Please welcome WILD ABOUT CAMPING illustrator Bryanna Chapeskie to the blog, as she walks us through the fascinating process of illustrating a picture book!
When I was approached by Nimbus Publishing in the spring of 2021 to illustrate Wild About Camping, I simply couldn’t believe my luck! Illustrating a children’s book had been a dream of mine for a very long time, so the opportunity was completely thrilling.
Illustrating a children’s book, as with anything made from scratch, is a process. As an illustrator and a graphic designer, I think about the creative process a lot! It’s the journey from the beginning of any creative project to the finish line. I like to go on nature walks, so I tend to think of the creative process as a path in which I encounter all types of terrain, and I sometimes even get lost only to find myself back on the trail again with new nuggets of wisdom that help push me forward. Knowing and trusting the creative process really helps when I inevitably get lost in the woods—I know that as long as I keep going, I’ll find my way.
What did the creative process really look like for illustrating Wild About Camping? Here’s a breakdown of my process for illustrating this book:
1. Moodboarding:
A Moodboard is a collection of images that I used to help establish a visual direction for the book. I started warming up by collecting and looking at other children’s book illustrations and studying things like colour, setting, tone, and characters. I also collected images of each type of animal that appeared in the story to use as references for character development. Working this way helped me get into the headspace of illustrating a children’s book and prepared me for the initial sketches and studies.
2. Sketching
Sketching is working your ideas out of your mind and onto the page long before creating the final artwork. Once I had read the manuscript, I began loosely sketching the brother and sister characters, using reference images of real children to help guide me with developing their personalities. Thumbnail sketches were also developed during this stage, which help to establish what the illustrations for each page would be. Much like blueprints, the thumbnails created a framework for the final art, and acted as a plan that both myself and the publisher could follow through the span of the project.
3. Studies
Studies are like research through sketching. I used the reference images collected in my moodboards to help develop the animal characters in Wild About Camping. I often sketched several iterations of a character, beginning in my sketchbook and using tracing paper to draw on top of previous iterations. Studies were created throughout the entire process of illustrating the book as I worked page by page from refined pencil sketches to final digital artwork.
4. Refined Sketches
Using the thumbnail sketches and studies as my guide, I created larger and more refined pencil drawings for each page. I worked two pages at a time (or one spread at a time), often laying tracing paper on top of drawings, and redrawing and refining as needed. Once I felt like I had nailed the sketch, I scanned it in and began finishing the illustration digitally.
5. Digital Illustration
Digital illustration still blows my mind! Each illustration for Wild About Camping was brought into Procreate and completed digitally. I find it’s fantastic for efficiently editing artwork and there are all kinds of fun brushes and textures to explore that add a lot to the illustrations. It was so exciting seeing the evolution from refined sketch to final artwork.
6. Review and Revisions:
Once all the illustrations were complete, I laid them out in a mock book layout in InDesign so that I could see how the artwork looked as a whole. I checked for inconsistencies in things like colour, or the way a character was drawn from one page to the next. A few revisions were made before I compiled the artwork files and sent them to Nimbus for layout and printing. Sending the final artwork to the publisher was one of the most exciting days ever, next to holding the finished book in my hands a few months later!
Each step of the process in illustrating Wild About Camping was delightful, but also offered challenges and opportunities to learn and grow as an illustrator. From start to finish, it took about a year to create the artwork that you see in the book!
I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my illustration process. You can find more of my work at breedraws.ca. Thanks so much to Jane for asking me to contribute to her fantastic blog and for being such a champion during the making of the book!
Thank you SO much for sharing your expertise and experience with us, Bryanna! And don’t forget to check out WILD ABOUT CAMPING at your local library or bookstore to see Bryanna’s beautiful work in person.