Characters for new children's picture book...

Thus far in my career I have illustrated twenty children's picture books... My first illustrated picture book was released back in 2000, Chicken Chuck -written by Bill Martin Jr., and my most recent picture book released just this past June by Disney's Hyperion Books is BOOM! -written by Mary Lyn Ray. (I've also illustrated three of my own titles, Coco the Carrot, Little Tumbo, and Harry Hungry!)

To see a list of all my published picture books, click here. To see a post on the making of my most recent picture book, BOOM!, click here.

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(above: the main character, Margot)
The usual process when working on a children's picture book is that a publisher obtains a story from an author, and then they (the editor, the art director, or design director) may feel my illustration style is a good match, so they contract me to illustrate the book. Once the contractual negotiations are settled, I get started with creating all the character sketches, and scene sketches for the entire story. Once I get approval on the final sketch stage from the publisher I proceed with creating all the final illustrations, cover art, etc... The entire time from when I first see the story, settle the contract, and complete all the sketches and final artwork is usually about six months... though I am working on other projects at the same time. Then the art director/designer may take another six months designing the book... In all it probably takes about 18 months from when an editor obtains a story to when the physical printed book actually becomes available in stores and on-line.

visit stevensalerno.com and click KIDS' BOOKS

(above: three of Margot's friends, Roger, Vincent, and Otto)

Not only am I always available to be contracted for picture book projects when editors are lining up author's stories with just the right illustrator... but I am also always writing my own stories and submitting them to the small circle of editors I have worked with at various publishing houses over the years. 

I recently had submitted one of my stories to a certain editor... a very minimally worded story, with just one sentence per spread. Rather than just submitting a text manuscript only to the editor (which I normally do) in this instance I sent a pdf of the entire story illustrated with my sketches. I did this because the images drive the story line, and for the text to make sense the editor had to see visuals too. And because my intention for the book is to have very minimally conceived images (just simple black line and one color) the sketches I provided were quite close to how the finished illustrated book might look.

visit stevensalerno.com and click KIDS' BOOKS

(above: Margot's friend, Melinda)

Long story short, the editor loved it.... but with a very big caveat. They were questioning the essence of the plot. They felt it was too thin and did not have enough depth. In other words, "we love it, but can you change it?" I felt the editor's concerns ultimately were valid, so I did change the plot. I rewrote the story, adding a significant plot twist. There is now a visual "surprise" to the plot which is important for the reader to not see coming... And to know if this "surprise" in the story will work effectively, I decided to not tell the editor ahead of time about any of the changes I was making to the story plot, so that when I re-submit the story again, they can experience the story in the same manner a young reader would. I felt this would be a terrific litmus test for the editor to experience.

So, right now, I am on the verge of presenting this "new" (revised) story to the editor. But rather than submit a pdf with the text and sketches again... I made the highly unusual decision to go ahead and fully complete all the final illustrations. I have no contract from the publisher, no advance payment... I just felt that for the editor to best be convinced that this book should be published, seeing the actual final look of the picture book via the final illustrations will (hopefully) impress them to do so. 

I did about 45 black crayon final drawings of all the characters in their poses for all the various scenes in the story. I am now scanning all these drawings into Photoshop, finalizing all the scene compositions, and adding one color digitally, plus the story text too. Next I will print out all the page spreads (I have a 9-color, large format printer in my studio) and will collate them into book form, so the editor will receive a "dummy book" of my story, but rather than containing mere sketches, it will have all the final illustrations.

visit stevensalerno.com and click KIDS' BOOKS

(above: the dog Buddy)
Posted here are some of the final crayon drawings of all the characters in the story, well except for one character... seen out of their scene context, and without the final added digital color. It is because of this very simple black-line and one-color approach for this one particular story that I went ahead and created all these final drawings... I never would have even attempted creating all the final art if the story called for more fully rendered and fully colored final illustrations as it would require far more unpaid time than I would be willing to commit to! As it was the simple final drawings I created for this speculative book project of mine took me a month to complete. Sure, it's going way out on a limb to spend the time making all these final drawings when I do not even have a firm contract at all... but I feel it is worth the effort and will ultimately work in my favor.

Note: I have purposely left out any description of the story plot, to keep it all under wraps until the day it hopefully sees the light of day as my next published children's picture book, #21.

To view all my images for kids, visit stevensalerno.com and click on the kids' books section 

19 Girls and Me (x 4)

To see all my illustration portfolio samples, visit stevensalerno.com

A few years ago I illustrated a picture book project for publisher Penguin... actually for their children's book imprint Philomel Books, entitled “19 Girls and Me” written by Darcy Pattison (released in 2006).

The story is about a young boy (John Hercules Po), his 19 female kindergarten classmates... and how they all become friends through their imaginative recess adventures around the world to places like Mt. Everest, The Great Wall of China and the Amazon River.

In these past few years this wonderful book has also been translated into German, Chinese and Arabic (the various cover images are posted above) allowing children from these other countries to share in Po's adventures, too. The Chinese edition even has the entire story repeated in English (with all the illustrations scaled down) in the back of the book, also including a musical CD. (I listened to the CD, and it appears to be Chinese children singing the story as if it were a Broadway musical -so charming!)

The Arabic edition, of course, reads from back to front... so all the images were flopped. (I never allow my images to be flopped, because visually they never seem quite the same... but in this case, it was a cultural necessity for this version.)

