“Poppy’s Best Day Ever” – The Post
June normally means Summer camps, 100+ degree weather and the beginning of personal pieces in preparation to SCBWI’s Los Angeles Conference. This year it meant: “Poppy’s Best Day Ever” – A Picture-book in 30 Days Challenge. From signed contract to delivered artwork in 1 month (DVD coming soon).
And I know what you are thinking: Why did you do THAT? Two reasons: 1) story was about birds and 2) it was for El Mejor Nido ®. What a great opportunity! Still, why did you do that? Well, at the beginning the project was for 6 illustrations so it sounded doable. OK, then. Did you make the deadline? Yep. Was it difficult? Yep. Would you do it again? NO. And I warn you, don’t even try to convince me to take a deadline like that again. I will hurt you!
So I survived that June of bad meals, long hours and endless cursing to the lack of clones available for purchase. Now I got my copies in hand and get to blog about it. So get comfy and here we go!
The book is about a little bird, her birthday and her birthday wish. It is printed in both English and Spanish. Copies are handed for free during El Mejor Nido ® events in California, Texas, New York and Florida.
Now a little bit of how I work. First I sketch my characters and then move on to a color version of at least my main character. This is the first Poppy I painted for the book. Later the beak got longer and curved upwards. A good improvement.
I normally sketch to size on paper and take care of revisions on tracing paper. I scan the revisions and add to the initial sketch in Photoshop. Some spreads are sketched and done with no revisions. Others take many, many revisions. A matter of tweaking as needed and requested.
When I’m working, I like hanging the character studies and sketch I’m working on right in front of me. A good reminder of were I need to get. As I’m done with each illustration, I hang them and look at them over and over again – for reference and looking for changes. I always have changes. With this book, the time was really limited per illustration but I still made changes until it was time to ship them.
And now some of the illustrations for “Poppy’s Best Day Ever.”
Liked what you saw?, download and print the coloring page:
Download Free Poppy Coloring Page
Maria Bogade
WOW, Juana! Not only did you meet a deadline like this, you also made a fantastic book! The illustrations are adorable!!!!
juana
Aw, thanks Maria! It’s a happy book. So glad you like it :)
Tracy Bishop
Holy cow! This is an amazing post. Thank you so much for sharing your process. I am so in love with your artwork with great characters and yummy colors.
And it was amazing that you were able to pull this off without sacrificing any quality in such a short time. Hat-tip to you.
juana
Thank you, Tracy! Thank you! We don’t all work the same so I thought I would share. I’m really looking forward to meeting you. Only a couple of weeks now :)
Laura Zarrin
This is amazing Juana! I cannot believe you did it that fast and with such high quality art! WOW!
juana
Oh, Laura! Thank you! I still can’t believe I made the deadline. Trust me. I look forward to meeting you :)
Carol
Such beautiful work, characters and book! I love seeing your studio as well. What kind of paper do you work on? So happy I ran across your blog. :)
juana
Hi Carol! Thank you! I use acrylic paper – Fabriano Pittura. It comes in pads in 3 different sizes.
Christina Forshay
Wow Juana! Awesome job all the way around! Way to go with meeting that deadline and creating beautiful work in such a short time. Congrats!!!
juana
Thank you, Christina! Project help me realized I could work a lot faster :)
Sarah
Your colors are so rich and fabulous! And all in one month… ouch. I would never have guessed. I am really enjoying the glimpses of your work area and in-process paintings. Thanks so much for sharing!
juana
Thanks for the comment and visiting, Sarah! I’m glad you are enjoying the pictures. To tell you the truth, I love taking process pictures :)