CREATING MISS MUFFET

I recently created an experimental piece that was inspired by a character in a colleague's manuscript. I began as usual with one of my "rag doll" figures, roughing in the character's pose, and the physical setting.

My next question was, what does this little Miss Muffet look like? I tried her first as a mouse. That didn't feel satisfying.  

I tried her again as a little humanoid. She immediately came to life for me!

Although I usually create my art using only pencil, pen, inks, paints, and paper, this time I turned to my computer for some of the steps.  Here, I've scanned both Miss Muffet and the original sketch, and then replaced the rag doll figure with the Miss Muffet figure, using Photoshop.

I printed out the sketch, and worked on it further with pencil. The paper I used was an inferior grade of paper, which gave a slightly blurred effect that intrigued me. I often use an inferior paper when experimenting and trying out new ideas. It seems to free me up from any worry about "wasting expensive paper," and it allows me to make as many false turns as I want or need. Inferior paper also often gives unexpected results, as here, which I can later use deliberately in creating a piece.

I scanned and printed out the reworked sketch, and colored it with watercolors. Scanning and printing out the sketch obviously gave me the possibility of easily making several trials, experimenting with different palettes, and even different media, for the color.  Rescanning and printing out on the inferior paper also gave a pleasing blurred effect to the whole piece.

I liked my little Miss Muffet enough to put her on my most recent promotional postcard. Even as I publish this post, she is winging her way across the country to my list of art directors and editors. Bon voyage, Miss Muffet!

AUCTION! PLUM CREEK CHILDREN'S LITERACY FESTIVAL

I have just donated this piece of art from my book Holly's Christmas Eve ...

...plus a signed copy of the book to go with it...

...to the Plum Creek Children's Literacy Festival's online benefit auction of original art. Go to the site https://www.32auctions.com/plumcreek2016 
and prepare to salivate over all the wonderful original art from children's books that will be available. This is your chance to acquire beautiful art at often very reasonable prices, while helping to promote children's literacy. The auction begins September 1. I'll be bidding---hope you will too!

ART SALE BENEFIT

Donate to "Thumbelina", receive this art as a reward

Victoria Dobrushina, teacher extraordinaire in Norwich Vermont, has consistently created unique end-of-year recitals and productions for her students, who range in age from 5 to over 70. While these productions always have a classical piano focus, they also incorporate many other instruments, as well as singing, dance, and theater. This year, she and all of her collaborators are hoping to take the performance to a whole new level with a full theatrical production of Thumbelina, created by a team of talented artists including composer E. Krylatov, poet Y. Entin, drama director and librettist I. Khutsieva, choreographer D. Frawley, and Victoria as music director. 

I created this piece of art and have given it to Victoria's organization. They will use it as the program cover, and as a fund-raiser. Donate $150 or more to Thumbelina...and receive the orginal piece as your reward. There are 13 days left to respond!

Go to this link to find out more about the Thumbelina project:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thumbelinainvermont/thumbelina-collaborative-multicultural-childrens-m/description

Click on the tab for "updates" to see a video of Victoria's recital from last year. "Updates" will also show you see details about the artwork reward.  Or go to this link:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thumbelinainvermont/thumbelina-collaborative-multicultural-childrens-m/posts/1608637

NO LINES!

So much of my work combines line with color and tone. I've recently challenged myself with a new assignment: create images, either in color or black-and-white, using no lines. NO LINES ALLOWED.

(At least, no lines allowed in the final. I wouldn't know how to compose without using lines.) I began with the scenery for this particular image. Every artist has his or her own method. If the background and scenery for an image has any complexity, I like to work that out first. It's like creating the stage set.

Then I add the figures. I can easily place them, choreograph them, rearrange them, however I like. As usual, I put each element or figure on a different layer of transparent vellum, making it easy to shift positions. This eliminates the need to re-draw...re-draw...re-draw. As I've said so often, this is exactly the same process one would use with, say, Photoshop on the computer---working in layers. I just happen to prefer creating the layers with a pencil and paper.

