One of the questions children ask the most is “How do you put a drawing in a book?” What they seemed to be asking is how does the idea go from talking about what you want the book to be about and the picture to be, to actually having it on a page in a book. This explanation seemed to satisfy most of them.
First, there needs to be an idea for the book.
“Making it fun for boys to learn good manners AND learn cool things about dinosaurs.”
Next, you need to figure out whom you want to read the book? Are they young, old, boys or girls or both?
“Mainly younger boys – ages 3 – 7.”
Then, you need to think up some words for the page.
“If a dino friend were sick,
do you think their pal called
to see if the needed anything?That would have been very thoughtful
for him to pick up the phone
and give his friend a ring.”
Once you have the words, a sketch is needed of the drawing that tells the story of the words on the page. The illustrator needs to figure out if there is a character that will best tell the story and what that character would be doing to go with the words.
One you have the basic drawing right, we thought it needed color to make it more interesting.
Now, we need to put it in a background to complete the story of this page. Our book combines hand-painted drawings with photography. We took the photos ourselves.
You’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the completed page in the book.