It's about time I said something...

It's March 12th! And I haven't posted since the very start of the year. Where did that time go? And why did it go so swiftly? 

Well, I have been editing up a storm (and we're all storm weary, right?), working with both previous and new clients on projects as diverse as non-fiction for adults, historical biography, fantasy (adult), chick-lit, and my usual fare of YA, middle grade, chapter books, and picture books. I'm also working on interior illustrations for a chapter book due to be published shortly. 

I'm also deep into preparation for the New England SCBWI 2014 conference, working on a few new portfolio pieces, which I'm excited to share with you soon. 

Copyright  ©  Marlo Garnsworthy 2104

Character sketch for one of my new pieces.

Plus, I'm back at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD CE), teaching "Writing for Children's Books" for the spring semester. (And I have absolutely awesome students.)

So I suppose I can be forgiven for not being a very Wordy Birdie here on the blog. 

BUT, I have been blogging over on Editing-Writing-Proofreading, and you can read my latest post on Narrative Structure--The Parts of the Narrative HERE and What's Wrong With My Picture Book? HERE. 

And SCBWI members, I hope you'll read author and editor Chris Eboch's article in the March/April edition of The Bulletin, in which she talks about the design process for the cover of her latest book The Genie's Gift. You can read more about my process for illustrating the cover HERE. 

And spring is coming! Cause for celebration. 

Website and Interview

It's a happy day!

I have been interviewed over on author Joanna Marple's Miss Marple's Musings blog, which I was quite thrilled to do. Joanna regularly blogs about illustrators, her traveling adventures, and kidlit in general, and I suspect she might love kayaking almost as much as me. It's worth following, so check it out. 

If that weren't cause enough for thankfulness, I've also just launched my new website, which you can view by clicking on the Wordy Bird Studio tab above, or by clicking here. It is still a work in progress, and I look forward to completing its evolution with a page just for kids, and the Wordy Bird Studio store, where you'll be able to purchase giclee prints of my work and other items. 

AND... I also have a new Wordy Bird Studio Facebook page, where I'll be posting links about writing, publishing, illustrating, and all sorts of kidlit goodies. You can find and follow it here. 

Thanks for dropping by the birdhouse. 

Book Cover Illustration: My Process for "The Genie's Gift" by Chris Eboch

I have just completed a most enjoyable project: illustrating the cover for author Chris Eboch's new middle grade book, The Genie's Gift, soon to be released, and I thought I'd share my process with you.

Chris provided text from the scene she wanted illustrated and some notes about the characters. In order to get a feel for her taste, get a fuller sense of her vision, and to see if we were on the same page in terms of what we liked (we were), we looked at a variety of middle grade book covers. Pinterest is a wonderful tool for sharing ideas.

I immediately formed an image in my mind, and used Pinterest again (I like to use a “secret” board while I’m actively working on a project), compiling reference images and images whose tone spoke to me in some way.

I wanted to give the genie an imposing air, to have him hanging in the air above the protagonist, and inspiring awe in both her and the viewer. Concurrently, I did some very rough sketches and thumbnails, which I then refined until I’d come up with six possible designs:

Once a design was chosen, I did the line drawing, scanned it in, and threw in some color to further convey my vision to Chris.

Chris had stipulated that the genie not be demonic or scary, and so we settled on this kind of face and expression:

I redrew the line drawing, scanned it in, and then the painting began. I use Corel Painter, which is an extraordinary program. One of many great things about Painter is that you can combine mediums such as pencil, water color, and pastel with oil paints, which you’d have a difficult to impossible time doing with traditional media.

  

By this stage, Chris had decided she wanted a wraparound cover, so I extended the drawing to the left. The book designer was, of course, involved at various stages along the way as we took various aspects such as title and byline placement into consideration.

Since gold was going to be a predominant color in the painting and would provide warmth, I laid down a gold gradient on the lowest layer (which you’ll note in the image below), with the highlight behind where the genie would sit. On top of this (but under the pencil layer), I began an underpainting, throwing in the basic tones and colors. (I have found Digital Painting for the Complete Beginner by author/illustrator Carlyn Beccia invaluable as I have learned to use this program. The book is equally weighted toward those who prefer to paint using Photoshop.)

And from there, it was a process of layering paint, over many hours, until I achieved the look I wanted. I was very excited about painting his shimmering pants:

Mr. Shimmerpants

 Here’s the very blue-green genie before I did warmer glazes on top. Using cool tones allowed me to give him form without losing light:

Copyright © Marlo Garnsworthy 2013

At multiple stages of the process, I sought feedback from my critique partner and my artist mother, who both provided invaluable input. If you’re serious about illustration or writing, get yourself a good, trustworthycritique partner(s) or group who won’t just say “It’s great” but will lay it on you as it is. So even when you think you might be done…

Copyright © Marlo Garnsworthy 2013

 …you’re probably not, as some trusted other eyes should tell you. 

Here is the image ready for cropping and text. YAY!

