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Articles by "elizawheeler"
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11:19 PM , , , , , ,
Before I begin developing the illustrations for a picture-book scene, I like to get to know my characters first, so I start with character sketching and development. 




Once I feel I know my characters well, I start laying out the pages as thumbnail sketches -- 2" large rough compositional sketches. 


I usually enlarge the thumbnail sketches to full size by scanning it, blowing it up in photoshop, and printing it out, and then use tracing paper to refine the sketch on top. Once the sketch is refined, I use a light pad to retrace the sketch onto Arches Coldpress 140 lb watercolor paper. 


I ink the drawing with dip pens and India ink. Then I stretch the paper by soaking the drawing in water for about 10 minutes, and staple it onto a plywood board.


If time allows, I sometimes scan in the inked drawing, before stretching it, to print out copies for tone and color studies (but if the deadline is too tight I often have to skip this step). 


The last step is laying down the color in a series of washes, using watercolors (I use a variety of brands: M. Graham, Winsor & Newton, and Holbein). 


The last stage usually takes a lot of standing and staring; adding washes bit by bit until it feels finished. Once all the artwork is finished for the book, I package it up and ship it off to the publisher for scanning. 

It's such a magical moment to see it come out a year later all put together in the final printed book!



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MISS MAPLE’S SEEDS, by Eliza Wheeler (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin Books)

About the book: Miss Maple gathers lost seeds that haven’t yet found a place to sprout. She takes them on field trips to explore places to grow. In her cozy maple tree house, she nurtures them; keeping them safe and warm until it’s time for them to find roots of their own, and grow into the magnificent plants they’re destined to become.Buy ‘Miss Maple’s Seeds’ HERE
All illustrations copyright Eliza Wheeler, www.wheelerstudio.com






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So you have an incredible, cohesive, honed-in portfolio. 
Your artistic voice is loud and clear.
You also have brilliant, heart-felt, kid-friendly stories just waiting to be published.
You even have a book dummy sketched out for one of these stories with a couple finished color samples.
You’ve sent this dummy to a few editors and had some nice feedback, but all rejections (or worse, no response at all!).

Q: Why is this taking so long?!
A: Try a different plan of attack.

There’s nothing wrong with submitting your own stories to editors (continue to do so), but author/illustrators who are ready to be published should consider this:
Make it known to art directors and editors that you’re available to illustrate manuscripts that are under contract by other authors. 

 An editor might see and like your story, but oftentimes are hesitant to offer a book contract because they want to know how it is to work with you first.

It can be hard to take a risk on a completely unknown writer/illustrator, and they often like to pair unknown illustrators with known writers (and vice versa) who already have a built-in audience. That way, they hope to guarantee at least a certain amount of sales from the fans of the known writer or illustrator.

Q: How do I let publishers know I’m available to illustrate for them?
A: Promote your art to them!

Send mailings to as many art directors/editors as you want. 
You can send your promotion to everyone within a publishing house (where-as with a manuscript it is NOT acceptable to submit to more than one editor in the same house at a time). This gives illustrators the advantage of having wide exposure to their work. 

Promote to book designers and editorial assistants too: they might share your work with the editor or art director. At the recent SCBWI Summer Conference, I heard Melissa Manlove, editor at Chronicle Books, explain that the designers there have a chief role in seeking out illustrators. 

Create your promo postcard and mail it to this list 3 times a year.
- Always use a new piece of artwork
- Include your name and website address.
- Make sure to keep your online portfolio up-to-date and easy to browse. An art director who takes the time to go to your web-site won’t be impressed if your work is out-dated, and it’s your online portfolio that’s the key for an art director’s decision in choosing your work. The postcard is just a pointer to your work online!

Q: How should I know who to send my promotional postcards to?
A: Research.


  

Compile a mailing list with necessary info. This does take some time, but start by researching publishers that might fit your genre of artwork by:

- looking at the books currently in bookstores, making note of the publisher
- searching through the newest “Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Market” and the SCBWI “Market Survey” in The Book, available to their members.
- making sure all the information is current – check on each publisher’s website for their submission policies and preferred format (digital or snail-mail, or both).
- keeping this list up-to-date; publishing folks change positions and publishing houses frequently.

