Results: Arbor Day Coloring Contest

Hi all,

Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been writing and illustrating up a storm :) I thought I'd share the results of the Arbor Day Coloring Contest:

First Place: Mahdy Muratov, 2nd Grade

2nd Place: Megan Tian, 2nd Grade

3rd Place: Memphis Gray, 3rd Place

I love how everyone took a unique approach to coloring the scene. I also enjoyed the creative details (sunglasses, stars, shading). As promised, I sent each winner some goodies:

The first place winner got an original drawing:

Congratulations again to all the winners and I hope everyone had a great Arbor Day :) Once again, if you'd like to try your hand at coloring your own version, here's a blank version of the coloring page:

GIVEAWAY + Lake Oswego Arbor Day Coloring Contest

Lake Oswego is celebrating their 25th year as a Tree City USA. In celebration of Arbor Day, they commissioned me to design a coloring page for their annual art contest.

I'd also like to leave this contest open to my readers. Print out the coloring page above, color it any way you'd like, and share your work of art in the comments below. At the end of April, I'll select a winner and send an envelope full of goodies to you :).

For inspiration, here were last year's winners:

Aren't they amazing? Here's a close up of some their wonderful coloring skills:

So get to it! Celebrate Arbor Day with some coloring and we'll see who gets the prize at the end of the month!

Silly McGilly Visits Schools!

Silly McGilly has been very busy indeed as St. Patrick's Day approaches.

He visited several schools in Bayonne, New Jersey and it's safe to say that the students and faculty embraced Silly with open arms :)

Coloring pages from the Silly McGilly website were put to good use!

Kids created their own renditions of Silly :)

This wall was jazzed up with a giant pot of gold and some very handsome construction paper dolls.

Miss DeSimone, a teacher for 40 years, received a special t-shirt from Silly at Midtown Community School.

In her class, Silly McGilly got to meet the Cat in the Hat. I'm so jealous!

These images are the main reason why I love-love-love creating picture books. You get to see your characters come to life in the hearts of little ones. You get to see them practice and embrace creative storytelling. It makes all the hard work worth it in my book :).

This is great stuff and I have to give a shout out to the publishers for spreading Silly's cheer! You can see what else Silly's been up to on his Facebook FanPage.

Remember, if you join in the Silly fun, just email me your purchase order and I will mail you a personalized sketch. Here's an example:

Also, if you have any Silly McGilly art to share, please let me know and I'll make sure to write a post. You can find worksheets and activities at www.sillymcgilly.com for inspiration.

Until next post, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

FREE Giveaway + More Silly News!

Hi all,

Just checking in with more Silly McGilly news.

First of all, you have a chance to win your own Silly McGilly doll and book from the fabulous blogger Miss Kindergarten's giveaway contest:

There's one day left in the giveaway, so be sure to enter soon :).

Secondly, Real Simple Online has featured Silly McGilly on their website too!

I love seeing Silly's adorable spirit being shared by so many people. The publishers deserve a big shout-out for wonderful PR power!

I hope you can join me in celebrating this Patrick's Day tradition with your loved ones as well. Remember, if you email me your purchase order for a Silly McGilly book, I will mail you a personalized sketch.

Until next post, luck and laughter to all of you!

Silly McGilly: My Illustration Process

Hi all,

I thought I'd share a bit of my process in creating the illustrations for Silly McGilly.

Here is a spread where Silly celebrates St. Patrick's Day at a Leprechaun Hooley. As you can see, it takes a lot of passes to create a finished illustration. Let's start at the beginning!

First, I received the manuscript from the authors, which was basically the text of the story with suggested page breaks.

