The Watermelon Seed and an interview with Greg Pizzoli

13 May 2013

{published 2013, by Disney Hyperion}

I’ve been looking forward to this book for a long time, mostly because that cover is SPECTAZZLING. But also cause I follow Greg Pizzoli on Twitter, where he is clever and quippy and shares things like THE ENDPAPERS. And then this is what the publisher teased us with, so I was pretty much in love with this book right away:

With perfect comic pacing, Greg Pizzoli introduces us to one funny crocodile who has one big fear: swallowing a watermelon seed. What will he do when his greatest fear is realized? Will vines sprout out his ears? Will his skin turn pink? This crocodile has a wild imagination that kids will love.

Yeah. SO INTO THAT. The Watermelon Seed hits stores TOMORROW, May 14th, so you might want to go ahead and get in line. After you meet Greg, of course.

So I’ve also been looking forward to this post for almost as long. I’m thrilled to have Greg Pizzoli in for a visit. Welcome, Greg!

I call him “Kroc”. Sometimes my editor calls him “K-Roc” or “The Krocster”. Boy, does he hate that.My background is in printmaking, and I built a silkscreen shop in my studio, which is how I generate a lot of my work. I think my preference towards limited and deliberate colors comes from the printmaking. It could be laziness, but I’m going to say printmaking.

Even the first sketches of this book were in just a few colors. It just made sense to make the whole book feel like a watermelon. Plus, he’s a crocodile, so the green is already there.

Everyone at Disney*Hyperion was very supportive of my trying out different inks and paper choices to get the feel just right. We did CMYK v. Spot color tests and there was just no comparison. I think it would be tough to get that pink, and that green with CMYK. At least for me. We tried a few different paper stocks, too. I’m super picky.

Basically you make a drawing in black and use that to make a stencil on a screen. Doesn’t matter how you make that drawing – by hand on tracing paper, with construction paper, in Photoshop – whatever you can use to get a drawing in black. Your screen, which is a frame of aluminum with a fine mesh stretched across it, is covered in photographic emulsion, and you expose the screen to light. Wherever the light hits the emulsion, it hardens and becomes water resistant.

BUT if you put your black drawing between the screen and the light source, the emulsion that is blocked by your drawing (which remember, is black, thus very light blocking-y), that emulsion stays soft. And you can wash it out with water. So everything that wasn’t blocked by your drawing is water resistant, and your drawing washes out of the screen, making a water resistant stencil in the shape of your drawing. You make one of those for each layer, or usually, color. WATERMELON was offset printed obviously, but I did a lot of screenprinting textures, etc to make it feel very printy. The spot colors definitely help there, too.

I’ve been teaching screenprinting for about 4 years at The University of the Arts in Philly. It’s where I met Brian Biggs. He took a continuing ed class I was teaching in 2009. He introduced me to my agent. I dedicated a book to him, but it hasn’t come out yet. I still owe him big time. I still teach! I love it.

Humor usually keeps me interested in whatever I’m doing.

I like to work with texture for sure, too. And shapes. Shapes, yeah, shapes are good. I know this is great interview material here. Breaking news, Greg Pizzoli “like shapes”. Today on Buzzfeed, 23 shapes Greg Pizzoli likes most.

Anyway . . . I was really into shapes and texture with THE WATERMELON SEED, and the next book I’m doing with Hyperion (NUMBER ONE SAM, Summer 2014) comes from a similar place. We’re doing spot colors for that one, too. But four this time, which opens up a lot of possibilities in terms of overlapping layers and colors.

Like most people, I like lots of stuff. I never get tired of looking at Eduardo Munoz Bachs posters. He obviously had a lot of fun making his work. A lot of people you’d suspect probably, Sendak, Ed Emberly, Tove Jansson, Charles Schultz, etc.

