Traditional publishing companies often control picture book illustrations assigning the text to an artist. Indie picture book authors have two choices: 1) Find and hire an illustrator; or 2) Do their own illustrations.
I am an indie author. That leaves me with the two choices.
Hiring an Illustrator
For years I did try to find an illustrator. Good ones are expensive. The amount of work that must be put into the illustrations makes them worth their cost.
My first illustrated book was “For Love of Goats” which presented several problems. Goats are not easy to draw. The book includes several breeds of goats and each one is different.
Additionally, goats have attitudes and behaviors. Someone unfamiliar with goats, working only from photographs, will miss these. And these were reflected in the text.
Goats have been an important part of my life for fifty years. I’ve watched them. That didn’t mean I could draw them. I wanted to finish this book I’d worked so hard on, so I learned.
Picture Book Illustrations
If you’ve been looking at picture books, you know illustrations are done in many mediums. They are done in many styles.
Once the decision is made to illustrate a book, the medium is chosen. It must be one the illustrator is comfortable with.
My medium is watercolor. Why? Because I like the way it looks, the way it is done and the challenge of it. Watercolor is a most unforgiving medium as mistakes never go away.
Waiting for Fairies
After completing “For Love of Goats”, I had the confidence to illustrate the two picture books I had written text for. The next one I tackled was “Waiting for Fairies”.
People are incredibly hard for me to draw. Even now, I look at my illustrations and wish I had done better.
The fun part of doing these illustrations was the opportunity it gave me to add an additional layer to the story told in the text. Since the child was waiting for fairies, there should be fairies somewhere.
Doing picture book illustrations isn’t for every author. I’ve found it is for me.
“Waiting for Fairies” eBook version is free through Smashwords for the month of November. The coupon code is LXLLT.