I printed out the manuscript and read it several times. The whimsical text of this story gave me a lot of inspiration, so as I read, I began doodling possible image and composition ideas for each page. Once I had at least a few ideas for each spread, I started storyboarding the book with rough sketches:

As you can see, the sketches were mostly undefined. I was mainly trying to figure out how the text and images would interact with each other. Once these sketches were approved by the publisher, I moved onto a more detailed pencil work of the Hooley scene:

The final pencil lines became a pretty accurate blueprint for the next stages of illustration work. In Photoshop, I added red lines to accommodate for cropping, bleeds, and the page gutter. When I liked where everything was placed, I moved onto hand-inking the lines.

Finally, I scanned in the inked lines and added color in Photoshop, with a pastel-like brush:

Then voila: a rousing, musical, and fun-filled Leprechaun Hooley scene!

I hope this brought some insight into how Silly McGilly was created :). St. Patrick's Day is coming soon, so click on the link to get a Silly McGilly of your very own! Remember, if you message me with your order of a book, I will send you a free Silly sketch as a thank you gift.

Silly McGilly

Hi all! I apologize for the long absence, but I promise it was for a good reason :) I was illustrating a new picture book called Silly McGilly. It's a book that introduces a leprechaun who comes to play tricks at home and in the classroom on St. Patrick's Day. Here are a few images from the book:

The book is now available for purchase here. Each purchase comes with a Silly doll that you can use to play tricks on your students or little ones! But wait . . there's more! If you message me with a copy of your order, I will also mail you a personalized sketch. 

Lastly, the website has fun coloring pages and will soon feature Silly-themed activities (including directions) that you can use at home or in your classroom. Here's a sneak peek at a Silly Scrapbook page that will be available for download soon:

The publishers were a joy to work with and I really had fun contributing towards the creation of an actual doll (a first for me). 

I hope to continue my Picture Book Process series soon when things settle down a bit. Until then, I'll see if I can post a few process pics from my Silly McGilly work.

Thanks for visiting!

The Beginnings of a Picture Book

Welcome to my series about the Picture Book Process!
Note: To start at the beginning of the series, please visit this post: Why Picture Books?

Today, I want to talk about beginnings.

You dived into sources of inspiration and you came up with an idea and a direction for your picture book.

Now what?

Beginning a picture book is often difficult. You stare at a blank page, not sure what to draw or write. What's the voice going to be like? What colors should I use? Should the writing be minimal and poetic? Should it be lyrical and loquacious? Should it be in first or third person? Should, should should. . ahhh!

One of my critique group members, Angela, once gave me some sage advice that she read in the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott:

It was: Write that sh**ty first draft!
You're going to be writing many drafts afterward, so don't worry about mistakes, grammar or punctuation. Don't worry about perfect anatomy and a defined style. Just create. . and embrace the fact that your first draft is not going to be your best work. That will come in the 10th, 14th, 20th draft.

For me, I learned a trick from Kathryn Otoshi. It's called POST-ITS!

This is the entire book of Good Day/Bad Day on five pages of normal printer paper. I've found many advantages to laying out my story using Post-Its: 

• Post-Its force you to work small, so you don't labor over details.
• If a line/image isn't to your liking, you can easily replace the post-it with a new one, without disrupting the page order.
• You can rearrange pages to help with the pacing of your book.
• You can see the flow and rhythm of your picture book at a glance. Are you devoting too little time to the climax? Are you spending too much time introducing your character? These are all questions that can be answered when you look at your story from a bird's eye view.

If you don't draw, no worries. Just lay out the text. The Post-Its force you to make room for the illustrations. If your entire post-it is full of text, it probably means you've written too much. 

For instance, this page:

 Eventually became this:

For that first spread, I wanted to give the faces space and size so the different emotions made an impact. Too much text would have lessened the effect.

By the way, if you need extra help organizing your thoughts on post-its, my friend Rachelle's Storyboard Sticky Jots leaves space for text, images, and labels. How handy is that?

So there you go.
Use post-its, scribble in your sketchbook, type away. Just write that sh**ty first draft.
You may realize that a picture book may not be the best form for your story but hey, you'll never know until you begin.

For my next post, I'll be talking about Feedback and Critique Groups. Until then, happy writing/drawing!