I’m really lucky to have so many talented buddies in the Philly area, too. I host occasional drink ‘n’ draws at my studio and Zach Ohora, Matt Phelan, Bob Shea, Tim Gough, Amy Ignatow, Brian Biggs, Lee Harper, Gene Baretta, Eric Wight, and several others have come by. It’s a good time. Sometimes we do this thing where we each draw for five minutes and then pass the paper to the right and draw on top of that drawing for five minutes, until we get all the way around the circle or run out of beer. You can imagine just how bad these things look. Joe Strummer, Iggy Pop, David Bowie. They’re my heroes.

No way! I love coffee. I think I quit for a while last year and it just floated around my online profile for a bit. I did stop drinking as much. I am down to like 2-3 cups a day which feels great for me. I was drinking like 8-10. Oh yeah. I’m nicer now.

Greg Pizzoli, people. Is he awesome or what?

So yeah. That’s pretty much my favorite thing on the internet right now. Did you catch the part where the period at the end of the sentence becomes a spotlight for good old K-Roc?! I love that detail.

The Watermelon Seed! Greg Pizzoli! Thanks for hanging out here! We love your book. And you are top notch, too.

The Enduring Ark

6 May 2013

9 Comments

by Joydeb Chitakrar and Gita Wolf

{published 2013, by Tara Books}

Get ready. You may never have seen anything like this before. Have you ever read something that you feel like should be in a museum and not in your hands? And then you realize that’s the whole point of the perfection and portability of picture books, but still your mouth hangs open in awe?

This is one of those books.

The Enduring Ark is a retelling of the flood story from Genesis, and this line from the first page enveloped me in its storytelling.

You may have heard this story before, but great tales deserve to be repeated – and so let me tell it here again, in my way.

And so it goes, this age old story with a breath of new words. Spare text, stunning imagery. The strong lines hold bold saturated color. And I’m dearly smitten with the two crabs!

They found all forms of creatures: large and small, fierce and tame, with feet, and fins, wearing fur, scales and feathers.

The book itself can be read page by page, left to right, as you are quite familiar with. But it also extends out like an accordion, the story literally unfolding before you.

Tara Books, of Chennai, South India, calls themselves a ‘collective of dedicated writers, designers and artists who strive for a union of fine form with rich content.’ This accordion-style scroll painting is the Bengali Patua style, which historically has been used to visualize mythological stories and aid the narration of a storyteller. What a sublime medium for their mission to unite fine form with rich content, right?

Also interesting? On the cover, the artist is named before the writer. Perhaps it’s because the words are a retelling? Or because the design of the book is what makes it extra special? I’m not sure, but I found that really lovely.

The Enduring Ark releases on May 14, 2013. If you are a fan of book design, fantastic story, and clever engineering, don’t miss this innovative book!

Big thank to the publisher, Tara Books, for providing a copy of this book for review. Why not connect with them on Twitter or Facebook if you think their work is magical, too?!

Pinwheel

15 April 2013

14 Comments

{published 2013, by LB Kids/Little Brown Books for Young Readers}

Remember Salina Yoon and her heart-tangle-upper Penguin and Pinecone? Well, she’s back in a big way this week. Tomorrow, April 16th, she has two brand new books out in the world, and trust me: they are spectacular. Penguin’s back in a new adventure, Penguin on Vacation. He’s sick of all the snowy cold, and sets off on a beach adventure. Don’t miss it!

And then there’s this one. I got a sneak peek of Pinwheel and let me show you this thing!

Die cut cover, in the shape of a pinwheel. A hint at the ingenious things to come!

What you might not know about Salina is that she is a master of novelty board books. The engineering to make these books tactile and animated on top of just utter gorgeousness? Her brain. Her artistry. Brilliant.

Pinwheel’s pages have a dial on the edge of the page. Those bright triangles lead you in a twirling direction, and when you do, the magic happens. On this particular page, those scales shimmer and change colors as if you were under the sea with them, swimming into a different beam of light with each flick of your tail.

So here, the train’s lights alert you to its journey. And see her words? Simple, lyrical, and beautiful.

But then. Just when you think you understand how this book works, this happens. A carousel horse! Pops his head out of the page and bobs up and down, up and down, up and down – until you are ready to turn the page …

…where there’s a kite dancing in the wind. Of course there is!

Pinwheel is a knockout. {And no, I didn’t really mean that to be a die-cut pun, but hey why not?! It’s kinda a good one!}

Its design is the story. Pinwheel asks you to interact, discover, and enjoy – and it’s a pleasure from the first spin to the last.

And if you are like me, and can’t get enough of this little treat, check out Salina’s Kaleidoscope. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen in a novelty book, I’m sure of it.

And! Just so you don’t have to only take my word for it, huge hot-off-the-presses congratulations to Kaleidoscope, first place winner of the novelty category for the Book Industry Guild of New York’s 27th Annual New York Book Show.

And with that, I leave you to it. You have lots of reading to do.

Take Me Out to the Yakyu

4 April 2013

14 Comments

byAaron Meshon

{published 2013, by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, and imprint of Simon & Schuster}

When I first heard of this book at SCBWI LA last summer, it was some art on a slide at the front of the room. I was in the back row, and I was hooked. I’ve been waiting for it ever since, and I love that its release was in eager anticipation of baseball’s opening days.

{Sidenote: Cano + Jay-Z? Interesting collaboration. I’ll always be a Chipper Jones girl myself. Middle school scrapbooks and everything. Really.}

But this book. It’s a visual juxtaposition of baseball traditions in America and Japan. A global pastime.

On the left, a kiddo goes to the park with his Pop Pop, and on the right, he hangs out with his ji ji.

{Sidenote again: I had the world’s greatest Pop Pop – no offense to our bright eyed young’n in this book. He always called that Chipper Jones fella Skipper.}

The sweet story arc socked me in the gut a little, because of my own fondness for family trips to the baseball stadium. Aaron Meshon’s saturated colors that are full of life vibrate with the energy of a game. The American blues and the Japanese reds contrast beautifully on each spread, too.

One of the reasons I love baseball so much is its balance of sheer intensity and quiet, and the roar of a rallied-up crowd. The composition of the illustrations echo that rise and fall – some are fully rendered to the edge, color spilling off the page. Some are contained in a quieter space, bordered by white.

And I love this – a subtle repetition of a circle, the stitched up sphere of a baseball. It even shows up on the back of the title page. I’m blanking on my librarian vocabulary – the verso, is it? That part where all the important cataloging information lives.

It’s here, too. Those cheeks!

And this – baseball is exhausting.

So get this book. It’s a home run. (And a slam dunk, too – even though that’s the wrong sport.)

Penguin and Pinecone

18 March 2013

21 Comments

by Salina Yoon

{published 2012, by Walker & Company, an imprint of Bloomsbury}

And! Penguin has a very cute blog!

I’ve been meaning to write about this book ever since I met Salina at an event in December. December!

2013 has been a time warp, but at least I’ve been surrounded by lots of great books.

I love that tiny Penguin and his dapper orange scarf Salina drew for me. (She’s just as adorable, too.) And this might be one of my favorite title pages of all time. The bed of pine needles, the heart…sweet, sweet foreshadowing.

Salina’s compositions are all striking, with a calming sense of space and subtle mood-building color palettes.

Remember the Rule of Thirds? Salina’s ground to sky ratio is a beautiful example of it. And I love that she chose the cool and crystal clear sky to be the dominant feature. It’s a wide open space, but Penguin still feels chilly and at home.

Every shivering pinecone needs an orange scarf right? Which is certainly a lovely thing to use as clothing for a penguin, but doesn’t it also magnify how freezing Penguin’s world is? It makes sense, but it also plunges the reader into that arctic blast.But since pinecones don’t live in the frigid air, Penguin sets off with his friend on a sled to return him home.And this spread. So pretty, and so sweet. There’s that bed of cozy needles from the title page, see? The contrast in worlds here is magnified by the color. Penguin’s home was cool and blue, and Pinecone’s neighborhood is warm with yellows, browns, and greens. Later, Penguin returns in search of his friend, and this left hand side of the most perfect spread is a mashup of their two worlds’ color. And I can’t show you the right. Cause, spoiler alert! But it’s spectacular and you just have to see for yourself. Trust me.

