new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Class One Farmyard Fun, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 11 of 11
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Class One Farmyard Fun in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
I've not reported on my picture book artwork recently, but it's going really well. I'm not used to the slow pace though: normally I would be head-down every day, so things would move along at a reasonable pace. It generally me takes 6 - 8 weeks to complete the pastel stage of my artwork, but this year I am getting 2 days a week instead of 5, so it's taking more than twice as long as normal, which feels like an eternity!
There's a worse snag though. Back at the outset, when I calculated how long it would take, I worked on having 3 days a week, since my residency project is only 2 days, but the extra admin of juggling both projects, plus all the back and forth emails setting up my various educational visits, not to mention writing this blog of course - all that stuff wipes out at least one day a week. Which means that I have been slowly creeping more and more behind schedule.
So, I've been pretty stressed, working late most nights to try and keep up, worrying about how to break the news to my publisher. In the end though, when I finally plucked up courage, they were great. My editor not only extended my deadline to fit the new timescale, but added a couple of extra weeks, to give me wriggle-room. HUGE sigh of relief! In all my years as an illustrator, I've never missed a deadline, so I'm delighted and feeling much better.
As you can see, I have been working recently on some of the single pages. This is because all the double page spreads are now done (hurrah!), all EXCEPT one of the most complex of all - the final spread, which I have been putting off:
The two illustrations above are from the middle of the book, where the bull is loose and stalking various children, prior to tossing them into the air. Oh no! Oh yes... You wicked author Julia Jarman!
The one below is from quite early on, before things go pear-shaped on the farm. Julia's text says:
They saw ducks dabbling in the lake,
And cows vibrating - making milk shakes.
Tee hee.
When I finished the last of these three pieces yesterday, I suddenly realised that everything was done, all except - yes - that final spread. So I'm nearly there.
Before I can even start colouring that last piece though, I have to trace it up onto my pink paper, which will take ages because it's so detailed, and be VERY boring. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I am going to struggle to get that job done at all next week, as I have a pretty full schedule, with my usual two days residency at the Morgan Centre, plus a lecture in Sheffield, then a school visit entailing an overnight stop in London... Good grief. it's all go.
No excuse the following week though. I'm guessing it will take me 3 - 4 days to pastel up the last piece, instead of the two I generally allow. Then, finally, the last job is to cut lots of card and paper, ready to mount everything up for sending off to the publisher. Another boring but necessary task.
Or maybe I can twist John's arm to do that bit for me...
I am gradually creeping forwards, though it's taking longer than I would like. So many fiddly bits! I am rather pleased with the effect of the muck heap though. My favourite bit on this one is the knitting sheep though. And I really like how the cockerel colours contrast so well against the background:
This is spread 3, coming directly after the artwork I showed you last. You can see Julia's text on the rough which, as usual, was tacked to my drawing board directly above the artwork as I worked, to allow me to keep checking the details of what I was creating, because of course, when you use pastels, a lot of that detail from the pencil drawing gets obliterated:
It's useful, taking a photo of the artwork once it's done. I hadn't realised this before but, seeing it reduced like this really helps me to spot things I've missed. A book like this is a bit of a nightmare, making sure I have coloured every tiny shoe, not missed out any hands, left off any freckles etc. I can see, looking at this artwork, I have forgotten the eyebrows on the lad throwing the muck at his classmate, so he doesn't look quite naughty enough. I'll just go and fix that...
As you probably already know, I am working on my artwork in a rather random order. Actually, it's not random to me: it's about content on the page, rather than story progression, but it probably looks random from the outside. Having drawn the smelly muck heap spreads, I went back a bit and tackled the farmer and the prickly haystack. I wanted to get the look of the muck heap under my belt first, then I could ensure that the haystack looked sufficiently different.
This was a lovely bold spread, so much easier to tackle in pastels. It another one where the background will be dropped in later, in a nice, bold colour, which is why there is so much of my pink paper visible. I have already established the look of both the farmer and the bull in earlier spreads, which made things even easier.
When that was finished, I thought I would go back to the other spread where that same gate appears: spread 2. As you can see, the muck heap is just being delivered to the field, complete with stowaway piglet. At this stage, Class One are still oblivious to the bull, though the reader can't fail to notice him glaring through the gate bars:
Of course, this was a much fiddlier piece to do and, in the end, it took nearly 3 days to get all the detail in. The pastel 'clogs' after a while: you can only build it up so much, then you have to use fixative, which allows you to continue to layer over the top. Having fixed it when it was 2/3rds finished, I had to more or less rework everything, to bring back the brightness of the colour. A bit of a nightmare, especially when there is this much going on. Fixative has always been an unfortunately necessary evil.
