green thumbs

I have downsized. Thumbnails help me get back to basics and review how the book works as a whole. The tiny size is also useful because it makes me focus on the flow of the pages and how the spreads relate to one another rather than get bogged down in the details. This one is made up of the roughs and visuals I've done so far, but I have several blank versions ready for scribbling on too and already I can see where I want to make some fairly radical changes.

sprouting again

I haven't forgotten about my little growing boy, he's just been a bit neglected of late. I found time to sketch some tiny, tiny thumbnails, trying to work out the stairs spread. It's proving trickier than I thought, as you need to also be able to see out to the garden somehow...

can you dig it?

The thumbnails are coming thick and fast, I'm finally working out the exact details of how the beginning gets to the middle and the middle to the end...! It seems obvious I know but, while the bare bones of the story have been quite clear to me for some time it hasn't always been so clear how to say everything I want to in each spread. Although the text is quite minimal, the pictures have to convey much more than the words themselves.

Plus, I have a tendency to go to the dark side, I blame all those fairy stories from my childhood when Grandmama actually did get eaten by the wolf... It's probably why I love Maurice Sendak's work so much too. I like being a little bit scary with my work and I think kids like being a little bit scared, but in this case portraying the situation too realistically (as in the old visual above) was beginning to resemble a story of child neglect. I think adding a more surreal reason for his family being disinterested (with the line up of daredevil portraits on the stairs) works better.

from tiny acorns

the growing boy, take two...

I've begun the new roughs for the growing boy book. Tiny, tiny thumbnails to start with, trying to get a feel for how the book is going to work as a whole. I'm not sure I want to stick with realism though, I have a feeling it might yet be quite everyday with a hint of the fantastical - my favourite kind of mundane.