Character sketch for a book I am playing with...

This is a little kid character, meeting the second character of the story. I've been working on the story for about two years, but not continuously. I've drawn this main character probably 1000 times by now. And I really feel like I know him, now. This is a quick sketch, 2 minutes, probably, and it was drawn with a pencil and about 10 inches tall.
-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Spring is here!

It's Spring!
Warm temperatures turn our attention to baseball and gardening and sunshine and sketching outside. :)
-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

100 dogs

I was asked to draw a dog for a book. So I decided to draw 100, just to make sure I got the right one down on paper. Then I decided to make it 200 dogs. Here are the first 10:

Maybe cats will get a shot next -- millions of cats. ;)

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Today's sketchbook pages

Today Charlie and I visited our grandson Nick, age 4. The weather was sunny and warm-ish (low 50s) and Nick couldn't wait to get out to the sandbox. And I couldn't wait to start sketching him.

-- Ruth Barshaw

A Spread From My Sketchbook

Life is so busy right now.
It's Reading Month in Michigan, and I find myself at a bunch of different schools every week. I carry a sketchbook with me, not just to show to the students but also to keep myself occupied in down time and to keep track of interesting things that pop up.

Here's a spread from my sketchbook.

Do you keep a sketchbook or journal? I highly recommend it!

Sketch to finish

Sometimes the brainstorming for a story leads to ideas that probably won't be used in the book, but you don't want to let go of them completely.

That's what this is. The storyline has bounced around a bit and the characters have morphed too. I found this small sketch in my big 21" tall sketchbook of story ideas, and I thought, the relationship between this pair needs to be explored in watercolor paint.
Is the grownup a teacher? An aunt? A mom? A neighbor?

In my story she's the little girl's mom -- but that could change, just like a hundred other things about this work in progress could change.
Monday, September 26 is National Dumpling Day. Go hug your lil' dumpling. :) 

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Princesses wear neck braces too

Sometimes an odd request comes in that you feel you just must make happen.

A friend contacted a small group of illustrators, including me, about his friend who has a granddaughter, age 4, who just had surgery and needs to wear a neck brace.
The problem: This little girl loves princesses, wants to be a princess, and believes princesses don't wear neck braces. Especially ugly neck braces.
So the little girl refused to wear the one thing which would insure that she would heal quickly and properly.

Enter the request.

The grandmother wanted art of princesses which either the artist or the grandmother could Photoshop a neck brace into, to collect into a book of images for the little girl, in hopes it would inspire her to see that princesses do indeed wear neck braces when it's important.

I loved the challenge.

I didn't have any images of princesses that would work, though. Either a neck brace wouldn't fit into the picture legibly, or the image was too small or old. 

But I did have a drawing I did a short time ago of my youngest daughter with a cat.

Add a few princess accessories and -- voila! 

A princess.

The grandmother will add the neck brace.

Let's hope it works for the little girl. I love happy endings.

(And I think my daughter will be charmed by seeing herself as a princess.)

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Next Monday, June 8, is Best Friends Day

Monday is Best Friends Day.
These two chicks from one of my works-in-progress are not best friends -- yet.
Eventually they will be. :)

They'll have more friends in the book, too. I'm at the stage right now of inventing story. It's a fun stage. Anything can happen!

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

A change of character

I've been working on this book off and on for a year and a half. I thought I knew the characters very well. But when I returned to working on it I was inspired to change one to this:

Then two weeks ago I was inspired to change the character again, to this:

Then last week I was inspired to change the character to this:

I wonder what next week will inspire?  ;)

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Done with my book!

Ahhhh. Finally, after a year of work and a couple months of especially intense painting (plus balancing dozens of March-Is-Reading-Month school visits), I am done with the art for the lion book.

Here's my mentor, EB Lewis's favorite spread:

Here's my teen daughter's favorite spread:

Here's a detail from my favorite spread:

Here's the original sketch for that page:

And I am very happy to say that Louie the dog made it into the book:

Now, before I lose any momentum, I'm on to the next project. I have a few more picturebooks in the works, and I've learned so much from sketching and painting this book that I know it'll influence my work on the others. Can't wait to see how they turn out!

 -- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Evolution of a cover

You might be surprised at how a book cover changes.

Plan A: A combination of a few characters and a train car.

Not this image, but maybe one of these people.

(And not that train car. That's where they sell cotton candy.)