In “19 Girls and Me” all the illustrations depicting the children in the classroom, or when they are first stepping out into the schoolyard, are in black&white, except for the girls red dresses and Po's blue blazer. Then in all the scenes where the children are on their fantasy recess adventures everything is rendered in full color.... sort of like the same visual tactic used in the movie The Wizard of Oz ... a film in black&white, which then becomes full color when the main character Dorothy literally falls into the Land of Oz.

The interesting "behind the scenes" story regarding the illustrations for this picture book, is that I actually created all of the final images in full color. But when I showed the final illustrations to my Philomel Books editor Michael Green and art director Cecilia Yung they correctly assessed that the classroom and playground scenes, in terms of color, were too hot and bright to the point of distraction... so I came up with the solution to convert those specific images into black&white (ah, the magic of Photoshop!) but made them more stimulating by keeping the girls dresses red and Po's blazer blue. The end result looks as if it was my original intention to have the various “school” scenes in black&white and only the “fantasy” scenes rendered in full color.

"Going Out of Print"... for a book, this is like forced retirement

To see all my illustration portfolio samples, visit stevensalerno.com

Unfortunately, two of my children's picture books, as both author & illustrator, will be going out of print soon with publisher Marshall Cavendish. It's very sad, as both these picture books are very solid stories with, I must say, excellent illustration... but of course, as the creator of the words and images, I am bias! (posted above are the covers)

Hopefully another publisher will want to pick up Coco the Carrot. It's a fanciful story about a carrot who discovers she has talent for designing and making hats, takes an ocean cruise adventure, tumbles overboard, becomes friends with a monkey named Anton on a tropical island, is rescued, ends up in Paris, and becomes a famous hat designer. I won't tell you how it ends... you'll just have to buy one and read it yourself. I think someday, this imaginative story with the spunky main character will be in print again, or maybe even made into a musical play!

Girls really love this story. When I did a book signing a couple years ago at Books of Wonder in New York City (the best children's book store in the city or maybe anywhere) they were having me sign the book and their sneakers, too!

You can still get a copy from Barnes & Noble or Amazon, but not for long.

Little Tumbo is a tale about a little elephant who cannot yet trumpet loudly... he is still leaning. His curiosity gets him kidnapped, and his captors plan on selling him to the circus.... but an old boatsman and his grandson help Tumbo escape...and alone he makes the long journey back toward home. But the kidnappers track him down and just as Tumbo sees his whole family in the distance.... they nab him again! You can guess what happens next! Let's just say Tumbo finally is able to trumpet loudly at a very crucial moment!

You can see inside illustrations from these books on my web site in the Children's Book portfolio section, as well some sketches, too.

Onward and upward!

PANTALOON -remake of the 1951 Little Golden Book classic

To see all my illustration portfolio samples, visit stevensalerno.com

In 1951, publisher Simon & Schuster's imprint for children, Little Golden Books, released another picture book in their long line of hundreds of little slim storybook gems entitled, PANTALOON, written by Kathryn Jackson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard.

I think every kid in America, and millions of children in countries throughout the world as well, have owned or read one of these many Golden Books titles. Pokey Little Puppy, Taxi That Hurried, Tootle, and Saggy Baggy Elephant come to mind.

At the end of 2007 I was contacted by Roberta Ludlow, the children's book art director at Random House (Random now owns the rights to all those hundreds of Little Golden Book titles from the '40's, '50's, '60's, etc...) and was asked to illustrate their re-release of PANTALOON. (slated for release later in 2009 or possibly early 2010) This new version of PANTALOON will be a full-sized, hard cover edition. Random editor Diane Muldrow later informed me that their original intention was simply to re-release PANTALOON with the original Leonard Weisgard illustrations, but that Weisgard's estate could not locate the original art for digital scanning. So Random made the decision to have a contemporary illustrator give a new visual spin to the 1951 classic... me!

I was thrilled to have been chosen for the task to illustrate this tale about the baker and the over zealous poodle, Pantaloon. Who could pass up creating images about a baker, tons of pastries, and a dog who rides a bike? I also wanted to be a part of the Golden Books history!

In my earlier blog posts, you can view sketches and some additional spreads from this new book project. I also have images from the book on view on my own web site, in the children's book section.

http://stevensalerno.blogspot.com/2008/12/picture-book-sketch-to-finish-stages.html

http://stevensalerno.blogspot.com/2008/09/pantaloon-view-of-work-in-progress.html

I created all the images using brush and gouache, painted onto Arches 260 lb hot press watercolor paper, then scanned the paintings into Photoshop where I digitally enhanced some colors and moved some elements within the image to make it better fit the layout relative to the placement of text.

The text in PANTALOON is of course the same as it was in 1951... but my spin on it was to really bring out the nutty, frenetic character of the poodle Pantaloon, far more than in the original book. I did so by giving him a quirkier style bicycle, more animation to his movement (I love the original illustrations but they have a more static quality) and in one scene I combined his actions of playing the guitar, trying on hats, and taking a bath (which were all separate scenes in the original book) to purposely expose Pantaloon's goofy nature.

Posted at the top is my new cover art version and below it is the original cover art from the 1951 edition. Below the covers are spread illustrations I created for the new version of the book, with the corresponding illustrations from the 1951 edition just underneath.

I cannot wait to see the preliminary printing of the book!