The Sweetest Book (aka: too many calories to count)

To see all my illustration portfolio samples, visit my web site. 

In 1951, the Little Golden Book classic, Pantaloon, was first printed by Simon & Schuster... In 2010 the new version of that children's picture book classic will be released by Random House, the present day owners of all the Golden Book titles. 

I had the very fortunate opportunity to be selected to re-illustrate this new version of the book, and yesterday received an advance copy of the completed book. The reproduction of the art looks terrific. It is such a satisfying feeling to finally have the actual printed book in your hands, after the many months of doing all the preliminary sketches and the numerous finished illustrations! All these illustrations were finished in the late winter of 2009... and the book will be released nationwide sometime in the spring of 2010... 

The story is about an energetic poodle who is determined to become the Baker's new assistant, and will stop at nothing to to so... People who have seen the illustrations already, have all commented on how delicious and tempting all the pies, cakes, breads, cookies and pastries seen throughout look. Out of curiosity, I just did a quick count of how many tasty items I actually illustrated... counting everything seen on the cover, endpapers, inside illustrations, etc... I think there are about 490 food items! After reading this book, one will definitely head straight for the nearest bakery to pick up a chocolate eclair (or three). How many pounds did I gain while working on the visual research for the book you ask? I'm not telling... but let's just say that I hope my next children's book project is about a kid who spends a lot of time in the gym. 

All the illustrations were painted with Winsor & Newton gouaches on Arches hot press watercolor papers...then scanned into Photoshop, where I did some additional digital enhancements, especially with much of the "pastry" work.

Posted here is the half-title page art (box of pastries), and an illustration from one the the opening pages where Pantaloon and the Baker first meet...

(see previous post)

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!