Here it is on my desk, with the rough I always mount alongside, for guidance. That will allow you to read Julia Jarman's text:
Before people send me messages pointing out that I've 'missed a bit', the writing has been left off the sign on the gate deliberately - you always leave text off picture book artwork, so it will work for foreign editions. I will create the 'Beware of the Bull' text separately, so it can be taken off for any translations.
You might also notice another little anomaly in that area of the illustration. In my rough, there is more of the bull showing. Actually, on my very first drawing, it was just a tail visible, as a teaser, but my art director thought we should see a bit more of him. My re-work of that rough is the one above. However, when I was preparing to start the artwork, tracing the image onto the pink paper, using my lightbox, I forgot to trace the bull's body! I noticed my error in plenty of time, but thought it actually looked better. With just his face, it looks like he's hiding, and yet he's perilously near to the boy, which I think will amuse my young readers.
So, I coloured up the spread with just the bull's head showing and have sent the photo to my art director to see if they agree. I can easily add the body back in if they would rather. Cross fingers they like it as it is!
I have been working on a couple of illustrations from the middle of the Class One Farmyard Fun. This is the bit where the bull is free and biffing people into the air, left right and centre. He tosses a whole bunch of children into a smelly muck heap and is then creeping up on the teacher...
As usual, I stuck other previously finished pieces onto the drawing board, to use as colour reference for the characters:
Perversely, I tackled the muck heap illustrations in reverse order. This is the one I did least week, where the children are already in the muck. Teacher is too busy wiping muck from her wellies to notice the bull behind her...
The background on this one has been left blank (the pink is just my pink paper), because I intend it to be cut away to a block colour, which we will drop in digitally. Or rather, 2 colours (which is what the diagonal line on the rough is about).
This digital background technique is firstly to create additional visual variety as the reader works through the book. I hit on the idea of the two-coloured background because, when doing the original rough, I had trouble with the scale of the children against the teacher / bull scenario. The kids should really be much bigger, if they are in front, but this didn't work, because they eclipsed too much of the page and didn't allow teacher and the bull enough impact. But I wanted a spread, for added drama. Hmmmm.... problem! By slicing the background into two colours, I am hoping to create a half-way house between two separate illustrations side-by-side, and a single spread.
I have just this morning finished the artwork for the spread before the one above: one of my favourites:
The children are flying through the air and landing in the muck heap. I created a stowaway piglet in the muck heap earlier on in the story, so it was fun to have him here, worrying about children landing on his head!
Next, I'm going to tackle a spread with the bull up close, a nice simple illustration for once, with the poor farmer flying through the air, about to land in a prickly haystack. Hee hee. Thanks for the great subject matter Julia.
I had a bit of a time, trying to get the first spread of Class One Farmyard Fun finished off. It was SO fiddly. Unfortunately, there are quite a few spreads in the book with this level of complexity (I have only myself to blame, since I designed them!). Fiddly and pastels do not go very well together, so my pastel pencils had to be brought into the action quite a bit. The pencils are great for detail, but the colour is not as rich and dense as the pastel sticks, so I then have to go over the top of the pencil elements with regular pastel, to give it oomph, trying not to blob where I don't need it.
Yep, a nightmare, and very slow, but worth it in the end:
The other tricky thing is keeping track of who's who with the children in the class. There are so many of them, all with different complexions, hair colour and outfits, it will be very easy to get them mixed up along the way. So I added little colour swatches to my 'crib sheet' - the original sketch-sheet where I designed the various children. I can use this as an aide memoir on my desk, as I work my way through all the artwork.
I was working until 7pm on Saturday night, despite having a nasty cold (pause for violins...), because I was desperate to get this first spread finished, before I started Book Week and had to stop work until March 7th, because of being out every day in schools.
I just got done in time and, on Sunday afternoon, I headed down to Bedford, ready for Monday's school event at Cotton End Primary. Since the school is near to where Julia Jarman lives, John and I drove down and stopped overnight with her, which was lovely (thanks Julia!). Every day of this week has been a different place - I've been zipping all over. It's always the busiest week of the year. Back to normal and making a start on my next spread on Monday.
It has taken absolutely ages to get the go-ahead on my roughs for Class One Farmyard Fun. I was beginning to be concerned... Perhaps the publisher hated them. Maybe there would be loads of redraws to do...