Plan B: Maybe the main character hiding.

Plan C: Something like this, maybe. (I blotted out the 

title and author/illustrator info. I'm the illustrator

and I know who the author is, but the title might change.)

Plan D: 

I think we're going with an expansion of this.

Whatever we end up with, it'll be my best work.

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

The lion's share

My lion is demonstrating the lion's share of sadness here, but he's not allowed to say why yet -- the final art isn't done yet. This is a detail from a sketch for the picture book I'm working on, but it probably won't make it into the final book; my next sketch will be this lion looking out a different window. We'll see how it goes. 

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

It's National Bubble Bath Day!

One of the books I'm working on has a bubble bath scene. Here are some of the sketches I did before deciding on the last one.

Now, back to work for me. I have 30 other pages to tend to...

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Sketch + paint

I'm working on a new book idea, born out of a simple character sketch which I painted

and then inked,

and then decided deserved a whole book. We'll see where it goes...

- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Sketch to finish

I'm playing with pencil, ink, and paint, to figure out the art for the picturebook I'm working on.
Here's a color version (though the values need a bit of tweaking).

Here's a black and white version (I forgot to scan the sketch before painting).

Here's another image, my two dogs.
I like how watercolor isn't 100% controllable (at least not for me) and there are little happy surprises in the paint.

I guess I've figured out how I want the art to look. Next step: 32 pages of sketches, turned to final art.

I'm excited to see how it turns out.

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Picture book deadlines loom

Usually I say it takes about 100 sketches to figure out a main character. I'm illustrating a book for Sleeping Bear Press and I believe I drew about 134 lions before I figured out what I wanted Leopold to look like. 

Leopold has a friend, an elephant. I was happy with sketch #8 but then I went too far. I added pajama pants. And my resident art approver, my teen daughter, said no, the elephant is better without them. She approved the fez, but just then I remembered the elephant in Disney's Aladdin movie wore a fez. So I changed this fez to a flowerpot (which looks a bit like an upside down fez -- so now it's a square).

I decided to see what the elephant looks like with no pants.

(Yay for fast Photoshop!)

So now the question is, does the dog wear clothes? 

By the time this art is due, I will have decided. 

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Happy Rejection Day!

We all experience rejection at some point.
The goal is not to get all worked up about it.
Here are some of my latest rejected sketches.

New point of view wanted, to include the driver.

Rejected scene. (I know those parents on the right aren't well done. I liked the rest, though.)

Just nope.

Eh. Keep moving. Do better. It takes a stack of paper a few inches high to create the art (and writing, when I'm doing the writing) for one book. Lots of ideas never make it into a finished book. Maybe all those ideas go play someplace... (Actually that little fantasy was part of a novel I started writing, a few years back. It was... rejected.)

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

World Teacher Day

Sunday, October 5, was World Teacher Day.
Thank a teacher.
Here's a rare moment from me: I'm sharing work that isn't very good. This sequence is the thought process I went through in trying to illustrate one spread for a picturebook that comes out next fall.
My art mentor, SCBWI great E.B. Lewis, has been pushing me to see things differently, and now, after about 2 months of working with him I *finally* understand what he meant when he said I wasn't putting myself into the story enough.
I totally understand now that illustration is the same as writing.
I get it.
Because he's a good teacher.

 Wrong. All wrong.

A little better. But still no.

A little better but the reader isn't IN the story yet.

No.

No.

Yes.

This is just the rough pencil sketch -- the designer, art director, and various editors at the publisher will have their own opinions. But this is a lot better than I'd have done before taking art lessons. 

Thank you, E.B.!

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

'Tis Fall

It's fall already. In a few minutes it will be winter (at least in my neck of the woods).

I didn't mean for this little bird to look melancholy. 

And I didn't mean to feel that way myself. 

I suppose more drawing will fix my mood...

Wheeeee! That's better.

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw

Worldwide Day of Play -- Week!

It's a special week here at Sketchables: Worldwide Day of Play is Sept 20. Get outside and play!
Here are some tips for sketching in nature, if you take your sketchbook outside with you:

For quiet play, here's a How To Draw A Tiger bookmark.

Personally, I am a games person (just like Ellie McDoodle). Here are some bookmarks that fold into triangle-shaped paper footballs, to play finger football with your friends:

Have fun out there! Play is serious business!

-- Ruth McNally Barshaw