Julie Gribble’s How to Make a Picture Book

Today, Lori Hanson, illustrator of Bubblegum Princess, continues her posts about character development through illustration. Thanks, Lori! ♦ ♦ ♦ After attending a winter SCBWI conference in New York City in 2011, I was flying over the continent, sketchbook in hand, to return home to California. Now, I will admit that flying in a 747 from coast- to- coast isn’t exactly what it might feel like to catch air thermals while floating along on a bubblegum bubble. However, this notion of being quite surreal was exactly the concept I needed to inspire the first iteration of the Queen’s character in The Bubblegum Princess, written by Julie Gribble. After re-draws, emails and discussions, Julie and I decided that only corgis and children would have the magical ability to fly through the air with the help of bubblegum bubbles. After all, any worthy sovereign needs her gravity. The Queen may have begun in the air, but she ultimately remained with her feet solidly connected to the Earth throughout the story. It is the Queen’s character development that I will be discussing here today. Here are images of the first two sketches: Once out of the air, the Queen looked like this: Feet on the ground, it was time to get down to business. We explored different attitudes as well as placement of the Queen’s hands and feet. The Queen’s clothes were important, too. Julie was happy with her coiffed hair and crown, complete with matching coat and gloves. Of course, the Queen couldn’t be without a pair of square-heeled pumps. I would experiment with color later.   As you can see in the sketches below, the lines that describe this version of the Queen’s face were of a more exaggerated naturalism.   In order to make her expressions more clearly “Queenly”, the Queen was given a set of “black bead” eyes. This trope of Western-style cartoon eye was made iconic by 1920’s and 1930’s INKBLOT Cartoons and taken to the drawing table by many other cartoonists and illustrators (e.g., Charles Schultz for the Peanuts characters) “Lucy: Do you think my eyes are beautiful, Charlie Brown? “ “Charlie Brown: Yes, they look just like round dots of India Ink.” I digress. . .                   I also did much experimenting with the placement of the eyes. How much space is needed for the bridge of a nose to give a sovereign’s visage authority? After all, it is the Queen who banishes Katy and her family from the palace for her playful passion. It was fun to put the Queen into more of a psychological space here, highlighting her moment of rage. The Queen in The Bubblegum Princess seems quite harsh and rigid. In the dénouement, a softer side of her is revealed. I went back to the drawing table where I explored different versions of this attitude. It all culminated with her walk in the garden, not alone but in the company of one of her magical Bubblegum, flying corgis. Here is a detail of that image: When you see this image, you know that all is peaceful in the kingdom. Stay tuned for more peeks into character development in this story next month. Thanks to Beth Stilborn for inviting us to share our creative process on her blog site.   Thank YOU, Lori (and Julie) for taking us behind the scenes in the creation process of your picture book! To read previous posts in this series, follow these links: Part 1, How to Make a Picture Book, Series Intro Part 2, Choosing your Illustrator/Choosing your Author Part 3a, Story and Character Development, part 1 Part 3b, Story and Character Development, part 2 Part 3c, Story and Character Development, part 3: A Collaboration Part 3d, Story and Character Development, part 4: Illustration (part a) Bios: Julie Gribble was the first picture book author accepted into the Stony Brook Southampton Children’s Literature Fellows program and has been mentored by Emma Walton Hamilton and Cindy Kane Trumbore. She’s a full-time writer and a member of SCBWI, ChLA, BAFTA-NY Children’s Committee and is founder of KidLit TV, www.kidlit.tv, an online video resource for the kid lit community. Lori Hanson received her Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and served an apprenticeship under celebrated artist Gregory Gillespie. She’s a member of SCBWI. Bubblegum Princess, a picture book inspired by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, has received a First Place Royal Dragonfly Children’s Picture Book Award, a nomination for a Cybils Award, and is Story Monster Approved! NY Media Works: www.nymediaworks.com Lori Hanson’s website: http://www.rosengrove.com/bubblegum-princess.html Bubblegum Princess website: http://nymediaworks.com/bubblegum-princess Bubblegum Princess on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Bubblegum-Princess-Julie-Gribble/dp/0989091406 Bubblegum Princess in Square Market: https://squareup.com/market/ny-media-works-llc/bubblegum-princess   Kidlit TV Kidlit TV on YouTube Kidlit TV on Facebook

