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Goldie Socks in progress

Oh, happy day!  My computer, before it had its nervous breakdown earlier this year, absolutely refused to recognize some of my old disks.  Now I pop in a disk and voilà!—some old files I’d thought were lost forever are back again.

I worked on Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians, by my pal Jackie Mims Hopkins a few years ago.  I’d just gotten a digital camera and was beginning to document the progress of my paintings.  Here’s one scene where I’m painting the inside of the libearians’ house.  Goldie Socks settles down to read a book in a couch that’s too soft.  At the end of the sequence, Goldie is still only an underpainting.  I’ll come back later and paint her into every scene.

Cover ideas for Pete’s Disappearing Act

Back when Jenny Tripp’s fabulous sequel to Pete and Fremont was still in production, the story—in which Pete leaves the circus in search of a new life—didn’t yet have a title.  Things were becoming so desperate AD Samantha McFerrin was reduced to asking me for ideas.  Here are rough sketches for the cover with title possibilities scribbled in:

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Nothing very workable here.  What about something more show-bizzy?  At this point Pete’s Disappearing Act had become the working title, so I thought I’d do something that looked like a vanishing act. Here are some ideas as tight sketches:

Too Houdini.  Here’s a dramatic scene where Pete and his friends are almost run over by a riverboat:

Still not quite there.  But this one was the winner—Pete caught up in a twister:

Dear T Rex cover

My computer had a nervous breakdown in March and I thought I’d lost all my images from this title, Dear Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Here are some that follow the development of the cover art I found on a disk.

The story’s about a girl who sends a T Rex an invitation to  her sixth birthday party.  The first sketch is for front & back cover, showing T Rex opening the invite in his museum.  Next is the painting with more background on the left side, including the security guard.

The art director wasn’t happy with this image, and suggested something simpler.  Here’s the sketch and the painting.

Painting over the underpainting

Joanie asks:

I have yet another question if you don’t mind since you have been so kind to answer all my others! I understand the importance of an underpainting since it establishes all the values before you add the color but when you are painting over your underpainting how do you keep all the colors from not mixing into each other and creating mud? Thanks!!!

John answers:

Ah, that’s the tricky part!  If you’re using gouache, you need to exercise a great deal of restraint while laying down those colors—once your brush makes the stroke, STOP!  Don’t give in to the temptation to blend and scrub and fuss.  Gouache is a straightforward medium.  There’s a point at which, once crossed, the painting looks overworked.

But that’s my technique.  If you want to have the option to really work the paint without disturbing the underpainting, you might try spraying workable fixative on the underpainting once it’s dry, before you apply the top colors.

More on underpainting here.

Festival in Venice

There’s a scene in The Famous Nini when the king declares National Nini Day and everyone celebrates.

Kerry Martin, the senior design editor, wasn’t happy with the scene as I’d depicted it in the thumbnail sketch with crowds on a bridge over a canal (p 17).  I worked up 3 rough alternative sketches—where we see Nonna & Nini through the crowd, where the crowd is seen from inside the caffè, where Nonna & Nini are out among the crowd—and then did a tight version of the winner.

What if friends want free work?

A former student of mine wrote:

I am having an issue with people thinking just because they know me I should paint portraits of their kids and do graphic design work for them for nothing—or next to it. I have gotten five demands this week (worse yet, 3 of those were rather rude).

I politely sent back a note explaining that I freelance—accompanying a cost sheet for the work, hours involved in the job requested. And a link to my site, also thanking them for being interested. This has not won me upbeat feedback. Or just sheer astonishment that I would ask $300.00 down to begin a medium-sized oil portrait.

What are some suggestions you may have so that I could further appear more professional? I wish I had limitless time and a money tree in the back yard to just make work and give it away to people who love what I do. Unfortunately this is not the case. Any advice would be appreciated.

I wrote back:

Sounds like you’re doing it the right way—professional-looking estimates remind people that you’re in business and can’t afford to give away free samples. I doubt your friends would consider giving up a paycheck for whatever work they do. Moreover, it’s fatal to cultivate the perception that your work isn’t worth anything.

I’ve done the occasional freebie for friends who’ve been kind to me and I wanted to reciprocate—but that’s my decision. Because I’m established, these friends understand and appreciate what they’re being given (if you’re one of those friends reading this right now, I want to underscore that I enjoyed sharing my talent with you). It’s harder for a young artist starting out.

Stick to your guns. The friends who are astonished that you charge for your skills or are outright rude will either come around to respect your talent or they’ll drift away.

