I’ve published three picture books and have a series in mind. Still, I don’t know that much about picture books.
Reading
One way to learn is by reading picture books. I’ve always liked to browse through them, rarely listing them on my reading list. There are so many good ones, I wanted to share those I’d read.
My Goodreads blog was a way to do this. I now read and review four to six picture books from my library weekly on my blog.
Another reason for reading so many of these books is to see the range of text and illustrations in them. Ones I’ve read run from ones with only pictures to one with no pictures at all.
The illustrations can be highly detailed, elaborate ones to those looking like museum paintings to casual comic book images. They can be painted, collages, line drawings, photographs or combinations.
My preference is watercolor. Recently I read a book about Tasha Tudor (“The Private World of Tasha Tudor”) and have requested some of her books. She uses watercolor and the images I saw in the book are highly detailed which takes great skill with watercolor.
Research
Another way to learn about picture books is to read books about how to create them. I am reading one now (“Writing With Pictures”).
The basic steps are what I already knew. This book is expanding on these, adding details and suggestions.
Planning and Implementing
There are a few sketches done now for my Agate and Opal series about two adventurous Nubian kids. As I look these over and consider others for these first two books, one about Opal and one about Agate, introducing them, I’m using the knowledge I’ve gained.
First off, my sketches don’t need to be perfect. This is hard for me as I constantly fight the mantra of not good enough. They only need to be true to my Nubian goat kids.
Secondly, I want to do a picture book series, not illustrated stories. That changes how I will do my text. The pictures tell the story. Text only adds a few bits of information.
Most of the text will be reserved for the information page at the end.