Character Development/ A Collaborative Process Developing the Characters for the Bubblegum Princess    by illustrator Lori Hanson Today, I’m delighted to welcome Lori Hanson, illustrator of Bubblegum Princess — the other half of the collaboration team with author Julie Gribble. Lori will explain how the illustrations contribute to the development of the characters. Thanks, Lori, for adding your perspective to this series! And now, here’s Lori — The eighteen months that went into the development of the Bubblegum Princess were fluid and productive. Julie Gribble and I communicated primarily by email. We also had several lengthy phone conversations and a meeting in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to discuss the Princess over sushi. Our interactions always focused on the unfolding of the story via conversation between the images that I drew and Julie’s written words. The story had energy of its own, as these projects often do. A quote that comes to mind, given by one of my favorite documentary filmmakers, Werner Herzog; “Often ideas are known to show up, like uninvited dinner guests. They seem to arrive and depart at their own will”. So yes, the creation of The Bubblegum Princess was like this – and still seems to carry this energy. The story and images have a will of their own. The work between Julie and me – which I like to call the Collaboration Machine – has sweetness to it. Our interaction via the Internet gave it all a bit of spice and mystery. Like most writer/illustrator teams, Julie and I had never met before. In this framework, the characters had their own time/space continuum in which to grow. This process of collaboration felt superbly sublime! Here is a peek into how that process went. For me, developing depth in characters requires reiteration. Drawing is a bit like gardening in that you can weed out the elements that hold less meaning, retaining the core elements that crystallize the story. Below are some images that illustrate the path of their development. These first corgis, though they were able to fly magically through the air (with the help of bubblegum – of course) . . . looked a little fiercer than the Queen herself. Julie embraced these first corgis . . . and this was despite all of the feedback that they were “too scary for kids”! These mini monsters stayed with us through the fourth revision (there were six). Through out the six re-draws we exchanged written bits of text and drawn images. We worked on choreography and wording leading to the ultimate outcome of Katy and Will’s bubblegum-inspired relationship. In Julie’s emails would also come the occasional irresistible corgis picture or YouTube link. I looked at several of these attachments until suddenly a wave of corgi inspiration came across my drawing table. The epiphany  I proceeded to create numerous ink drawings — like the one above of crowds of corgis. These lead to the rebirth of the corgis in their present visage. The shape of these little guys is more rounded, as you can see . . . definitely more friendly. I love the process of drawing almost as much as the drawing itself. This is true especially if the project takes on such a nice fluidity and has a good result. Within our Collaboration Machine I realized Julie was patiently communicating her feelings that the corgis needed further development. Aha, I finally got the message and headed back to the drawing table: the pictures and YouTube inspirations that Julie was emailing to me conveyed her thoughts about the corgis without diminishing my creative process – brilliant! In these final drawings the rounded, less textured shapes of the corgis seemed more appropriate for the story. The jagged lines of the first pups had a fierceness that might better serve a more ominous story line. Shape qualities do express character meaning. The universal language of image bridges communication between author and illustrator within this creative process – just as the final story and images come across for our readers, when the finished copies reach their loving hearts, eyes and hands.   TWEET THIS! Illustrator Lori Hanson on character development thru picture book illos @BethStilborn’s blog: http://wp.me/p4PXqU-1p4   Previous Posts in the Series: Part 1, How to Make a Picture Book, Series Intro Part 2, Choosing your Illustrator/Choosing your Author Part 3a, Story and Character Development, part 1 Part 3b, Story and Character Development, part 2 Part 3c, Story and Character Development, part 3: A Collaboration   Bios: Julie Gribble was the first picture book author accepted into the Stony Brook Southampton Children’s Literature Fellows program and has been mentored by Emma Walton Hamilton and Cindy Kane Trumbore. She’s a full-time writer and a member of SCBWI, ChLA, BAFTA-NY Children’s Committee and is founder of KidLit TV, www.kidlit.tv, an online video resource for the kid lit community. Lori Hanson received her Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and served an apprenticeship under celebrated artist Gregory Gillespie. She’s a member of SCBWI. Bubblegum Princess, a picture book inspired by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, has received a First Place Royal Dragonfly Children’s Picture Book Award, a nomination for a Cybils Award, and is Story Monster Approved! NY Media Works: www.nymediaworks.com Lori Hanson’s website: http://www.rosengrove.com/bubblegum-princess.html Bubblegum Princess website: http://nymediaworks.com/bubblegum-princess Bubblegum Princess on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Bubblegum-Princess-Julie-Gribble/dp/0989091406 Bubblegum Princess in Square Market: https://squareup.com/market/ny-media-works-llc/bubblegum-princess   Kidlit TV Kidlit TV on YouTube Kidlit TV on Facebook

