illustrating Picture Books: My Craftsy Class is Here!

Today is the day!! My Craftsy master-class, teaching you how to draw children's book characters, just went live, slightly ahead of schedule! You can get the class at a permanent discount of 20% off this blog post or direct from the link on my website. Yep - Craftsy allow me to discount the class if I want. 

Last week I got a sneak preview of how it looks and am absolutely delighted with the way it's turned out. The editing guys have done a smashing job, splicing all the material together. There's me talking (okay, nothing new there says John...), plus all the various drawing demos that we filmed, lots of illustrations from my books, as well as various extra drawing tips with bits and bobs of graphics. 

Plus, Craftsy's clever, techy guys have had to build the whole background platform, because the workshop is not just a series of films. Oh no...

After each lesson, I set my students a homework project to do. Then, when they're done, they can post their work onto a gallery, for me and the other students to see. Great eh? Plus students can even ask me questions, if there's anything they need more help with.

Huge CONGRATULATIONS to Tami T, who was the winner of my prize draw. Well done Tami! Have fun. I look forward to seeing your characters :-)

If you were unlucky, don't worry: all is not lost! Craftsy classes are very reasonably priced but if you are on a tight budget, get in quick while mine is super-duper-brilliant-value with my launch-week deal... 

50% off!!

The other brilliant thing about the workshop is that it does not have an expiry date. You can watch it as many times as you like, for as long as you want - once you sign up, everything is yours for good. And because you only need a pencil and paper, once you have signed up, it's not going to cost you anything extra at all.

I have tried really hard to pack all 7 of the lessons with tons of tips which should really help your character drawings, both of animals and people, but I've also done my best to make it a fun workshop to do. 

Please do let me know what you think. As this is my first venture of this kind, I'd really like to hear your feedback.

How to Illustrate Expressive Picture Book Characters!

The prize draw for my on-line illustration workshop, the one I filmed recently in Denver with Craftsy, is now over. Congratulations to Tami T who won a free subscription to my 7-lesson master-class on How to Illustrate Expressive Children's Book Characters.

The class launched on October 19th and I am very excited with how it all looks. Don't worry if you missed the draw though - I am still offering a special discounted rate for the class. Just click here.

The 7 lessons take you through everything I could think of that you need to know for creating believable human and animal characters for your illustrations: I crammed in everything I have learnt over the years for you.

We go through lots of tips to show you easy ways to sketch various basic characters as well as how to get across different ages, by playing around with various proportions:

I also demonstrate simple devises for creating different personalities, by varying the positions of facial features, in combination with different head shapes:

I show you how to make characters walk and run, and how to add different facial expressions to communicate more about what's happening:

In one lesson, we look at how you can use clothing and props to tell people more about what your characters are doing and who they are:

We had a lot of fun filming a lesson on how to communicate emotion. At home in my studio, I often act things out in a mirror, to work out the best body-language to use. Clif, my producer, thought it would be good to actually do this on set, so we stole the huge mirror from my dressing room and set it up on an easel in the studio:

I then had to do my acting out in front of the camera (!), playing at being angry, sad, scared etc. before transferring the positions to different character sketches. It took us ages to work out the best way to film it, so we wouldn't see the cameras in the mirror, not to mention the big battery pack I had tucked under my skirt (does my bum look big in this...).

So, this is actually me, being terrified:

At the end of each section, I give you homework tasks, to help you practice what we have been doing and you can then post your work for me to see. You can even ask questions. 

I had a lot of fun creating the class and I am hoping it will be a lot of fun to do. By the end, you should be able to create pretty much any character you fancy. But better than that: you will be able to make them feel 'real' (even if they are a crocodile in a dressing gown and slippers), because you will learn how to communicate what they are thinking and feeling too.

I really hope you enjoy the class - let me know what you think!

A New Challenge: On-Line, Illustration Workshop

Fans of the little videos John and I occasionally make for my YouTube channel, will be interested to hear of my latest venture. I confess, I am rather excited myself.

A few Urban Sketchers friends of mine, including the truly outstanding Paul Heaston, and Marc Holmes, have recently signed up to run on-line workshops for a company called Craftsy. Paul and Marc's lessons are excellent, as you would imagine (but if you want to sign up for them, do it via the artists' own websites, as that way they get more commission). 

