Question : Is there a preferred size to illustrate children’s books?

Answer : I’ve found is that size varies from publisher to publisher. Happily, if your manuscript is picked up by a publisher, they will let you know what sizes are available to you. This goes the same for self-publishers, who are able to give a good rate to authors for printing books because they have a standard cookie-cutter size they work with.

A very helpful editor over at Omnibus Books gave the advice at a children’s book writing seminar that it is very unusual to receive finished illustrations with a manuscript. She went on to say that it is even discouraged because of the uncomfortable situation that can arise when the story is literary genious and the illustrations are scribble, or the illustrations are masterpieces and the story is dribble!

With that advice in mind, if you wish to submit a manuscript with illustrations, I would lean towards only sending in sketches and perhaps one finished illustration (as a sample) with your manuscript to a publisher.

That being said, there are many talented aspiring writer/illustrators out there… and to you I would give the advice to just illustrate larger than you hope the book will be, and paint extra bleed (trim) around the illustration. That way if your story is picked up by a pubisher, there is flexibility to scale down and trim the illustrations as needed.

You can find more tips on how to illustrate a children’s book here. And if you have any questions about children’s book illustration or publishing, feel free to post your questions in the comment section.

Question : What medium should I use to illustrate greeting cards? Is it ok to use different mediums and surfaces, such as acrylic on canvas?

Answer : There aren’t any restrictions on what mediums you use to illustrate your greeting card designs. Whether you illustrate with watercolour on paper or oils on canvas, what will be the deciding factor is how awesome your illustration looks. Just consider how easy it will be to digitize your illustration (whether it be by scanning or photographing) before you delve in. Other than that, the sky’s the limit!
You can find more tips on illustrating for greeting cards here.

Developing your own brand is the first step in marketing yourself as an illustrator. The purpose of a business card is to quickly provide the recipients with your contact details, to remind them of who you are and what you do. The best part about being an illustrator is that your business card doesn’t need to be stuffy… it needs to reflect your style, while being simple enough to complement any printed promotional materials that it may accompany.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating your business card :

• • Contact details to include are : Your logo, name, phone number, email & website.
• • Keep the type treatment clean and legible. Choose type treatments that you can carry across your other stationary (such as invoices, letterheads, quotes, etc.) Above all keep your promotional materials consistent with each other, you don’t want a higgldy-piggledy bunch of promotional materials.
• • Size : Go with a standard business card size. While choosing a unique size is, well… unique… it can be a wasted expense when the thing people are most interested in with an illustrator’s business card is illustration!
• • Full-colour printing : Prices for printing have dropped significantly, so that now it is almost as cheap to print full-colour (front & back) business cards as it is to print them in black & white. Yeah, full-colour illustration opportunities!
• • Embellishments : It’s a personal preference whether you want to splurge for embosses, varnishes, or matte-laminates… just keep in mind that you want your illustration to be the star of your business card.
• • Consider including an illustration : You’re an illustrator, so take this opportunity to show off your style! Chose an illustration that best reflects your talents. Crop in close for interest, or show the whole illustration on the back of the card. You could even illustrate something especially for your business card. If you have more than one style, you may want to consider having more than one business card (just be sure to keep your logo and contact details consistent between business cards.)

Above all, have fun with your business card… give it a bit of your personal flare, and don’t be afraid of making it look like your own style as people like to see an illustrator’s styles come through in their branding materials.

This is one of the most common questions I get regarding greeting card illustration. Fortunately the answer is an easy one… you can illustrate for greeting cards in almost any size! Card companies tend to vary their card dimensions between card lines so as long as you keep in mind these guidelines, there is a lot of flexibility as to what size you can illustrate your greeting card designs to :

• • Whatever size the publisher tells you : keep it simple, if you’ve been given a size to work with, stick with it.
• • Allow for bleed : paint/draw extra illustration around your main design (0.5 - 1 inch) to allow for some shifting for where the bleed will be trimmed off.
• • Use portrait format : Landscape format cards don’t sell as well as A) they don’t display well on card racks, and B) they don’t tend to sit well on a table. The main times landscape illustrations are used in greeting cards are when they are used on z-fold or u-fold designs.
• • Make it easy to scan : Illustrating larger than the size needed is always preferable. However, if your original artwork is small enough to fit on a scanning bed (i.e. 8.5 x 11 inches or smaller), it will save whoever is digitizing your artwork the trouble of either photographing your work or scanning it in pieces and stitching it together in Photoshop.

Other than those points to consider, you can illustrate to any size you’d like. You can find more tips on illustrating for greeting cards here.

Just got back yesterday from our nearly 7 week trip to Canada to visit family & friends. Was a great holiday, starting with two weeks in Kelowna, followed by a week or so each in Toronto, Michigan, Ottawa, and Algonquin Park. I stumbled across some great art while there (see Miriam Dwyer, Wanda Martin Hicks, and Andrea Ross), took the plunge and bought an Intuos Wacom tablet, and even bought a few bags of the Truly Kettle Chips I did the illustration for. So lots of goodies to share with you all over the next few weeks!

Wowsers, I just got an email from oDesk letting me know my blog made it onto their Top 100 Freelance Blogs list! The list includes the blogs of freelance designers, animators, developers, writers, and heaps more. I took a browse around oDesk, which is a place for freelancers and clients to hook up (and later arrange pay-up.) Looks promising… have you tried it out, oh mysterious blog readers? Let me know if it’s any good eh ;)

Thought I’d share the love, here is a link to the entry form for any illustrators interested in entering to win a free page of advertising in the Directory of Illustration 26.

Wow, this is such an honor… Diane Cantrell’s and my story, Good-bye, Baby Max, won a gold Mom’s Choice Award in the category of Values & Life Lessons. To win this award, Good-bye, Baby Max was evaluated on its “production quality, design, educational value, entertainment value, originality, appeal and cost.” And I must say… it was fun sticking the gold seals on my copies of the book!

“The Mom’s Choice Awards® (MCA) is an annual awards program that recognizes authors, inventors, companies, parents and others for their efforts in creating quality family-friendly media, products and services.

An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of our panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of PBS’s Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times best-selling author; Priscilla Dunstan, creator of the Dunstan Baby Language; Patricia Rossi, host of NBC’s Manners Minute; Dr. Letitia S. Wright, D.C., host of the Wright PlaceTM TV Show; Catherine Witcher, M.Ed., special needs expert and founder of Precision Education, Inc.; and Tara Paterson, Certified Parent Coach, founder of the Mom’s Choice Awards.” – Mom’s Choice Awards®

Stay tuned for Diane’s and my next children’s book, which we are working on right now!”

Eeeeee, my copies of The Brotherhood of the Stinky Underpants arrived in the post this week! I’m very pleased with the colours and how they turned out so close to the original illustrations. The book is available online and some of the illustrations from inside can be seen here.

I’ve finally had a chance to listen to this chat on Just One More Book about self-publishing… and it’s just fantastic. (hee hee, I held my breath while listening to it as they mentioned Spotty & Eddie as an example of a self-published book) Andrea and Mark offer some valuable insights into self-published children’s books and discuss some of the traps authors and illustrators can fall into. I especially appreciated hearing their perspective on the importance of editing! It’s one of the hardest things to do to invite someone to give their honest opinion, and an even harder thing to accept their input when it isn’t something you want to hear. I recommend this podcast to any author or illustrator thinking of going the self-publishing route with their children’s book.