After some experimentation, I decided to execute this composition in pencil on vellum---a surface that has a nice tooth for pencil. (Working surfaces being pricey, I did my experimenting on a partially used piece of vellum---the outlines of a lawn chair that you see are from another project.) I also tried a couple of different pencils before settling on a Koh-i-noor Kunstlerqualitat Negro #3, a tool that I have loved for years. (This pencil is no longer manufactured. Fortunately for me, I stocked up on them years ago, and figure I have enough for the rest of my lifetime---and perhaps beyond.)

Because this was a relatively new way for me to work, I kept pieces of scratch paper next to me, and experimented frequently with ways to handle various parts of the drawing. A foot coming at you, seen slightly from below, is always tricky for me.

The finished drawing. I decided not to use the checkerboard pattern on the floor that I had originally visualized. Too complicated, it seemed, for the very simple approach that had evolved.

I decided to use the final drawing for one of my promotional postcards, so I drew a little fir twig in the same style for a decoration.

The finished postcard. My experimentation gave me a double return: a new technique that I might use in a future illustration job---and a promotional piece for December.

BOOKPLATE

Occasionally I am offered a small, non-book illustration job. This memorial bookplate was one of those small jobs, and as always, I enjoyed the change of pace and the creative freedom that it gave me. The only restrictions I was given were the dimensions of the bookplate, and the text that was to be included.

Initially I came up with this very rough composition. The blue line indicates the outside dimensions of the plate. My sketches, if left to their own devices, would always be very rough---even sloppy, by today's standards. I never like to get very detailed in a sketch. For me, laboring over a sketch and filling in all the details at that stage takes away from the spontaneity and liveliness of the finished art. It's hard to believe this now, but many years earlier in my career, I sometimes did not even send sketches to an editor before going ahead with finished art. Publishing has changed dramatically since those days! At any rate, I knew that my finished bookplate art would be much more refined than my sketch...

...but my client was not as comfortable. So I made a new sketch, very clear, defined, detailed. (Again, by my standards. Many artists make sketches that are far more detailed and finished than mine.) I felt there was too much empty, unused space around the children's legs in the first sketch---a little boring. So I made the dog larger and sat him on the floor instead of on the bench; and I added the two mice. In the old days, these are changes that I would have made as I was preparing my work surface and laying out the composition in pencil, in preparation for painting and inking; the only difference then was that I would not have created an additional, separate sketch. And the refinements would have happened as I was actually inking. To me, that is the joy of creating. If I have worked out every detail ahead of time, then the inking and painting are, for me, simply copying, not creating. 

So my client was now comfortable with the sketch...

...and I could proceed with the finished art. I did not end up hand-lettering the text, as I had suggested. Instead it was added as type by the client. Again, in this day and age, the hand-lettering was probably just too "hand-made" in its appearance. Bookplate---a very satisfying job for me, and a nice change from book illustration.

STEAM ENGINES

This is one of the double-page spreads I created for "The Cats In Krasinski Square", written by Karen Hesse, and published in 2004. It's a large piece, 24" wide, and executed in pencil, watercolor, and ink. The story was challenging to illustrate, set as it was in Warsaw, Poland, during WWII, and dealing with the hardships of Jews, both in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Since the story was historical fiction, I relied heavily on photographs to construct my illustrations. When I had roughed out this composition, using xeroxes of photos and my own very rough figure sketches, I showed it to my dad, Aldren A Watson, the well-known illustrator who was my professional mentor until his death. Dad looked at my compostion for several minutes, clearly uncomfortable about SOMETHING. Finally he said, "You've got an American steam engine here, not a European steam engine." 

 As it happened, my father was not only a terrific artist, but an expert on old trains. (And just a note: I learned that American steam engines had cowcatchers at the front end; European engines had bumpers.) He sent me sketches, photos, and books of European steam engines, as well as historical information about the manufacturers of steam engines, indicating which kind of engine was likely to have been in Warsaw in 1940. Thank goodness he caught this mistake---I'm not sure if anyone else would have seen it until it was too late.