I’m delighted that Julie Gribble is back with her monthly guest post on the making of her picture book Bubblegum Princess. Welcome back, Julie! The Making of Bubblegum Princess Story and Character Development – Part 3c: A Collaboration Children’s book writers are there with our readers when they’re very young, learning how to negotiate the terrain, from first shaky steps, falls and bumps. The characters we create can be another hand children reach for to keep them steady. AA Milne gave me Pooh’s paw to hold. When I write I think, whose hand or paw will I give? This is a tremendous responsibility and one of the many reasons why we need to get this right. It’s the reason we gather all the best online resources, take classes and hire editors — to help us get better. Last post, I showed excerpts from editor Marlo Garnsworthy’s critique of my very first picture book manuscript. Working with an editor gave me the opportunity to get it right. Or as close to right as I was able to at the time. MarloNotes (Click to view PDF) Here I’ll show a few of the changes I made, and some that I didn’t make. ORIGINAL TEXT Once upon a time, in a land not far from here, there lived a young lady named Katy. A delightfully witty, extraordinarily kind, decidedly brilliant young lady was she. (page turn) However, Katy had one habit Mum and Dad deemed utterly disgraceful, singularly silly, frightful and stupendously bad. (page turn) Katy loved to blow bubblegum bubbles, and that made her parents awfully mad. She blew bubbles before bed, while she stood on her head, despite her parents’ protestations. And what’s even worse, when the big bubbles burst, goo flew through the air and got stuck everywhere. Busted bubbles caused considerable consternation. (page turn) Then one day, to Katy’s humble home, a court courier carried a coveted communiqué: a royal invitation to the queen’s posh palace. Needless to say, this rare request to be a guest at a swank soirée had quite the cachet for Katy’s parents. It was the perfect time for Katy’s manners to be polished to perfection to meet the prince. (page turn) To that end, Mum proclaimed a new rule in effect: No More Bubblegum Bubbles. Katy was quite disappointed. Big, Brobdingnagian bubbles were her triumph, her joy. But it was best to comply with Motherʼs wish, she thought. So Katy quit blowing bubbles at once, on the spot. Yet she became overwrought: Life would be gloomy and glum with no gum. (page turn) CHANGED TO Once upon a time in a land not far from here, there lived a young lady named Katy. She was delightfully witty, extraordinarily kind, and decidedly brilliant. However, young lady Katy had one unmistakably unladylike habit. (page turn) She loved blowing bubblegum bubbles. “Singularly silly,” said Mum. “Utterly disgraceful,” said Dad. “Stupendously bad,” they agreed. (page turn) Katy would blow bubbles while biking, blow bubbles while baking, blow bubbles when bouncing to bed. She’d blow bubbles at sunup, at noontime, and naptime. No one fancied bubbles more than she did. (page turn) Then one day, to Katy’s humble home, court couriers carried a coveted communiqué: a royal invitation to the queen’s posh palace party to honor her grandson, the well-mannered Prince Will. Needless to say, this rare request to be a guest at a swank soirée had quite the cachet for Katy’s parents. (page turn) “Think of the royals we’ll meet,” said Mum. “Gracious, sophisticated, genteel,” said Dad. “Now’s the time for Katy’s manners to be polished to perfection,” they agreed. (page turn) To that end, Katy’s parents put a new rule into effect: No More Bubblegum Bubbles. “How unfair,” said Katy. “Big, Brobdingnagian bubbles are my triumph, my joy. I could not care less about meeting a prince!” But Katy quit blowing bubbles then and there, on the spot. And all at once, life without gum became gloomy and glum. (page turn) WHY and HOW —Created tension by delaying the page turn and changed the backward phrasing. But I didn’t change the description because it was fun to read out loud. —Changed the subsequent descriptions into dialog from her parents, as suggested. —Throttled back on the the jaunty meter and rhyming language––I simplified it. —Made Katie’s feelings clear: she doesn’t care about meeting a prince, she’s into her own thing! —The alliteration is overdone, but I kept it and the difficult language because it’s fun to read out loud. Some folks agree with Marlo, others welcome this challenging language, so who’s right? I’m not sure, but until it feels right to change, I’ll keep doing what feels right to me. —Showed invite in illustrations, described the party and gave the Prince a name. (I point to the invite when I do live readings and stress the easier words in these sentences.) —Added dialog to show how parents feel so that I could keep this language. —Added dialog to show how Katie feels; got rid of the lame “spot/overwrought” rhyme. About those Adverbs and Adjectives Even though I thought the story’s opening paragraph was fun to read out loud at the time, I’d make a different choice now. Witty, brilliant, and kind are hard to illustrate, and were not character traits that were relevant to this story. The best use of adjectives and adverbs was made clear to me at last summer’s Southampton Children’s Literature Conference. Dan Yaccarino taught a classroom of writers and illustrators that adverbs and adjectives should be found in the illustrations. As one of the writers in the class, I felt like an alarm had just gone off and I’d woken up from a deep sleep. I think everyone felt that way––it was one of the most important things we’d learned that summer. He then asked us to remove ALL adverbs and adjectives from our manuscripts. That was painful for me. I chopped entire sentences out because once the adverbs and adjectives had been removed there …

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