Q: Oh my gosh, they hired me! 
A: Yay! You've been hired to illustrate a book.


Be creative, gracious, communicative, easy to work with, and hit your deadline.

You can see how you like working with this editor or art director, and they can see how they like working with you. If it goes well, they will often invite you to submit your own stories to them. And luckily, you’ve got that brilliant, heart-felt, kid-friendly dummy book ready to go.

In my experience working with multiple publishers, it hasn’t been until after a project was over that they told my agent, “If Eliza’s got anything of her own, we’d love to see it!”

Though, I’m still working out the brilliant, heart-felt, kid-friendly story part . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eliza Wheeler illustrates and writes for children's picturebooks and middle grade novels. Author/Illustrator of MISS MAPLE'S SEEDS (Penguin), and more . . . visit www.wheelerstudio.com, @WheelerStudio, www.facebook.com/eliza.wheeler
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I had a post all ready to go about growth, our theme of the month,- complete with a new illo (very cute...I’ll share later...), but I find I’m in the mood to talk a bit about my friend and fellow 2010 SCBWI Mentee, Eliza Wheeler

Eliza Wheeler reading Miss Maple's Seeds at Skylight Books. She is accompanied by her husband, Adam. 

.

Yesterday, I went to the launch party of Eliza’s new book, Miss Maple’s Seeds (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin Books, 2013), which is why I have Eliza on my mind. Eliza, has fresh and tangible proof of author/illustrator growth...a new book! Miss Maple’s Seeds is a delightful story about...nurturing growth! How perfect. I just had to tie this event in with the theme of the month.

Our primary job, as author/illustrators as far as I can tell,  is to be like Miss Maple,- the nurturing mother to our ideas, (our seeds), believing in their potential, scrubbing them up, releasing them in the world. Some will take root and grow... just as Eliza’s did.

 Get the book,...my summary won’t do the book justice. But believe me, it’s a perfect and beautiful metaphor for creative growth.  

Congratulations, Eliza! We can't wait to hear all about it from your perspective.

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I can clearly recall going to my first children’s book conference a few years ago and being unclear about the basic roles of publishing folks; editors, agents, art directors . . . what exactly do they all do, and what does that mean to me? Hopefully I’m not the only one who’s been out of the loop (else I apologize for wasting our time), and this might be helpful for a few people looking to learn more about the business side of being a children’s book illustrator/writer.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler
EDITOR
The editor is the head honcho, the one who acquires stories, picks your manuscript out of the pile and hopefully sees something worthwhile. They are also the one to help you revise the story where they see problems and to help you push it in a better direction. As an example, my editor, Nancy Paulsen at Penguin Books, offered me the contract for my book “Miss Maple’s Seeds” (coming May 2013), she worked with me closely on revising the text and getting the overall story to flow from page to page. If you’re a writer, this is the person you want to send your manuscript to. If you’re an illustrator (but not writer), you can also send your promotional mailers to the editor, as they have the final say in who is chosen to illustrate a manuscript. An important note: a publishing house that doesn’t accept “unsolicited manuscripts” doesn’t apply to illustrators looking to promote their portfolio. You can send your promo cards anywhere you like and they’ll either throw your card out, or more ideally, pin it up and wait for the perfect story to come along for you to illustrate.



© 2012 Eliza Wheeler
ART DIRECTOR
The art director is the one on the look-out for the right illustrator for projects, and presents options to the editor. You discuss visual story flow, thumbnails, sketches, finals, and the over-all visual approach with the art director. My art director for “Miss Maple’s Seeds”, Cecilia Yung, gave me feedback and criticism to help me take my artwork to the next level. If you’re the illustrator (and not writer) for a story, this is the person you will be the most in contact with. For my projects illustrating middle grade novels, the art director is often my only contact. Needless to say, it's essential to have a good relationship and to communicate well with your art director.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler
LITERARY AGENT
A literary agent submits your stories to publishers, and helps you negotiate book deals and contracts. Having an agent is optional, but there are many publishing houses (most of the big ones) that only accept manuscripts through agents. If you send your “unsolicited” manuscript to a publisher without an agent, your package goes in the “slush pile”, a large stack of manuscripts that can take months to get through (but it can happen!). A literary agent is an open door to those publishing houses. Also, some are editorial agents, and will help you get your stories up to snuff before submitting to editors. I’m currently working back and forth with my agent, Jen Rofe, to get a new picture book story ready for submission. Literary agents typically take a 15-20% cut of what you make, and often can negotiate higher advances which cover that amount.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler
ARTIST REPRESENTATIVE
Art reps work for illustrators who are not writers (often literary agents focus primarily on the writing aspect of your career). Art reps market your work to literary and educational publishers, magazines, etc. Keep in mind that, as an illustrator, you can promote your work directly to publishers, magazines, and other companies – but an art rep can negotiate higher fees and take care of contracts if you’d rather not bother with that part of the job. They take a higher cut, around 30%, give or take. I’ve heard a lot of illustrators who were unhappy with their art reps, feeling that they only got them low or mid-level projects and repped too many other artists to give them the necessary attention. As with both literary agents and art reps, do NOT take the first offer that comes along. Do a lot of research and make an informed decision about who you want working for you.

