Blog (Hip Hip) Hop!

A few weeks ago, I was tagged by the amazingly talented Courtney Pippen-Mathur in a really fun, quick author/illustrator blog hop! Say that five times fast! Courtney asked me a few questions:

What are you working on now? 

I'm currently working on illustrating a book called Tree Dancers, written by the super sweet Newbury Honor Medal winner Margarita Engle. 

The book is a series of beautifully written tanka poems about an orangutan family in the Borneo Rainforest. I'm honored to be working with Margarita, Noa Wheeler, and April Ward at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. 


Here are a few sneak peeks:

How does this differ from other works in this genre? 

I haven't seen quite so many children's books written in the Tanka style of poetry. It's quite unique, flowy, and allows for a bit more freedom in verse. The book is going to be very interactive, too. I can see kids really getting absorbed with the adorable orangutans and making up their own orangutan dances! (Or at least I really hope they do!)

I'll sure be dancing! 


Why do you write what you write? 

I'm mostly illustrating right now, but I'm also participating in #PiBoIdMo, a yearly challenge where you come up with a new story idea every day. It's fun. 

Though I've been focusing on art, for the past year I've also been working on a story/dummy that I've rewritten/redrawn three times. 

I want to make a story that tugs at kids and parents heart strings for years. I want to write a book that people will remember a long time from now. No words can express how much the books I have from my childhood mean to me, I want to make books that kids still love when they're adults. 


So I keep going back to the drawing board:

What is the hardest thing about writing?

Condensing your story. Most picture books are 700 words or less and you'd be surprised how quickly 700 words comes out! I do like revising though. You have to be ok with cutting your favorite parts if they don't help the story along. 

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Thanks for thinking of me for the blog hop, Courtney! I'm going to do my part and tag three illustrator friends ... my Simply Messing About counterparts:


Laura Zarrin

Christina Forshay

Tracy Bishop


Tag, you're it! All of these ladies work so hard, you'll love seeing what they've been up to! 

Cheers!

~Renee

A Little Update.

I know people say this all the time, but I have been SO busy, you guys. It's kind of been an unbelievable summer. I've completed 2 books for Lerner Publishing's Cloverleaf series and am right in the middle of coloring the 3rd. I've also been sketching away for another book project about some adorable, hairy primates (news about this to come soon)!

What my drawing table looks like.

I find that regardless of how busy I get, it's still really important to keep drawing in my sketchbook. It's still a good escape for me, and then I get to share them all with you here! It's kind of interesting how you can tell if I took the picture in the daytime or at night. There's no perfect time of day, it's just when the idea hits:

Before a trip to the New England Aquarium.

The last page of a sketchbook!

Practicing fur.

"Still life."

The first page of a new book!

Inspired by Kemosabe the talking porcupine!

I can't wait until I can share more about my projects with you, but I hope Kemosabe makes up for the void! Thanks for visiting my little internet corner!

Cheers!

~Renee

Drawn to Spring

This past weekend, I attended Drawn to Spring, a children's book illustrator event at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. It was the perfect kind of morning, though Saturday is a day when I usually try to take a break from art making. :) I took my break on Sunday instead (*cough cough* Game of Thrones)

One of my recent personal goals is to concentrate more on sketching and keeping loose. I've had my nose stuck in my digital portfolio for so long that it feels good to do so much sketchbook drawing.

I've also wanted to focus more on story. The amount of ideas in my head is phenomenal. Choosing which ones to focus on is the hard part.

Taking time like this away from your thoughts is so important. Remember to recharge.

Yak-tail-drawing photo credit: Dan Moynihan

That said, FableVision is still keeping my digital skills in tact. I'm starting to work on the Summer Issue of Ranger Rick's Tree House soon among other exciting projects! I'm also very close to being able to announce a new freelance book project that is totally right up my alley! :) 

Busy Springs are good Springs...but don't forget to go outside! 

(I'll keep trying to remind myself to do the same!)

Cheers!

~Renee

Being a Creative Adult and Encouraging Creative Babies

This post is very long overdue as most posts are... and I will give you a fair warning that it's a long, process heavy one! I will preface this gargantuan novel-post by saying that one of the things I love most about being an artist is that I get to be a kid all the time. If I didn't have to draw them so often I probably would never have even notice that giraffes have little horns on the tops of their heads...so I'm constantly learning too. (Ahherm, female giraffess ALSO have small tufts of hair and now you know as well!)     

In the beginning of last year I was approached by two lovely people named Alice and Pete. Of all places to find my art, on Facebook is where it all started! See, it can be good. They had a very interesting project for me that would be both easy and also technically challenging: 1. Create a world for 40 animals (easy) 2. It's an interactive play mat for babies, final size 4 ft. x 4 ft. (wowzers) Just for reference, I'm used to working in inches.

When I start any project, I never like to be hindered by technical challenges...so I did the easy part first, I sketched animals like there was no tomorrow. Here are some of my initial pencil sketches and reference photos I used:

I knew I wanted to have at least one tree and a stream running throughout the scene:

So then I started to fit the animals into the scene like puzzle pieces:

After a trillion versions of these, a few phone calls, and some really great art direction, I began to realize how out of my comfort zone I actually was. We decided it would be best if I broke the mat up into 4 24"x 24" quadrants and fit about 10 animals per quadrant:

...and I started to add a bit of color for depth:

The amount of sketches I went through to get to what's next is somewhat unbelievable, but like anything else, practice makes things easier. I filled at least half a sketchbook with animals, but it was time to get on the computer at this point. Each animal and chosen object would eventually have a label, so I labeled away and spread out. We also split the four quadrants into North Pole, South Pole, Forest, Desert, Tropical, which helped to organize the animals:

Adding a final logo and placeholder buttons (for interactivity):

Inked version:

I have a few different styles I like to work in. Sometimes I prefer black outline, sometimes no outline. I tend to not find as much freelance work with my black line style, but it made me immensely happy that this project allowed me to explore this style in a way that combined a bit of both. I used line, but added texture as well.

When you tap on an animal you hear a sound and the name of the animal in three different languages, depending on which you choose. Here's the play mat in all it's glory (I can't wait to get a sample!):

Some of my favorite close-ups (click each image to enlarge):

And a very sincere plug for a company that is fantastic to work for, Creative Baby! This product will be available in stores for all babies in December 2011!