Craftsy classes are not just in urban sketching though: there are all sorts of things you can learn, including children's book illustration... See where this is going?

Yes, that's right - they have invited me to do a class on illustrating picture books, concentrating specifically on character design and development. Now, I really enjoyed making our studio-based films, but this is the real thing: the film will be shot over a 3 day period in a proper, real-life, film studio. And not just that... it's in the USA! Okay, so now you know why I am excited. 

I have been stealing time where I can over the last week or so, to write down everything I can think of on character creation. It helps that I do a lot of illustration workshops in schools on this theme, as it can be hard sometimes, trying to remember the stuff that you know really well. My next job is to collate these ideas into Craftsy's specific lesson-plan structure. 

Once that's done and has got the OK, I will work with a Content Editor to talk further about the specifics of how we turn those learning points into a filmed workshop (which specific characters I will draw as demos, what practical assignments I will set etc). When that's sorted out, I am assigned a Producer to work with, fine-tuning various practical elements of the project and the logistics of what needs to happen when. Apparently, we'll even be discussing my wardrobe (new dress needed..?)

Then comes the exciting bit: Craftsy are going to fly me out to where they are based, in Denver. I'm booked into the film studio for September 9th - 11th. Another adventure! I am doing rather well on that front just lately.

It's early stages and nothing much will happen for a while, as I have my other commitments to work on first, mainly my Urban Sketching People book, but I'll keep you posted (of course). Once the filming is done, there will be about 6 weeks of post-production editing before it's released. If all goes to plan, it sounds like we should have it ready to go live around the middle to end of October. Watch this space!

The Penguin Who Didn't Like Snow

Well, I have finished the synopsis of my new Urban Sketching book and it has gone off to the publisher. I have organised my ideas into 15 chapters and, though I say so myself, it feels pretty thorough, but we'll see what my editor thinks. I'm really looking forward to getting down to it (though not looking forward to trawling through dozens of sketchbooks, trying to find the right images to illustrate it...).

In the meantime, I needed to crack on with my latest illustration project. It's called The Penguin Who Didn't Like Snow by Julie Anna Douglas. Poor little Mo the penguin - he feels the cold and ends up running off to Acapulco. You can see above that I spent some time working things out in my sketchbook and then drawing ideas up on layout paper. 

I wanted to illustrate Mo lazing on the exotic, Acapulco beach. I suddenly remembered a sketch I did when we were on holiday a few years back, in Costa Rica: palm trees, rain forest down to the sand...

The sketch was just the ticket as reference for the background, as you can see below, in the rough which I sent to the publisher: 

The text is a poem and it's an editorial job this time, rather than a picture book, so just the one spread to do. It's being published in the Nov/Dec edition of Spider, a children's magazine aimed at the American market. Let's hope the Art Director likes my idea. Keep you posted!

New Film: How I Design My Picture Book Illustrations

Yes, at last John and I have got another film finished - hurrah! 

I thought it might be interesting to use the work I have been doing on Julia Jarman's story, Jungle Grumble, to talk people through how my picture book illustrations are created. 

This is the first of two films about creating a set of roughs (the next one will be out in a week or so). This first film talks you through how I get from a simple sheet of typed text, emailed from the publisher, to a set of finished designs. 

I show you how thumbnail drawings work as a great way of capturing first thoughts, then how those are enlarged and redrawn in various stages. I talk about using a layout template and how I work around the text and the central gutter. I don't like to draw at a computer, but it is still an invaluable tool and I explain in the film how I use it to move the drawings forward.

The films John and I have created over the last year have been made as a direct result of writing this blog. Telling my readers about what I do has been really useful for me, as it makes me analyse my process and consider precisely what it is I am doing at the various stages. When you've been doing something for so many years, it can be hard to explain it to other people, because so much of the process becomes second nature.

If there is any aspect of my work which you would like to know more about, do please let me know. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the film. If you do, please leave me a comment. And it would be wonderful if you could help me by spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook etc, because every little helps!

Pastel Artwork, One Stage at a Time...