I needn't have worried. They finally came back and there was less than a day's worth of changes needed. Phew! I don't know what the delay was, but at least it's sorted now and I am up and running at last.
The first job was really really boring: working out what dimensions to do the artwork (based mostly on how big the final package will be, for posting), enlarging all my roughs to that size, printing them out and then tracing them up onto pastel paper on the lightbox (with all the blinds drawn). Tedious. At least John helped out by cutting all the pastel paper to size, so that was one less boring job.
I've made a start on the pastel bit now. The first marks are a bit scary as I don;t really know what colours I am going to do things - I work it out as I go along, starting with the big 'givens', like blue sky, green grass etc, then making everything else coordinate and contrast. It's going to be a bit of a slow one, as there is such a lot of detail (all the kids in their little outfits...). Because of my Artist-in-Residence work though, I only have half each week, so that will make it twice as long as it would have been.
A long haul. better get to it!
The roughs for Class One, Farmyard Fun are finished! Well, what I mean to say is, they have all been drawn up and submitted to my publisher. You never know at this stage whether you are actually finished or not - it is not at all unusual for there to be quite a few changes needed. We''ll see. This is the opening spread:
Actually, I had a bit of a false start - I thought I was finished, somewhat prematurely. I was just reading through everything with John, in preparation to emailing the roughs off to Hodder (it can be very useful to have a 2nd pair of eyes - John often spots things I've missed). It was all looking good though. Lots of chaos and plenty of children flying through the air...
Anyway, we read the last spread and the story ended rather suddenly. It was only then that I realised I had missed off the end! There's always a final single page, the one you get after the final spread. It's not always used - it depends on the book and the length of the text. In this series of books, that final page is always a sort of cautionary ending, sometimes with the hint of a sting in the tail.
I worked out what went wrong: when my art director printed me a slightly reduced set of layouts to work from (blank pages with just the text), the single page had got forgotten at her end. I didn't notice because of not working through the illustrations in order.
So, I had to go back to the drawing board (literally) and get scribbling again. This is what I came up with (the little girl will of course be wearing a red dress):
I have been really busy lately - even more than usual! I have mostly been dividing my time between my residency and my drawings for the new picture book Class One, Farmyard Fun.
The roughs are going very well and I'm very nearly there. It's been slightly frustrating, working in fits and starts, rather than just ploughing on every day until it's done, but in some ways it's been better, as having 'rest' days keeps me fresh.
I hit a snag though, so had a meeting with Julia Jarman...
That's not something we would normally do, but we happened to be working together in Durham, doing a couple of storytelling events for the big Gala Day at the Northern Children's Book Festival, so we grabbed our chance after breakfast at the hotel.
I was having a bit of bother with my knickers...
Actually, they were Julia's knickers.... Well, the knickers in her story anyway. The sort-of villain in the story, the bull, accidentally knocks himself out near the end, and the first thing he sees when he comes round is a pair of bright red knickers hanging on a washing line. Being red, they get him rather upset.
I was having logistical problems, getting the knickers in the right place for them to be directly in the bull's line of sight as he opened his eyes, because I also needed the bull to be looking out of the picture at us as he wakes, for dramatic impact. While battling with this, I got a good idea: why not get him actually tangled in the washing before he knocks himself out and get the knickers caught on his horns? Funnier.
But this created another problem. On the next spread, Sam, one of the children, grabs the knickers from the line and uses them to lure the bull away. If the knickers were actually on the horns, this wouldn't be credible for a 5 year old child to do, even in picture book world. So I introduced a washing prop, for brave Sam to use to whip the knickers from the horns.
The knickers are Julia's means of saving the day in the story: with the help of the teacher at the wheel of the farmers truck, Sam gets the bull to chase the knickers all the way back to the field where he came from:
All of which worked pretty well when I sketched it out, but it needed a significant change to the text - extra tricky, since the whole thing is in rhyme. So that's why I wanted to get together with Julia; I needed to show her my ideas, see if she agreed that it worked better and was funnier, and see how she felt about the text change.
Of course Julia was fabulous. She always is. She's such a great author to work with. She immediately got it. Luckily, we have a similar sense of humour, so she loved my idea. Within seconds, she was trying out bits of new rhyme aloud (much to the amusement of the hotel staff), experimenting with ways to create the new lines we needed. She had re-written it before I was back home at my drawing board. Thanks Julia!
I have now drawn everything and finished all but 4 spreads. They just need re-drawing (I always have to go through it all again, improving things and making changes). Nearly there. Better get to it!