It’s easy to fall in love with Penguin and Pinecone, and since you probably already have, be on the lookout for two more of their adventures! Penguin on Vacation is coming in April, and Penguin in Love is coming before the end of the year. So dear, so perfect, so chilly.

The Island

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Wasn’t Monday morning a thrill? I tweeted this, which pretty much summed up my morning:

And I wrote (and squealed) a little more about it here, where there’s a really beautiful picture thanks to Caryn Schafer’s beautiful blog!

There’s a billion and one things to love about Jon Klassen, and one of them is his mastery of color. Even if you picture the covers to Extra Yarn and This Is Not My Hat, you get an insta-glimpse of what I mean. Color rules. It’s easy to read, easy to feel. And it’s what stands out to me about this book, The Island.

by Marije Tolman and Ronald Tolman

{published 2012, by Lemniscaat USA}

I bought this book based on its cover, before I even turned a single page. Look at it! It’s dreamy and sparkly and enchanting and soft and calm and it just speaks.

And the story is just as dreamy and sparkly and enchanting and all those other things. A polar bear climbs down from a ladder in the clouds. Wordlessly, he pokes from page to page, from thing to thing, from story to story, from island to island.

The landscapes are muted and quiet, and the living characters are saturated and strong. The color palette is transporting and calming and breathtaking.

I adore being able to read a different story every time I carefully thumb through it. I’m not sure if it means something small or something big, and I don’t really care. I just enjoy it and soak it in, and feel my imagination bursting at the seams.

And something else that is delightful and surprising: a father-daughter duo created this one. Something about that feels extra special.

Dangerously Ever After

14 January 2013

13 Comments

by Dashka Slater, illustrated by Valeria Docampo

{published 2012 by Dial Books for Young Readers}

I’m not usually too keen on princess books. I just…don’t get the appeal? And the pink? And the super sweetness?

Princess Amanita is my kind of girl, though. She’s prickly and fearless, and she has a killer hairdo. (I’ll overlook her love for cats. They still make me nervous.)

Remember Dashka Slater? She’s the brain behind a story full of words like stink lilies, heckle-berries, and sentences like ‘It sounded like a troop of monkeys playing tubas.’

Fun, lively, and funny, much as l imagine her to be.

And Valeria Docampo has a sweeping style that evokes a monster sense of wonder in me. This illustration that welcomes you to her website is breathtaking.

Her pictures are a perfect frame for Princess Amanita.

Shape is just any space that is enclosed by a line. They can be defined and pointy triangles, or round and comforting circles. Or perhaps just the space that’s left behind, in between two lines.

Princess Amanita is thorny on the outside, interested in danger and sharp things. So her hair resembles a scorpion tale, and her dress is outfitted in what looks like metal. Even her garden is prickly.

But she is sweet and friendly underneath it all, so the softness in the curves of her face and dress serve as a subtle reminder to us.

I love this spread. Gradually from left to right, the vines grow from pointy triangular thorns to the muted and organic lines of the Prince’s kingdom. Similar shapes tell a very different story.

And I adore these tiny frames that are dotted through the pages. The shape for these spot illustrations is bound by both curved and straight lines. She’s not all sweet, but she’s not all danger either.

Because really, aren’t we all a bit like that?

Leo Geo And His Miraculous Journey Through The Center Of The Earth

7 January 2013

25 Comments

Hello and happy 2013 and welcome back to this little corner of the internet!

And a huge hello to those of you who hopped on board over the last couple weeks! It’s nice to have you.