I spent a 2nd day on my lion-in-the-tree illustration, then I decided to stop for a while: I felt the need to finish it later, after working a bit on the other, more complex spread. This might sound odd but, when I am working on a new project, it can take a while to warm up, so it's not unusual for me to have to go back later and alter the first piece of artwork. Since I'm in a hurry, I thought I'd try and avoid that.

The other Jungle Grumble spread, where all the animals have swapped bits and are parading their new look, was always going to be something of a marathon. My poor old lion has been sitting patiently on hold for ages. Just tracing the rough of this spread up into the pastel paper took a fair while. This is the artwork after the first day:

I mainly concentrated on getting the background colours and textures established. For obvious reasons, in pastels, you always work from the back to the front. I want to keep the background painterly and vague, so it doesn't compete with the animals. I then got Flamingo's colours in early, as they are the brightest and the darkest tones, so help me to guage the rest. 

After day 2, I had a few more animals in and had got the white areas down, again to establish the brightest tones (even though they will be largely covered by giraffe and zebra prints):

Below is after a third day. It seemed to take ages to get not that far forward, but things always slow up as I go along. That's partly the pastels: they are really quick for blocking areas in, but very fiddly for detail. This piece it even trickier than usual: having the animals chopped up, means I can't rely on their shape to identify their bits, which must still all be clearly spottable. I took ages getting crocodile's textures right:

After the fourth day, things felt even less different! I mainly worked on the animal patterns, although we also now have the ostrich:

I am not very patient and hate having a piece on my desk for so long. Normally at this point, when things have slowed to a crawl, I would begin a new piece, to get back some momentum, and come back to finish off. This time there was no choice but to keep going. At least I could see that it was going to work well.   

By the way, you might be able to notice a completely un-worked area in the top left, where the lion is sitting. I have left this until last, as I still have to design the 'swap shop'. One of the main changes the publisher requested to my roughs, was that the changing rooms be made of all natural materials, rather than a curtain:

I have decided to go with big banana leaves, as I am concerned that frondy leaves will be way too fussy. I've left it til last so I could make my decision with the rest of the illustration there. 

It took another full day to get it done - 5 days is something of a record I think. For the purposes of dramatic tension, I will wait and show you the finished piece next time, so watch this space...

Blue Bottoms and Funny Faces

It sometimes makes me laugh: as an illustrator you catch yourself having very serious conversations about the funniest subjects. This time it was blue bottoms. Julia Jarman wrote a Blue-Bottomed Baboon into The Jungle Grumble. He of course wants to swap his bum for something different (he ends up with Zebra's stripy tail in its place, but that's by the by).

The thing is, when I did my photo-search for reference, not one single photo of a baboon's blue bum came up. There were plenty of the disturbingly swollen, red ones, which look like they've been inflated (built-in cushion?), but no blue ones. However, a photo of a mandrill's blue bottom did appear. I hadn't heard of a mandrill: it's a bit baboony, but with a face like an explosion at a cosmetics counter.

A bit more research told me that there was no such thing as a blue bottomed baboon. So I emailed my publisher, who emailed Julia, who texted me. According to Wikipedia, the mandrill is often referred to as a baboon, so we thought we could get away with me drawing the mandrill instead. That suited me, as mandrills look so bonkers. Also, to be honest, I don't especially like drawing baboons: their faces are hard to get right (I drew baboons-in-pantaloons in Lark in the Ark). 

That's when I did this sketch of a mandrill's head (on a giraffe's neck, naturally).

The only snag is that mandrills don't have monkey tails - they have short, rough tails, more like a goat. I thought that might be a little bit confusing in the final illustrations, especially given that our mandrill would have to give his tail to someone else when he swapped his bum. 

More emails...

I was just discussing the ethics of sticking a baboon's tail onto a mandrill, when my editor found another blue-bottomed monkey. 

The lesula monkey was only discovered in 2007. It has a perfect monkey tail and a slightly less obscene-looking bottom than the mandrill (if you ignore the rather prominent, blue dangly bits - I won't be drawing them):

So we decided to change again and use the lesula monkey. Since nobody will have heard of a lesula, we are going to just call him Monkey. This was my first sketch of him:

His face is equally as funny as the mandrill's, just in a different way - sort of weird, with hauntingly human eyes and a puff-ball head:

After a few more drawings to better develop his character, this is what I think he is going to look like in the book: