personal
November 14, 2011
I haven’t posted anything here in a little while. Sorry folks! I enjoyed lunch on Saturday with the winners of the Toronto Public Library’s “Save Our Libraries” contest. We had lunch at the Queen Mother Cafe (on Queen Street in Toronto). I love the Queen Mother, the food is good and the ambience is always lively. Despite lunch running a bit later than we’d anticipated we still managed the second part of our afternoon without too big a hiccup.
Us authors had been asked to choose a Toronto destination that was significant to us and give our winners a tour. I chose the Osbourne Collection at the Lillian H Smith library. Largely because it’s something that I’ve always wanted to see for myself. The tour was great. We had a librarian show us some of the prize items from the collection including: books from the 1600’s, books owned by Princess Victoria, books signed by JK Rowling. It was cool. The winners, all kids around the age of ten, loved seeing the historical items and talking with the librarian about rare and unique children’s books. So in an hour we got to see the history of English language children’s books! It was inspiring. And to top it off it was nice to see my own books represented in the collection. We finished with a little tour and sneak-peek at some of my own upcoming projects and talked about how illustrations and stories get put together. And, since this whole contest was about drawing attention to our libraries, it was doubly nice to see a different side of the library — namely the importance of archiving historical works and seeing how it puts todays books into perspective. So, go and visit your library today and think about where all these amazing books come from.
May 4, 2011
Some of you know that I have a toddler. I’m enjoying rereading all those great books that I read with my daughter when she was much younger. And this time I’m finding that there are fewer books I dislike than last time. Perhaps because we just haven’t bothered keeping the “bad” ones around. I thought I’d share some of my recent favourites with you.
First up there is the delightful Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein. It’s an “old” book, published in, I believe, 1986. But it’s BEAUTIFUL. The text is simple and sweet without being sacerine. And the art looks as fresh today as it must have when first published. Lovely colours and the drawings are deceptively simple. I would love to achieve the same with my own work.
Moomin by Tove Jannson. These books aren’t actually Jannson originals but I love the Moomin’s enough to overlook this. I suspect Jannson would have approved. The drawings are beautiful and the colouring all done with bright, flat tones.
Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allen Allberg. This is an old one as well, but, like Little Gorilla, timeless. I enjoyed this book with my daughter as well. It’s a rare one in the sense that I find more and more to enjoy about it with each subsequent reading. The art is brilliant and each scene is rendered so fully that I’m only now beginning to see just how fully rendered the backgrounds are. Brilliant.
Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett This one is newer, it wasn’t around when my daughter was a baby. My son loves it. There isn’t much to say really. Simple, sweet, clever, delightful, funny. It’s remarkable in that there are essentially only four words in the book. It doesn’t even tell much of a story and yet somehow it’s very satisfying to read over and over again. Beautifully designed and the quality of Gravett’s drawings are beyond words.
This next is not a toddler friendly book, but I’m going to include it here because I’m enjoying it so much. Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip. These are old comics but Drawn and Quarterly have collected them. I’m not often a fan of old newspaper strips, but these stories are delightful. The Moomin’s are “nice” characters to visit over and over again — strangely real in their reactions to the world around them.They are quirky. Very quirky. Tove Jansson’s art and writing are equally wonderful in these strips.
January 15, 2010
I started the new year with a couple of days visiting schools. Boo Hoo Bird is nominated for the Blue Spruce Award in Ontario this year so it’s a good opportunity to get out there and do some promoting with my audience (and if I’m lucky my audience will vote for me and Boo Hoo will win — not that I care about winning or anything!). Anyway, I wanted to share this photo with you. Lisa Hough, a teacher at Bridlewood Elementary School, baked these amazing Bird shaped cakes. She runs a little business called Markham Cakes and Sweets. Check it out. Pretty amazing, yes? So if you’re in the greater Toronto area and you’re looking for an excellent cake baker/decorator… highly recommended.
January 6, 2010
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a nice holiday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc… Mine was nice and quiet and relaxing and I didn’t do very much work. As a result I’ve hit the pavement running this year. I’ve got some really exciting projects in the pipeline right now: two confirmed picture books; one more picture book in early stages of development; and one REALLY exciting project about which I can’t speak yet (but will hopefully have news about in the next couple of months).
This spring will see the release of ME HUNGRY! in board book form. I’m really excited about this as I think the smaller format will really suit the book. ME HUNGRY! was largely inspired by two of my all time favourite board books: Jez Alborough’s beautiful HUG and Peggy Rathman’s lovely Goodnight Gorilla. Chris Raschka’s Yo! Yes?
(although not a board book) was also a big inspiration. I have high hopes that the board book will be widely available and will find a permanent home in this format. Huge thanks must be given to Candlewick for the decision to make this book available in the smaller format.
Anyway, I hope your 2010 is full of marvelous good times and much happiness.
November 9, 2009
I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who turned out for my Packaging Your Imagination workshop on Saturday. I felt the talk went pretty well and I really enjoyed talking with everyone who stayed to chat afterwards. My apologies if I didn’t spend enough time on the nitty-gritty of technique and technology. But I think most of you are well on your way with your art anyway and have a good idea of what you want to do with it — I’d be preaching to the converted. I felt that the business side of the talk was more practical (and that’s what most of you were looking for in the workshop anyway). So, I hope I was able to shed a little light on it for you. It’s funny, I’ve learned by making lots of mistakes over the years and have really learned the hard way. It would make me very happy if you, dear workshop attendees, are able to avoid some of my missteps. And for me it was also a great opportunity to see just how far I’ve come over the years. I’ve actually learned something!
And I hope everyone had a great day after my workshop. I enjoyed sitting in on workshops by Heather Collins and Shane Peacock. Why Shane Peacock I hear you asking? Is Jeremy not an illustrator first? I decided to sit in on Shane’s workshop because I’m writing a much bigger work right now — a chapter book. Although I think the bulk of the writing is finished at this point I still feel like I need all the help and advice I can get from those who have experience with longer works. Shane’s workshop was good. He’s an engaging speaker and had some excellent tips and thoughts about writing. And Heather Collins? Well, she’s a fine illustrator. Since her style is very realistic I wanted to hear a little about how another illustrator approaches their work.
And then the keynote address was by none other than Kenneth Oppel. His talk, although he claimed he would neither enlighten nor inspire, was delightful and inspiring. He finished his talk with a couple photos of Roald Dahl’s studio. Now that’s inspiring! He worked in the most unlikely, and probably unhealthy, places — his garden shed. Hilarious.
October 14, 2009
I just read David Elzey’s blog about children’s illustrators of the 60’s and 70’s. He makes some excellent observations. I was going to post a comment on it, but I don’t have a blogger or google account (and don’t really want one) so will post my response here:
Hi David,
What an interesting blog. It’s always good to see the work of past illustrators and authors being discussed. Too many get lost and forgotten, presumably because their books aren’t being reprinted. I’m honored to be mentioned alongside the likes of the Provensens, Mary Blair and David Ezra Stein. How nice is that? I’m a HUGE fan of the Provensens and, only recently for some reason, of Mary Blair.
There’s a sameness to many of the illustrators of that era. I wonder if we’ll be looking back on the current crop of illustrators in a few years and seeing a sameness in their work as well. Hmmm… It’s my big fear with working digitally: since digital artists are all reliant on the same tools it seems natural that our work would all have a sameness. I learned much of my craft from studying Dave McKean’s amazing use of Photoshop. I’m pleased to see him stepping back from the heavy reliance on Photoshop tricks and back into drawing (which he is truly gifted at). I would like to think that by not forgetting my own love of drawing my work will somehow distance itself from other digital illustrators. I guess what makes folks like the Provensens drawings stand up so well is their true skill with their tools. It might look a little dated but it holds up well because they’re just so GOOD. Perhaps that’s what makes so many of their books classics.
You know another illustrator whose work I adore? Gyo Fujikawa. She was apparently one of the earliest children’s illustrators to include children of different races in her books. Perhaps being Japanese American she saw the lack of other races in American children’s books at the time? I think she’s amazing. She was probably one of the earliest illustrators whose drawings I become aware of. Even as a child I knew I’d like a book if her illustrations graced the pages.
July 29, 2009
You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it’s going to be too difficult for grownups, you write it for children. — Madelaine L’Engle
May 31, 2009
Dear blog readers,
In case you noticed that there haven’t been any updates in a while, there’s a good reason: my wife and daughter and I welcomed a new member of the family a couple of weeks ago. Theo Tankard was born on May 16th. He’s very cute and I’ve been enjoying having a baby in the house again. Needless to say it’s put a bit of a dent in my work, but that’s to be expected. In the next few weeks I’ll be getting back on my feet again and will hopefully be back to semi-regular blogging (and more regular writing, sketching and drawing).