In between my residency sketching days, I have been working on the roughs for Class One Farmyard Fun, my new picture book. It's another one by the lovely Julia Jarman, our 6th collaboration. It is full of all the usual fun and mayhem which Julia writes so well.
The action involves an escaped bull who moves around the farm, chasing various children and tossing then into the air. I tried to make a start, but was having trouble getting my head around the 'geography' of the story. I realised that I needed to create a map of the farm, so I could establish the layout and know which animals were where (ignore the 'flying' truck on the map by the way - that's me drawing a bit of reference off Google Images):
The map was instantly a great help. As I'm working my way through the drawings though, I am occasionally having to go back and make changes to the farm's layout, so that certain things will fall alongside others which are juxtaposed in the text.
For instance, I originally sited the whiffy muck-heap to the left of the bull, under the trees by the lake. The sheep had to be nearby, because Julia's text mentions them both on the same page:
They saw a lot of woolly sheep
And a cock on top of a whiffy muck-heap.
But they didn't see...
But this bit of text comes immediately after a page about the bull, so the two bits of the rhyme are on either side of a single spread. This is the first bit, about the bull:
...the bull in a strop.
They didn't see the big bull frown
Watching Class One walking round
Some of them wearing red
Which makes bulls cross - or so it's said.
I started off drawing this spread as two single pages, but there was such a lot of text to work around on the bull page, I couldn't get it to work.
So I combined the two sets of drawings and turned it into a spread instead. Which meant going back to my map and moving the muck-heap and the field of sheep over to the right of the bull. Unfortunately, this change had a knock-on effect on an earlier page, but at least I had got things to work at last.
This is not the finished rough. It's early days. I get better as I go along, so often come back and re-draw the earlier spreads.
Do you remember absolutely ages ago, I was telling you about how Julia Jarman and I often talk through her ideas for new picture book texts? Well, the text I was talking about was successful: it got contracted by the publisher, so we are off! The huge delay is entirely my fault, because I have had too much work on until now with my Sketching People book and my Craftsy workshop to be able to start the work.
It's called Class One Farmyard Fun and is a sequel to Class Two at the Zoo and Class Three all at Sea - both big favourites of mine and really good fun to illustrate, because of all the crazy things that happen on their ill-fated school trips out and about.
I'm really enjoying getting stuck into this new one. I started with characterisation, as always. All this series feature an entire class, so my first job was playing around, designing lots of different kids:
It's important that they are all different and suggest different personalities, like any real class of five year olds. They'll evolve a little I'm sure, as I draw, but I was very pleased with my first efforts.
I went on to have a think about the teacher. It's a woman again. This was my initial sketch sheet, trying things out. I've gone for the person on the far right:
I wanted to make her kind (she's always a touch incompetent in the stories, but never a nasty teacher). The teachers in primary schools are usually pretty young too. It was important to make her different to the other two class teachers, in Class Two and Class Three though:
I am now waiting for the designer at Hodder to send me a set of page layouts. They will chop Julia's story up into spreads and set the font size and style, so I know how much text I need to work around on each page. In the meantime, I am itching to get going, so have played around with one or two scenareos from the story. This introduces the bull, who is going to be the source of all the trouble!
Julia came to visit us last week, which was lovely. She was doing an event in a Sheffield school, so she came to stop at our house the night before. She was of course desperately curious to see what I had been up to. Luckily, she loved the drawings - phew!
Remember a while ago, I mentioned that Julia and I were talking through her ideas for a new story? Well, Julia has put in a lot of work since then. The text has undergone several rewrites and the various drafts have been back and forth to our publisher, but all that work has finally borne fruit - Hodder have given us the go-ahead. Yippee!The book is another in the series with Class Two at the Zoo and Class Three all at Sea. This one is to be Class One Farmyard Fun and involves similar levels of chaos. This time though, the action revolves around a bull on the loose. The teacher is, once again, hopelessly ill-equipped (she ends up getting tossed into a tree) and it's the kids who save the day.
This will be our 6th book together. I love working with Julia - we have exactly the same silly sense of humour and her texts are so incredibly visual, the pictures just leap straight into my head!
I'm delighted about this one in particular, as Julia has been trying to get another in the series published for some time. The other two have been so popular and successful, it seemed such a waste not to.
I can't start on the artwork until half way through next year, as I have too many other irons in the fire, but will certainly share my sketches with you as soon as I get going.
Well done Julia!!
.
