Varoom 21 Welcome to your Awesome Robot by Viviane Schwarz, Flying Eye Books

Here by popular request, ahem, is the short article I wrote recently introducing Viv Schwarz's new book, Welcome to your Awesome Robot published by Flying Eye Books (about which more soon!) followed by her answers to questions for the Association of Illustrator's quarterly magazine Varoom 21. 

By the way, Varoom is full of inspiring stuff for illustrators of all specialities and is on sale at a competitive price given the content - the newspaper format helps keep it affordable.  And I love the layout in general too - here's a snap of this spread in the mag,  with a few of Viv's illos  - kudos to the designers!  If you want something more kid friendly about Viv and interaction, then I can recommend Playing by the Book's post - fun!  
Anyway, here's my Varoom piece...

Illustrated children’s books seem to be happily breaking rules these days. You’ll find more and more books with unusual shapes, in formats that don’t conform to the classic 32 page picture book.  And these new books aren’t always guided by story. Many are hands-on spaces for kids to play and think as well as draw and make. 

Behind this, in part, are publishers like Tate Publishing,  Phaidon and now Thames & Hudson.  They began by importing choice books from across the Channel, but increasingly they are creating their own titles and selling more of these format-breaking books in an ideal niche market – the busy museum shop.

Nobrow too, is casting its net wider after establishing an innovative reputation for comics and graphic novels, and it has created its own set of rules, using distinctive and sustainable printing methods and playing with all kinds of formats, striking colour and paper stock.

This month (February 2013)  sees the launch of Nobrow’s Flying Eye Books, their new kids book imprint, which aims to counterbalance e books and apps, with beautifully designed books that will find a permanent place in the home or child’s bedroom. 

It’s fitting that Viviane Schwarz  (creator of the successful There are No Cats in this Book  published by Walker Books), has her latest rule-breaking book, Welcome to your Awesome Robot, coming out as the first of their new titles. Viviane Schwarz mixes genres effortlessly. This one is part comic story, part manual. And it’s a wholly engaging way to furnish kids with ways to think out of the box, literally.  Parents, by the way, are given rules to keep them quiet.

Viviane says she drew this book “digitally without detailed roughs, which was usefully awkward. A bit of awkwardness encourages people to join in creatively because they feel their own work compares well“.

It reminds me of something Matisse said about leaving an awkward chink somewhere in the painting, something  a bit rough that doesn’t quite fit in.  It’s this, he says, that acts like a kind of door into the painting,  to pull you in to really looking and interacting with it.    

I sense there a bit of loosening up these days in illustration approaches more generally. Perhaps it’s in reaction to the deadening polish of the digital tidy-up; a touch of awkwardness, a bit of rough that’s like raw, acoustic music.  It’s also another way of saying “hey come on in and play!”

  

Viviane Schwarz  Welcome to your Awesome Robot

Brief:

An exciting picture book for NoBrow's new children's book imprint, Flying Eye Books.

Idea:

You know when you climb into a cardboard box and it becomes a robot? You always need to explain it to people. Or maybe you need a manual to help you upgrade that robot until its awesomeness is beyond doubt. This is that manual.

Materials:

Cintiq, Mac, drawing glove, Photoshop… plus a huge felt tip pen and an A3 sketch pad.

Research:

I started with some very early memories of my big sister who transformed herself into a vending machine for my birthday, and built on that - with cardboard and tape.

I asked friends who are makers how their childhood projects (or the projects of their children) were organised, and had them triple-check the book for mistakes, especially the workshop rules.

Process:

I drew digitally without detailed roughs, which was usefully awkward. A bit of awkwardness encourages people to join in creatively because they feel their own work compares well. A few elements are drawn with a monstercolors marker pen, scanned and sized down: clouds of steam, incidental graffiti, some of the lettering.

Resistances:

There were technical challenges - notably the need for colour separation - but they were enjoyable.

Insight:

I am expecting the best insights to come when people I've never met start using the book. I know it causes robots, but not what kind, and I can't wait to see.

Distractions:

It's very hard to distract me from cardboard robots. I am quite sure this was the most focussed book project I've ever done.

