A secret about
Drawing 

Before I do any paintings for a book, I do a lot of drawings. I mean, a lot.

Drawing is the way I get to know a character on the page. Maybe I can see that person, or animal, in my mind’s eye. I think I know what the character looks like, but when I try to draw him or her, I usually don’t get it right, not the first time. “No, that’s not him,” I say. Or, “not quite her, not yet…”

Sometimes it is hard to tell what to change, so I just have to try something. A longer nose? Different eyes, or eyebrows? A more pointy chin? A higher forehead? And that’s just the face! What about the rest of the body? And the costume? What a character wears is part of his or her identity in a book.

Then there’s making sure that in different positions, moods and expressions, in different views, it still looks like the same person (or animal). When you turn the page, you don’t want to feel it is suddenly someone else, or the same but suddenly older or younger.

For me, this takes a lot of drawing. I use tracing paper. I trace parts I want to keep, and change other parts. In fact, I do so many sketches and drawings for each book, I use up whole rolls and big tablets of tracing paper. And I wear a lot of pencils down to the nubs.

Thank goodness I really like to draw!