It’s hard to really talk about the work, or talk about my process without seeing it, seeing me in the dance, and it is really a dance for me. I look at a work — my friend’s talking about the process versus product. The end result, looking at a piece of painting that I often you know love it and sometimes you know for a very short time, it’s short-lived.
And then I love it for about a day, if that. Then I’m off to the next piece because I hate it you know and I want, I can’t wait to get a blank piece of paper and start the whole process again. Well that’s kind of the way it works in fine art. But in children’s books it’s a different, the process is a little longer because you have this manuscript, this beginning of the process.
I like to look at it, think it of as the author has invited these, in weaving these strands. But in order to make a full cloth, you have to weave through it and to bind it together and that’s what the illustrator does. He comes in and weaves those spaces.
And so, in doing so, what I have to do is I have to go out and do some research. I have to kind of make sure that when a child opens my book, they’re transported, you know, because I’ve done my homework.
In that process, I’m going to one, go through the whole process of this storyboard, you know, the thumbnail sketches. And then the dummy book process of looking with, after the thumb, thumbnails you have this, this you know this thing that is now in scale of the book. I want to know what the manuscript, the words are going to look like with my images and so that wonderful marriage and balance of image and words.
And then the next part is the research and heading to the library, which I love, and I spend hours in the stacks, in the print picture department looking at the images.
And then even more so, going out there to the area and I’m one of the illustrators that will actually go to the location. So if it’s Mississippi, I will hop on a plane and go to Mississippi for the clip of the porch people, to find out what the lives of that community, what’s that community like? What’s that world of the Mississippi delta?
I get there and I’m trying to get to the point where I’m smelling it you know, that I’ve dug so deep, uncovering this stuff. So the more I realize there’s nothing up here, that I have to put it there. I could fill that void. And filling the void is a part of love. I love filling the void. I love going out there and finding all that information and putting it all up there and so then that I could put out. And so once I put it out there, it’s there, you know.
And so you, then after that process of trying the research, doing the research, then I find my models and my models. These are real live people and so to go and pick out that child, you know, and saying oh, that’s just going she’s going to be great, or he’s going to be fantastic for this book, it’s one, this character that I envision and what this character looks like and you know what, the size and characteristics and the posture and the expressions and all that, perfect character.
And then going through that process of taking the photographs and dressing up. And sometimes these books take, you know will take several hours or several days. And then they end up in the studio and that’s my favorite place in all the world to be. To go and bring this to life, to have all the research in front of me, all the photographs that I’ve taken.
And just sit down with that, which is my head that I filled to overflowing and then put it all out there and hopefully it’s received you know in the manner that I put it out there with all the love and concentration and focus and disciple-wise and what have you. And then when you receive awards like the Coretta Scott King or the Caldecott, what have you, then it’s a gift you know, that your work has been received and a good job.
And whether or not you get the gift or not, you know that reward, that acknowledgment, it’s that treasure, the part that is truly treasured is that journey that you took to get there.