Of course, this is just a list of a few basic roles in publishing we should understand. There are countless other publishing folk not covered here (presidents, editorial directors, assistant editors, copyeditors, designers, marketing personnel, sales reps, etc.), and they all play equally important roles in the process. 

I hope you all have the chance to work with many of these wonderful people in the months and years to come!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Eliza Wheeler
www.wheelerstudio.com
twitter: wheelerstudio
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For those new to our blog, Eliza Wheeler is one of our contributors and was a recipient of the SCBWI Mentorship Award at the 2010 Summer Conference. We’d like to catch up with Eliza and ask her a few questions about the mentorship experience and about what she is up to these days.

Kidlit Artists: Did the feedback you receive during the mentorship critiques either change or confirm the direction of your illustration? Are there any specific examples you can share?

Eliza: The criticism and advice I received was extremely defining for me. My portfolio was separated into mostly two styles – darker, moodier work (the stuff I love), and then brighter, commercial work, drawn more simply (but less unique). My assumption was that it was going to be the commercial stuff that publishers wanted. Yet the mentorship program showed me the opposite was true. And ever since then I’ve still found that most people respond to my darker work the most. This isn’t to say that being dark is particularly in fashion, but at the heart of that work is a strong sense of emotion. It's applicable to any style, people just want to feel something when they see it.


Kidlit Artists: Have you seen a shift in your work since you were mentored?

Eliza:  Definitely. The mentors gave me the confidence to re-work my portfolio into one that included dark and light work that can be displayed together and still feel consistent. The year following the mentorship program, I brought my revised portfolio back to the SCBWI Summer conference, and it won the grand prize! It was a really affirming moment for me.

In this blog post, I share my portfolio transformation, so you can see what it looked like the year I was mentored, and the year after: Wheelerstudio.com, Portfolio Comparison

I’m still keeping a constant critical eye on my work, hoping to find ways to grow and make it better. I doubt that will ever change!


Kidlit Artists: What kinds of projects are you working on now?

Eliza: I just finished illustrations for my first picture-book story to be published with Nancy Paulsen/Penguin books in May 2013. It’s about a miniature woman who gathers orphaned seeds, cares for and teaches them about the world before sending them back out into it.

I’m also working on a very exciting project, illustrations for Holly Black’s new Middle Grade novel Doll Bones, through Simon and Schuster. This is my first Middle Grade project, and I’m finding that I’m totally loving this format.

The past 6 months have been really dominated with illustration work (an awesome thing!), but I’m bringing writing back into my daily schedule with the hopes of presenting a new picture book story to my editor, Nancy Paulsen, in the next few months.  


Kidlit Artists: Is there any type of illustration (or other work) that you’re hoping for in the near future?

Eliza:  I’d like to continue illustrating for Middle Grade stories, and I’ve got a few ideas I’m toying around with possibly in the graphic novel format.

I’m also really excited to get a side project going, a series of illustrations that’s aimed towards adults – which is all I’ll say until it’s more of a reality! I hope these illustrations could perhaps begin to build an editorial portfolio, something I’ve been interested in to supplement my children’s illustration work.


Kidlit Artists: Last, please tell us where we can find you online.

Eliza: My work and blog are both at www.wheelerstudio.com, and I'm @wheelerstudio on twitter.

Thanks!

MKRdezign

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