Stick around.
jeremy
January 19, 2009
A little while back I received a very nice email from my friend Kathy Stinson (a wonderful children’s writer). She was giving a talk at a writing conference and wanted to know if she could use Grumpy Bird in her presentation, which was about writing good picture books. I was flattered! Anyway, she wanted to know a little about the process of writing the book. Specifically she was interested to know which came first, the words or the pictures or both at once. So, just for fun, I thought I’d share my response with you, dear blog readers, in the unlikely event that you might care about such things:
The idea came from Hermione when she was three and half. I was sitting on the couch in my studio when she sat beside me and demanded that I draw grumpy things in my sketchbook. She wanted a grumpy lion, a grumpy snake, a grumpy clock, a grumpy bear and a grumpy bird. I don’t often laugh when I’m drawing but the picture of the bird was so silly that we both started laughing. I decided right then and there that I would write a story about a bird who is so grumpy that he can’t fly. Instead he goes for a walk and has an adventure along the way. I thought it would be funny if all the other animals didn’t notice his mood and thought he was having fun and joined him for the walk.
I found writing very, very difficult (I still do) so began writing not with a computer or pen or pencil, but with a brush — the same tool I draw with. This made the writing feel more like an act of art making and therefore less intimidating. I wrote a horrible first draft this way. Actually I wrote only half the story since I didn’t have an ending. Then I stopped writing and drew a bunch of pictures (when in doubt, procrastinate or distract). Then I came back to writing and made up tonnes of thumbnails using tiny drawings and often just single words on each spread. So, with half a manuscript and a pile of thumbnails and book-maps (thumbnails with single words instead of pictures) I started assembling a dummy, both writing and drawing at the same time. The first dummy was a very fast process and took about one day to complete (a method that I’ve employed on all my projects since — work fast and don’t think too hard, the thinking can come later).
At this point I showed it to my editor. The funny thing is I almost didn’t show it. Tracy (Mack) my editor at Scholastic was interested in seeing if I could write. I went to New York with a stack of manuscripts from Peter’s writing class (and a few from beyond the writing class). Tracy politely read everything and made little comments. I didn’t show her Grumpy Bird because I’d spent so little time on it (relative to everything else I’d done). At the end of an hour and a half meeting she asked if I had anything else. With Peter’s voice ringing in the back of my head, “Don’t show her that book Jeremy, you know you hardly spent any time on it!” I pulled the dummy tentatively out of my bag and showed her (Peter didn’t actually say that but I imagined that he would if he’d seen me put that dummy together). Tracy laughed. Then she laughed some more. A week later she emailed to say she wanted it but that it required some work. We edited it, I redrew the dummy and made two sample spreads and got a book deal! Voila!
I’m not sure that I agree about its brilliance, but the whole project was a stroke of inspired spontaneity and silliness. I still marvel that something so (relatively) unpolished can make it to press. Since then both my editors and agent have suggested that they’d like to see only the projects that come together in such a quick and spontaneous way. It seems to work for me. But waiting for those moments is difficult. And creating them is even more difficult. But all this probably speaks to my lack of experience. I’ve a lot to learn.
For the most part I believe that making picture books, for me at any rate, is a process of writing and drawing at the same time. My text seems to need the pictures in order to thrive and the pictures need the words. It’s a good marriage, but not one without its tensions. I have all the confidence in the world in my illustration skills, but not in my writing. I have to work much harder on the words than the art, but perhaps it’s that hard work that’s paying off in the final product.
I’ve been very lucky with Grumpy Bird. I’m looking forward to launching my new one, Boo Hoo Bird, in the spring. It’s a better read-aloud than Grumpy Bird, so I must be learning something!
January 15, 2009
I just made a banner for Shelf Elf’s blog. Go and check it out. She has a great kit lit blog where she reviews lots of fantastic books. Ages ago she asked, very nicely, if I might create a banner for her (and she offered me cookies). It only took the better part of a year to get around to doing it. She wrote a very enthusiastic endorsement of it here. Thanks Shelf Elf!
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