My newest picture book, Rollinβ on Down the Line, comes out today. I posted previously about the cover, but today I wanted to take you behind the scenes on the interior art.
This was one of the fastest book projects Iβve illustrated, from dummy to final art in just a few months. Lately I find analog drawings to be faster in the long run, so I ended up splitting up my work between digital and traditional rendering. Hereβs my process for illustrating the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, starting with reference. Luckily historic moments such as this are easy to research.
From there, I expanded the scene with rough thumbnail drawings.
Which became rough digital sketchesβ¦
Which then became rendered graphite/col-erase drawingsβ¦
And then final art, combining those analog drawings with digital painting.
Historic moments are one thing, but what about all the other moments in the book? One of the main challenges of illustrating non-fiction is finding reference for the lesser-known scenes. Fortunately LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson were very well-documented public figures (unlike the camera-shy Harper Lee, whom I illustrated in Alabama Spitfire). Still, any time I was presented with a tricky camera angle, I made sure to get my reference in order.
For this scene, my husband helped me shoot reference by holding my camera up on a tripod high above my drawing table.
The rest of the process went smoothly from there.
If youβre interested in illustrating non-fiction picture books, I will be teaching a breakout session at the SCBWI Carolinas Fall Conference in September on that very subject. With three picture book biographies under my belt, Iβve learned a lot of strategies along the way that I canβt wait to share. Iβll also be giving portfolio reviews and manuscript/dummy critiques.
Hope to see you there!
Til next time, take care.
-Erin