I began to revise my sketch. It was hard to find photos clear enough for me to see all the details of wheels, drive shafts, and other mechanical parts. "Just add a lot of steam" my Dad said. We artists know about "adding steam". Sometimes that's a cop-out; other times it's a practical solution. As my son always said about film and the stage (and equally applicable to illustration): "We're creating an illusion of reality, not reality itself."

On a separate transparent layer I next worked out very carefully the arrangement of the clouds and steam behind the engine.The separate layer avoids messing up any drawing on other sections of the compositions.

Next came the figures of the pursuers...

...and of the pursued.

I combined all these layers into my master sketch. I carry out this process with transparent vellum, but the process is exactly the same if one is doing it on a computer.

And voila (after 4 days of painting and inking)---the finished illustration. 

COMING UP FOR AIR

I'm no good at multi-tasking. So when several book ideas grabbed me by the ear six months ago and began to harrass me, blogging went by the board. Six months later, I've sent three manuscripts with sample art off to my agent for her to peddle. And I'm back at blogging.

Picture Book #1

Publishing being what it is, I can't really show off my darlings. But I'm giving you a hint.

Picture Book #2

And another hint.

Graphic Novella

And another.

Unfortunately---again, publishing being what it is---the soonest you will ever be able to see much more of these three projects will be at least one year from now. Unless you can come in person to my studio---there you can be the first to see whatever it is I'm working on, at whatever stage it happens to be.

ABFFE'S HOLIDAY EBAY AUCTION

This piece is my donation to the The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE)'s Holiday eBay Auction of art from children’s books. About 80 other children's book illustrators have also donated works. The auction runs from December 1 to December 8. Proceeds of the auction help support the Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), which is co-sponsored by ABFFE and the National Coalition Against Censorship. For more info, go to http://www.abffe.org.

And here is the link to join the auction directly:

http://www.ebay.com/usr/abffe

A TALISMAN FOR A CHARACTER

The middle-grade protagonist of my current project needs a talisman of some sort to carry with him as he escapes from an abusive orphanage---the only home he's ever known---and sets out to make his way in the world. This talisman would have to be something quite small. Something that would fit into a pocket. Something that could be concealed from the prying eyes of harsh matrons and overseers. Something that he happened to find in the labyrinthian halls of the orphanage. Something that could also fall out of a pocket. I just couldn't figure out what this talisman was. Then I decided that if I went looking at actual objects, my character might whisper "That's it!" into my ear when I came to the right one.  

I began my talisman-hunting at Antique Trove, one of my favorite places to haunt.  Seemingly miles and miles of dealer booths, with displays of everything and anything that can be fit into a building.

                            

I found a small tin box with a hinged lid.  In my story it couldn't be a tobacco tin---but it could be a tin for peppermints, for example. "This might be it," I thought.  Then it occured to me---maybe this was only the box in which he kept the actual talisman.

So my next visit was to my local Goodwill, another of my favorite places when one is looking for the unexpected. Maybe a ring? A bottle cap? A spoon? A 

button?

I wasn't struck by anything at Goodwill, so I went on to Target.  Since my protagonist ends up at a diner, perhaps there'd be some sort of small kitchen utensil that would fit into his tin box. But there was nothing that seemed remotely suitable.

Back home once again, I thought about a key...a coin...a stone. But there was no whispering, no voice that said "THAT'S IT!"  In fact, I began to doubt whether he had a little tin box at all, either empty or full.  In other words, back to square one.  So was this a failure?  Not at all.  I now know that his talisman is REAL, not just a figment of my imagination. I see him carrying it; holding it; hiding it. I just don't yet know what it actually is. But I do know for sure that, one of these days, he is finally going to show it to me.

FEBRUARY "READ" POSTER

February's Free Poster of the Month
http://www.wendy-watson.com

My February READ poster is now ready for free downloading from my website:  http://www.wendy-watson.com. When I announced the launch of this poster project, I blithely promised that I would create new original art for each poster.  I did not forsee a hiking accident at the end of December that would break my nose and put me out of commission for a few weeks.  So the image on this poster is not a brand-new piece of art, but rather an illustration from my book "Bedtime Bunnies".  I hope you enjoy it, print it, use it!

