Presenting the Creating Picture Book class was challenging, but I’m glad it’s over. Except it isn’t really over yet. The class picture book isn’t done yet.
Getting Started
The class was supposed to last five weeks. However, no one came the first week. There were many reasons. Still, I was left loafing in the room enjoying the air conditioning, reading and working on the first Agate and Opal picture book.
Five people came the second week. There were seven, if you counted the two mothers. Three were young. Two were high school age and serious. We spent the time looking at picture books, discussing the range of illustrations and text.
Then the class decided on a topic for their book. We started a rough draft of pages.
Frustration
Any novel or picture book needs a plan. It’s possible to do a rough draft without one, but actually putting the work together requires some sense of what is happening. For a picture book, this is a story board.
That third week was supposed to complete the story board, but it didn’t happen. Without a plan, the class couldn’t do any prep work over the next week.
I spent the week trying to organize the ideas the class had into a storyboard. Luckily I knew two of the participants and saw them later on. We went over the plan I came up with, made a few changes.
Disaster
Family emergencies happen. Still, this one took three people out of the class. The two remaining still wanted to do the class picture book, so everyone pitched in to draw the ducks, hats and people for the story.
The problem was time. Because there were so few of us, the class picture book was going to be mostly done on the computer. It takes a very, very long time to create 32 pages.
Our class picture book “Do Ducks Steal Hats?” (tentative title) will get done. It will take longer than the one week I had before the last class.