Final cover illustration for The Genie's Gift by Chris Eboch
Image Copyright © Marlo Garnsworthy 2013

Update:

And here's the cover with text in place:

Learn more about Chris's side of the cover design process in the March/April edition of the SCBWI Bulletin. The Genie's Gift is available HERE. 

And be sure to visit Chris's website and check out some of her other books. I'd also highly recommend Advanced Plotting, which I have found an excellent resource for working out narrative kinks and strengthening story-line.

Beyond the Wall of Terror

I’m not posting much these days. I started this blog to cure a wretched case of writer’s block, which wasn’t just affecting my writing. It was my visual art, too. It was my visual art especially, in fact, though I wasn’t getting any books finished, either. I’m in a very good creative place these days, and so my spare moments are easily filled with non-blogging creative activity.

But a little over two years ago, being back in this good creative place was all but impossible to imagine. Writing was—at best—difficult, and the mere thought of drawing or painting made me nauseous. I had grown frustrated and desperate creatively, and almost everything I tried to draw or paint (if I even dared try) seemed only to bolster those feelings. I was sitting slumped against the Wall of Terror that causes so much creative paralysis, trying to scramble over it, or using my head as a battering ram. Something had to give, and it was not going to be my desire to make things; it would have to be the Wall.

And then, quite suddenly, just when I really needed it, things began to shift.     

          

So much of my creative time since then has been about reaching out, opening up, and simply walking through the Wall. I’m finding it’s not that hard if you set a small goal and a firm deadline, and only focus on those. Having strong, like-minded allies is vital, too.

From illustration for NESCBWI poster contest 2013.

Sure, taking a chance, creating your soul out, and exposing your work can be as emotionally treacherous as they are joyful, but on this side of the wall is only stagnation, disappointment, and then bitterness. After all, if life’s end is your only deadline, you can have no concerns about making it.

I am off to the New England SCBWI regional conference on Friday, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve submitted a piece for the poster illustration competition. Huzzah! That fact alone speaks volumes. So if and when I reach it again, I must remember the Wall of Terror is like a membrane—stretchy, transparent, and porous; just look a little beyond it and push gently. 

Maya Apocalypse! Or not?

If you're flitting round Boston today, fly on over to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Our book launch for Mysteries in the Maya Calendar Museum is today at 3:30. All welcome. 

Funky Birdlings

© Lesley Breen Withrow

Check out this delightfully funky bird pattern by illustrator and designer Leslie Breen Withrow, then fly on over to her blog and view her other wonderful work: http://lesleybreenwithrow.blogspot.com/2012/12/bird-pattern.html I'll have a funky bird skirt made of this, thank you very much!

Leslie and her family live right here in Rhode Island, and her husband Steven Withrow is the co-producer of the uber fabulous Library of the Early Mind, a documentary that explores children's literature and its vital importance. If you care about kids' books and kids' minds, it's a must see: http://www.libraryoftheearlymind.com/About.html It's also very entertaining. 

Back to the Drawing Board

It’s 3:40, I’m all caught up with work, Chickling is at the Elder Birds for a couple of nights, and so it’s time to start my homework. The dishes can wait. I’m allowed to start my homework. I’m “actively allowing” myself to draw—how very cool and strangely distorted is that? But it’s something I go through every time I sit down to do this. Scourge of the worker-mother, I guess.

Oooooooh, I love homework—even when it’s torturing me*—and I love the fact that I have to do it. Especially this week. I have to pull out all the stops and produce something with high levels of awesome this week. I have to. It’s the last class, and our final projects are due on the crit wall 6:30pm Wednesday. 

*I’m not as far along as I’d like to be in the design process. My ideas for my piece are not as advanced as I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about that before class, but when I got it up there on the crit wall it was quite clear to me. I didn’t feel it, what I'd produced, and I certainly didn’t feel that others would feel it, at least not in the way I intended it. And though I accept that as part of the creative process, I felt flat...just a little bit. I was on the way to that quiet, thoughtful place that comes before starting over.    

You know that place.

...when you know it’s all there in your mind, and you’re just waiting to coax it out—in a way that it works, this time. The mug of tea is steeping, and you're adjusting the music on your iTunes. You’re on the verge of revising. It's going to be challenging, but you’re about to have a wild blast. And it feels amazing.  

Scary Boots ’n’ All

I don’t mind admitting I do get a little anxious as it nears my turn for critique of my artwork in the class I’m taking at RISD this summer. I appreciate learning from every comment on technical aspects, of course, but that’s not what has me anxious. It’s people’s emotional reactions to my work that interest me most. I feel that if I can lick that, then I’ve won the major part of the battle. So far so good, but I’m about to go out on a much bigger limb as the end of the course nears.

This coming class—the penultimate class—we have been asked to present our ideas and sketches for the final project due the following week. I have chosen, without thinking or considering an alternative, to illustrate a double-page spread from a picture book text I’ve written. To progress with the illustration of this book and (perhaps even more so) to fall in love with drawing again were my goals in taking this class.