Numbers:

3 colours - Red, blue, brown. I lost count of everything else involved. I lost count of pages at one point, which was alarming.

Rules:

The tear-out sheet of workshop rules is the most important part of the book for me. These rules are not just to keep the children safe and everyone reasonably happy, but to keep the adults from taking over.

Motivations:

When I was a child, my parents encouraged me to be creative. They taught me to respect the tools and not to be wasteful, but they would always let me mess things up - learning was more important than "beautiful" results. I want to help others to have that experience.

And I want that manual to exist that I imagined as a child, the one that makes my robot awesome.

Tower Bridge and its exhibition of This is London by Miroslav Sasek

I promised more about Tower Bridge in my last post so here it is.
Several of us children's authors and illustrators from CWISL were lucky enough to be invited to the opening to an exhibition of  Miroslav Sasek's 1959 children's book, THIS IS LONDON in an exceptional site - the top of Tower Bridge.

When I first moved to the East End I spotted this mosaic view of Tower Bridge on a school near me.

Next time I crossed Tower Bridge I was on my bike, and had to wait for the road to sink back to a horizontal, after a ship passed underneath it.

Waiting  by the north tower, for Tower Bridge road to right itself.

I never dreamed that a year or so later I'd be inside it, high up on one of the Walkways looking over the Thames across London as dusk descended (sorry about the bad photos but it gives an idea!)

Hard to imagine the Tower Bridge Walkways were once open to the sky,
and a place for illicit rendez-vous.
Now there are screens upon screens to view inside and out, 

including enlargened panels of Sasek's THIS IS LONDON.

Sasek is one of my favourite illustrators.  I'm so glad his books from the 1950s and 60s have been reprinted the past few years.   He has a rare gift for bottling the visual essence of a city and its people, and avoiding cliché.  The work is beautifully measured across the white of the spreads -  minimal, sharp and funny.

I had hoped to see original paintings here - but learnt they were dispersed or lost after his death.  If anyone knows where one is, please let me know!  You can see more illustrations and find out more about the mysterious Sasek here.

In any case, it was an interesting display.  

It's hard to give a proper sense of it so see it for yourself if you can.  

The Sasek exhibition is on for a long while and Tower Bridge is open every day.

Bring kids and/or sketching gear and a better camera than mine!

There's a large map of the covers of all the books Sasek illustrated across the world.

On my way down I saw where I'd waited on my bike for Tower Bridge road to come down.
Hard to imagine this road lifting!

Tower Bridge shining behind Thames barges near Wapping 

Varoom from Nobrow's Flying Eye to Bayard's Tralalire

March went by fast, as a harsh east wind blew over London. Where to start?
Well I've just finished the tweaks of the tweaks, adapting an old project of mine from the Draw Along Tales for Bayard's Tralalire magazine to come out this summer for kids to 'participate' in with 4 felt pens.  These are the almost finals on my wall at my home studio.

Nearly the final version of my draw-along Trois Petits Cochons for Bayard's Tralalire

Final tweak was to remove the belt on the straw-sucking, lazy little pig (yellow) and turned him into a hoodie!

I came up with the Draw Along Tales for play on paper and screen,  just before a spate of family illness after late 2008.  When I looked up again a year or more later, after my ma's funeral and all, I found that Nosy Crow came out with their first app of the Three Little Piggies so my draw-inside version stayed inside my drawer. My idea had actually come from another pun - "draw the curtains quick!"

©Bridget Strevens-Marzo roughs for Draw Along Tales - 3 Little Piggies.

But nowhere's room for even more versions of tales in the App and doodle book worlds.
So ahem - if you're a serious publisher interested in seeing more of my Draw Along Tales project I and my agent at Hen & Ink are all ears!

My intention for the Draw Along Tales is to be usefully rough, to give kids the open-endedness to intervene and complete the story with all kinds of mark-making.
So interesting that Viv Schwartz  talks about being "usefully awkward"

 in my first 'report' as contributing editor for Children's Books for Varoom.  Thanks to Derek Brazell for inviting me to be part of this cool and interesting quarterly about illustration big and small!

Illustration Rules in the AoI's latest VAROOM! 