Here’s an awesome and odd little book to kick off the new year:

by Jon Chad

I promise not to use bad puns like, “This book rocks!” or “Perfect for kids who don’t take science for granite!”

Much like another favorite, Sky High, Leo Geo uses size and scale in such an unusual way. Telling a story about a journey through the center of the earth calls for a different visual method than the standards we are used to.

So flip it 90 degrees and read top to bottom. Of course! Its width (or lack thereof!) perfectly frames the skinny tunnels and canals through which our ‘surface man’ drills.

And just when you get to the center, flip it 180 degrees and read bottom to top as you emerge with him to the other side of the world.

Throughout the entire journey, Leo Geo narrates his trip with a good healthy dose of science. You’ll get reminders of the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, what makes up the continental and oceanic crusts, and how many miles you would have to travel before reaching the core.

Even though his voice is conversational and funny, every once in a while you might run into a Quadclops or find a magic dagger. I love that this book becomes a spectacular combination of nonfiction and comic book.

By using only black and white, the reader gets to fill in the blanks and let their imagination run wild. The contrast between the whites of the tunnels and the black hash marks of piles and piles of fossils provide a very satisfying balance. The art is so intricate that I imagine a young reader (or an old one!) could pore over these pages for hours.

So yeah. This book rocks.

Oh No, Little Dragon!

10 December 2012

14 Comments

by Jim Averbeck

Remember him? When I asked him what he would be if he wasn’t an author/illustrator, he said “extraordinarily irritable.” Ha.

Oh No, Little Dragon! is an endearing little book. Just look at his eyes! So sweet. That’s a little dragon with a spark in his heart, no question about it.

This is a story about fire, love, and kisses from a mama. And Jim Averbeck’s pictures capture the magnitude of this childlike search for sparkle.

When I teach, one of my favorite things to show students is this little video. Not only does it visually define the fundamentals of design, but it is also a tiny piece of art itself. Pay close attention to the bit on line. (And also the adorable accent of the narrator!)

From the video: “Line has direction, weight, gesture, spirit, gestalt, life.”

And that’s what I think about when I look through the pages of Oh No, Little Dragon! — the life and spirit of the lines.

See how the foreground and background lines are weighted the same? They are approximately the same width and texture, but the background lines recede because they are more transparent. Similar lines in different spirit create space in the illustration.

The lines of phooooooshing on these pages have a clear direction and sense of animation across the spread. Love that. Can’t you just hear and feel Little Dragon sputtering through this book?

I won’t even tell you how much I love the soot-colored line drawings on the endpapers.

Nope.

Red Sled

3 December 2012

9 Comments

by Lita Judge

First. You have to read the interview with Lita Judge over at Jules’ Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog. That studio! That giant cat! Doesn’t she sound like the kind of person you want to have poached eggs and lemongrass tea with? Yes.

Red Sled is a perfect book for a cold and cozy winter. (Even if you are in the land of perpetual seventy degree weather. Still perfect.)

It’s mostly wordless, but the words that do exist capture the sounds of the crispy, crunchy snow, and the wheees and whoops of a whimsical winter bunch.

The palette is quiet and bright; the winter whites are a highlight. But then! There’s a red sled. A peek of a red cap. Tiny bursts of color on an otherwise muted scene.

Also, I adore how Lita used a border to contain the scenes in the pages. Something about that feels extra cozy and warm. Instead of bleeding to the edge of the page, the pictures are all wrapped in a wintry white blanket. Perhaps a nice reminder of the snug-and-settled-in-ness of the season?

And any book that ends with a mouse tangled up in moose antlers is a guaranteed smile-getter.

Design of the Picture Book

the intersection of graphic design + picture books

Category Archives: composition

The Watermelon Seed and an interview with Greg Pizzoli

The Enduring Ark

Pinwheel

Take Me Out to the Yakyu

Penguin and Pinecone

The Island

Dangerously Ever After

Leo Geo And His Miraculous Journey Through The Center Of The Earth

Oh No, Little Dragon!

Red Sled

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