But even though I have achieved my greater goal already—I am well and truly on the way to besotted with drawing again—I am nervous about my decision to do something from my book. It would be easier, perhaps, to choose something random and unattached to a wider project, just to fulfill the assignment’s expectations and create a nice piece of art for its own sake. But my gut tells me this is the right thing for me, that this is what I want and what I truly need. But…

How do I go about it? Will I be capable? What if I fail? Do I have good ideas? Hell, do I have any ideas at all? I had some yesterday—where have they all gone? Do I have the guts and stamina required to push past the time and emotional barriers and make my project work in the way it must for me to be happy with it? Sure, it’s just a homework project, but to me it’s so much more. It’s a like taking a serious step in a new, intoxicating relationship (or is it like a hopeful rekindling of an old one gone sour?), and it’s as scary as it is elating—because if it fails, this one's going to sting.   

How do you push past the fear we all feel at some point on our creative journeys? Where do you place your focus so as not to succumb to it?

I, for one, am just going to listen to some music and draw and hope. And I’ve committed myself now, right here, on purpose, so I can’t back out, on my blog for all the Interwebs to see. So… here goes… I’m going to start… right… now…

Sensory Research

I've been thinking about an interesting discussion during critique in my RISD class this week, in which I encouraged two of my students to physically immerse themselves in the setting they were writing about, one to run barefoot through the woods, the other to dive to the bottom of a pool. I hoped this would help each of them to fully connect with their protagonist's experience, and open them even further to the language and rhythms that would bring each story to its full potential. This morning, I (somewhat unwittingly) took my own advice. 


I often run on the beach in the early hours, and I always have my camera at hand, my idea of the absolute perfect start to any day. My current picture book project involves a young gull in a puzzling predicament, and so off I set this morning in the hopes of capturing some early morning gull activity to use as reference material.

 My dog and I had the beach almost to ourselves. The light was stark and unearthly.

The sea was churning and roaring, and we had to jump and race the waves in places to pass.

Sanderlings darted along the shoreline.  

And I knew this was one of life's pure and perfect moments.

And then the sun rose. 

I'm aiming to get a gull's-eye-view in my illustrations, so I like to get down low. Also, I thought this seaweed was quite beautiful. 

By 7 am when it was time to leave, I realized I'd seen no gulls, not one. Which means I will happily be back there tomorrow morning. 

I may not have captured seagulls, but I immersed myself in the sensory experience of the beach, the visual, the sounds, the smells, the feel of the sand and the damp salty air on my skin, all things I look forward to using as I revise my text later today. 

And I realized that while my text has beach scents, textures, and visuals, it is (almost) lacking in the sounds of the beach. My challenge now is to capture the rhythm and feel of the ocean in the language I'm using, and I feel that IF I can achieve that, I will have done something I'll feel quite pleased about.

What about you? Do you immerse yourself in your settings and characters' experiences, or do
you 'wing it' with imagination and memory? 

A Puzzling Narrative, Parte the First…

...in which a perfectly good picture book text is utterly dismantled.

I wrote a text for a picture book. It was a text I liked, and I submitted it to an editor who had invited me to send more of my work. On this particular text, she gave me some positive feedback and rejected it, and as one does sometimes with such things, I closed the file and let it sit…for two years.

But the text began to whisper again, and because I was somewhat desperate for forward creative motion in my life, I opened up the file, tweaked it a little, and took it off to crit group. They liked it. But I wasn’t ready to send it out just yet, because the narrative had an essential—and fatal—flaw. I knew it. I just wasn't sure how to solve it. The flaw was this:


The ending did not deliver on the promise I’d set up in the beginning of the story.

It’s the kind of flaw I pick up in students’ work all the time, and here it was, grumbling at me from my computer screen. 

Fast forward a month or four. I've decided it's high time I pick up a pencil and think about illustrating this text. I've felt a renewed excitement about it. But as I've storyboarded it out, the flaw has begun to shout. It's increasingly clear, as I think about the visual narrative, that this problem must be solved if the text has any chance of working. And while some problems can be solved in the visual narrative in a picture book, this one clearly has to have a textual resolution as well.

Today, I also had to face up to the fact that though there are many elements I love about the text, the glue that held them together was more than sticky and a little-bit-icky.

So here I am this afternoon. To my left, the text as it was, the bits I love underlined.

To my right, those beloved bits. Sampled and snipped. Cut up and mixed up. 

I have a feeling they’ll fall back into more or less the same place they were, but the glue between them is going to change. I needed to eliminate it completely to move forward. I’m hoping that within this puzzle is the solution to my dilemma.   

To be continued…

Happy First Blogoversary to:

It's a Hoot! 

Illustration by Melanie Linden Chan

Melanie Linden Chan, illustrator and writer for children, blogs about her journey to becoming a children's book illustrator. Whether you're interested in children's book illustration, the illustration and artistic process, or kids' books in general, It's a Hoot is well worth following. 


Melanie is one of my former students at RISD, and having worked with her, I simply cannot wait to see where this journey takes her! 

 Illustration by Melanie Linden Chan