A BROKEN NOSE...AND ART FOR SALE

You may have been wondering where I was.  In a nutshell: first I was hiking with my daughter on South Mountain; then I was falling; then I was at the Emergency Room with a broken nose, getting stitched up; then I was hiding at home, looking and feeling like an Insectoid Alien from outer space.  I'm finally getting back to business.  I've begun listing original illustrations for sale in my online Etsy store, and today I added four pieces from the book IS MY FRIEND AT HOME: PUEBLO FIRESIDE TALES.

These tales were edited by the brilliant editor and translator of Native American literature, John Bierhorst.  Here is the opening image to that story, a tale that explains why Coyote has a blackened tail and crooked teeth.

Coyote tries to turn the tables on his treacherous friend, Snake...

 ...but Coyote's plan backfires when Snake sets Coyote's artificial tail on fire...

...and Coyote flees, a chastened and changed creature.  I am realizing only now, years after this book's publication, that I should have portrayed Coyote's tail in the opening image WITHOUT the blackened tip! Because of course, he had not yet been tricked by Snake, and his tail was at that point still beautifully rust-colored and pristine. Yet all the eyes (artist, author, art director, editors) that examined that art pre-publication failed to catch the slip.

Go to my Etsy store for prices and other details on these pieces: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WendyWatsonStudio?ref=si_shop  Or contact me through my website: http://www.wendy-watson.com

MY NEW "POSTER OF THE MONTH" PROJECT

January's Free Poster Of The Month
http://www.wendy-watson.com/poster.html

TA-DAH! I'm launching my latest website project:  a free poster to download and print each month from my website.  The posters are available in two sizes: 8 1/2 x 11, and 11 x 17.  In the past month or so, you may have seen the artwork for this January poster here on my blog, on my Facebook page, or in my Etsy store.  In the future I will be making a brand-new piece of art for each poster, so by the end of the year you'll have the entire collection of twelve posters.  Twelve pieces of art not found anywhere else (well, except for the January poster).  The poster files are large, so if you use a good quality stock, you should get a very nice print.  And what will the posters be promoting?  READING, of course!  Pass this on---to teachers, librarians, parents, and book lovers.  And let me know what you think of this idea!

http://www.wendy-watson.com/poster.html

FEODOR ROJANKOVSKY

Feodor Rojankovsky was born in Russia on December 24, 1891, and after a life disrupted many times by WWI and then WWII, emigrated to the United States in 1941.  I've always admired his artwork, particularly for its wonderfully rich bright colors.

One of his gifts were the tactile illusions that he was able to portray.  I always felt I could reach out and stroke the fur of his kittens, or feel the damp smoothness of his mushrooms.  

Another wonderful aspect of so much of his art is the reference to the folk art of his native country.  His three bears, for example,  inhabit a thoroughly Russian peasant's home, with gaily carved furniture and utensils.

And he clearly was well acquainted with the animals he portrayed in his illustrations.  He's one of the few illustrators about whom I've thought, "If only I could illustrate like THAT."

Once again, I have felt quite frustrated as I've searched online for information in preparing this birthday-of-the-month post.  I've been stymied by the lack of online information about whatever illustrator I've chosen, and often an illustrator I've thought of is not anywhere to be found.  I've also been very disappointed to find hardly anything about female illustrators from these earlier times.  There were many women, too, in this field---women of great skill and reputation; and yet it's almost impossible to find anything at all about them online.  I plan to find some good old-fashioned BOOKS about these artists as I continue this series in the new year; and I also keep thinking that in my "spare time" I ought to begin creating an online treasury and directory, to honor and acknowledge these artists who were the founders, in a sense, of the great field of modern children's book illustration that we have today.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feodor_Stepanovich_Rojankovsky

http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/birthbios/brthpage/12dec/12-24rojan.html

http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/degrum/public_html/html/research/findaids/DG0834f.html