Hope I helped as a small cog to help spin the wheels of Flying Eye, the innovative comic book publisher Nobrow's new and exciting children's book imprint.
(I think it's hopeful and significant that publishers historically from opposite ends of the children's editorial spectrum, Nobrow and Usborne were the only UK publishers showing and networking at the paradise for children's imagery and illustration full stop, of the 2012 French Children's Book Fair in Montreuil, Paris

Yet another March writing job and another honour.  I was invited to be the first featured illustrator for the new, daily updated online magazine for children's publishing people, Words & Pictures.  It took me a ridiculous amount of time to put together but I've let the cat out of my overladen bag, and shown some work I did in a previous life.

But it's not been all about work.  Just had the most wonderful time looking at one of my favourite 1950s illustrators on the top of Tower Bridge but it deserves it's own post.  Coming next!

Making tracks - Senlis, Paris, then Dulwich Books, for World Book Day

Exciting things happening on the work front,  and several deadlines have meant no time to blog in the last month... No excuses, and now it's Mini Racer time again.

Later this week I drive from London to Paris via my old Senlis home. I'll be running some story and book making workshops for 4-8 year olds in the Victor Hugo Bilingual school.

Only a short pit stop in France, as I'm due back in London next week, to give another workshop for children on World Book Day at Dulwich Books, on Thursday March 7th at 11am.  Award-winning Dulwich Books  is celebrating 30 years of business. Read all about it here! on pages 16-18  in the glossy magazine, Living South including this interview with me.

In short, I'm making tracks all over shop - brooom brooom!

RIng out the old...ring in the new!

Oops - must take the last of the Christmas cards down!
It's not too late to cheer you into a peaceful and inspiring 2013.  (Hey in France you can do that at least until January 31st!)

my corner of Courtyard studio on a dark winter's night

Now what was I doing? Back to the drawing board, and my old books.
My old dad who was an artist, used to say if you want new ideas, go to old books.

Joyeux Noel to all! Felix nadal - Merry Christmas and here's to a 2013 full of delightful surprises!

Ian Beck at Just Imagine - with thanks to Nikki Gamble and Sue Eves!

No Facebook this morning, I said to myself, otherwise I'll never get started before midday.  So glad I didn't listen to my better self!   Turned out that fellow author-illustrator and SCBWI-er Sue Eves had passed on an invitation on FB to an event at Just Imagine - for TONIGHT!
I'm so glad I braved the wintry evening to Liverpool Street Station and the train (only 30 min. after all!) to a warm paradise for kids book lovers in Chelmsford.  I'm just back now and  very grateful to Nikki Gamble of Just Imagine for setting this up, and to Ian Beck for coming from Richmond, even further afield than me and Sue Eves.

records of the evening: the elegant and animated Ian Beck rapidly squeezed into my sketchbook and a signed copy of his latest chapter book

What fascinating work and stories Ian Beck had to share with a small circle of us lucky illustrators!
He began by showing us some of his earliest illustrations for The Radio Times and covers for Bowie and Elton John (alias Elsie) - including the famous album cover to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  We were given tantalizing glimpses of several rare private press books he had illustrated including The Summer House, inspired by an extraordinary Lutyens house in Varengeville, which in turned inspired Jeannette Winterson to write a novella, The Dreaming House.  Ian Beck's own blog shows the house, and many more goodies besides.
Ian shared some of his sources of inspiration - how the series of picture books starting with Home before Dark started from wheeling his child home one windy evening.
He talked about all kinds of collaborations,  including with a certain David Fickling when he was starting out as a young unknown editor, with Philip Pullman and his vision of a cover for Puss in Boots, and more recently Ian talked of how he had used Photoshop to create misty layers behind the silhouettes in Pullman's retelling of Aladdin and his Lamp.
Ian talked of dispiriting rejections too and going back to the drawing board and cutting out key characters, and having to restitch everything.
Applying his imagination to different media from illustration to novel writing and poetry, his persistance is inspiring.  He doesn't shirk the re-writes and refinements that come from working with editors and art directors as precious mediators.
A tremendous tonic - thank you again Ian Beck!