Jacket art for Famous Nini

Of all the images for a picture book, the jacket art gets the biggest going-over.  I sent 4 rough thumbnail ideas to Kerry Martin, the senior design editor (in the olden days there was an art director and an editor; Kerry’s title reflects the melding of those 2 positions over the years).  Number 2 was chosen—the silhouette of the gondola makes a nice graphic shape—and I worked up a tight sketch.  You can see the painting in progress.  I liked the idea of a nighttime scene, with Venice reflected in the canal.  Next, the comprehensive layout—or ‘comp’—with the sketch and the type combined.  Originally I was to hand-letter the title type, but the treatment Kerry came up with looks so good we all agreed not to mess with it.  Finally, the finished illustration.

L’Imperatore d’Etiopia

The Famous Nini is due out June 7, but Amazon.com already has copies available.

A scene I particularly like: the Emperor of Ethiopia arrives in Venice to visit Nini the famous cat. Here’s the thumbnail sketch—

Here is the sketch, built from the thumbnail.  I envisioned the Emperor and his daughter traveling from their ship up the canal via a royal gondola, like the one the Doge used. That’s Verdi top right, with some Carnivale party-goers (they look a little somber—the princess is tragically mute).  I tricked out the gondola with some African style pelts, but my art director felt a tiger-skin would be out-of-place in a cat-lover’s book.

The Doge's gondola

Emperor Menelik

A martini for Harriet

I’m going to deviate from my standard practice of avoiding adult topics in this blog—usually I keep it kid-friendly.  Today, however, I mention the name of an adult beverage.

That’s because today is different.  The proprieties must be observed.  Today seven years ago my beautiful, clever, witty, passionate, fun, inspiring agent—Harriet Kasak—lost her battle with cancer.

She was the iconic urbane sophisticate, living and working in Manhattan, the capital of Western Civilization.  It was our practice whenever we met, once the business aspect of the meeting was finished, to have a martini.  I like mine with gin, extremely dry (only enough vermouth to coat the glass) and 3 olives–served cold enough to freeze your lips.  And so I’m enjoying one now as I write this post.

In the mid 1990’s, early in my illustration career, Harriet took my edgy, trying-too-hard-to-be-post-modern style and showed me how to make it accessible.  She taught me how to draw little girls, which was/is difficult for me (yes, she showed me by drawing them herself).  For one of my early titles—a history of eating utensils—she accompanied me to the Metropolitan Museum where I drew sketches of various species of forks, knives and spoons from ancient cultures.  She found joy in the business of promoting her artists.

Every Autumn Harriet hosted a meet-and-greet party for her illustrators and clients.  In the early years they were held in her apartment/office, later as her business grew she chose lively venues to accommodate the growing crowd.  These parties were dazzling for their locations, food, and gathering of creative personalities.

One year she organized a field trip to the artists’ community of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where a bunch of us trekked to be instructed by no less than Jim McMullan.  Class in the morning, eating, shopping, sightseeing in the afternoon and evening.

Once while Harriet was jetting around the country tending to business, she arranged an afternoon layover in Pittsburgh so she could visit me.  Naturally I was nervous about entertaining Harriet, who had once entertained Andy Warhol in her home.  I made reservations atop the Steel Building, hoping to impress her with views of the ‘Burgh while we luncheoned in quiet elegance.  Luckily I had the wit to also lay in some groceries against the event she’d rather eat at my house.  Which proved fortunate—since Harriet had spent the week gallivanting about the country dining in restaurants, what she craved was home-cooking.  And so we retired to my kitchen where together we assembled a glorious lunch from recipes found in Martha Stewart’s magazine.

About that history of eating utensils: I was still an untried children’s book illustrator at that stage of my career, and Simon & Schuster had some trepidation about how I would go about illustrating a book dealing with specific historical facts.  They were afraid I would simply make stuff up, without bothering to do the research.  A meeting was called; Harriet and I were summoned, along with Patricia Lauber (the author), editor and art director.  It was a long meeting, lasting several hours, with lunch ordered in, while my sketches for the book were painstakingly examined for historical accuracy.  Was I taking too many liberties with history?  Finally, late in the afternoon, I cited a source for my decision to show a particular mediæval dining room setup—which Patricia recognized as the same she had used for writing that paragraph about mediæval dining.  The room’s mood warmed up; author, editor & art director saw they could trust me—and so could Harriet.  After the meeting finally broke up Harriet & I piled into one of those charming little bars that abound in Manhattan—this one sporting a wraparound ersatz Renaissance mural—so we might repair the damages sustained in the heat of action.  We congratulated ourselves on coming through the trial with our honor intact, and celebrated by having a couple of martinis.

Of course, Harriet could have sent me into that meeting all by myself.  But she didn’t—that wouldn’t be her style.  She was there to support me during the crisis, no matter how it turned out.

Sure I loved her.  Anybody’d be crazy not to.

Cheers, Harriet!  I miss you.