Let's Dissect A Picturebook Spread

            Hi SCBWI friends! My name is Sibu TP. I’m an illustrator and writer and my author-illustrator debut, Home, Home, released this past August (yay!) through Viking Press.

(Pictured above: it me)

I’m super happy to be able to speak to you all this month. I’m a big believer that it's the specific details that carry the universal lessons, so I'm going to share some of how I work. Ultimately, I’m hoping it will be more helpful than naval-gazing, haha. Ok, here we go…

In this post, I’m going to walk you through my illustration process for one of the spreads in Home, Home. 

(Pictured above: Home, Home in thumbnails)

As with the majority of books (I see you, picture-less picture books), Home, Home started with the thumbnails. Here’s the entire book laid out in thumbnails. (spoiler alert!).

The earliest versions of the thumbnails are way rougher. Just like you would do with each individual drawing, when you're plotting the entire book, you think more broadly. First it's the larger shapes and then you work your way into the finer details.

By the time we were really cooking with the manuscript and the layout, I started tightening up more and more. I added that gray mid-tone to help flesh out the light source(s) – this also really helps with mapping how I want to direct the readers’ eyes on each page. It also helps with showing how varied the spreads are.

I’ll be focusing on this spread right here:

So a little background: this book is a fish out of water story. In this moment, my main character, Ajesh, is visiting his parents' homeland (Kerala, India). In the previous spread, they land and he's immediately pictured as being separated from everyone around him. In this spread, it's the opposite. This spread is supposed to depict a feeling of claustrophobia while also maintaining that feeling of seclusion.

So to depict this, I decided to throw him right into a busy street.

People everywhere. Dust being kicked up. Signage that's unfamiliar. The perspective of the illustration is eye-level with Ajesh and we stay in his world. Everyone around him is taller and they're all walking in the same direction. He's caught in that forward momentum. What he does have is his sketchbook. It's the one source of familiarity to him, a piece of refuge.

(Picture above: color compositions)

So from the initial thumbnails, I go to color compositions. Here's two examples above. I went through several iterations of this spread to see where I'd want color to be placed and deciding on the color palette. It's great to consider as much as you can before moving forward to finals. It sounds a little obvious, I guess because it is, but all these small decisions really help bring to focus what that initial idea is. And that's kind've what you're chasing: that first moment of imagery.

(Pictured above: the pencil drawing)

Once these decisions are made, I start on finals. I realized early on in making Home, Home that I draw better with pencil. My last illustrated book, A Taste of Home, was done completely in Procreate. I'm pretty new to digital art, so Procreate is a great stepping off point for me. While I was making that book, something felt off that I couldn't place.

When I started making traditional work again, I knew exactly what it was. The drawing just felt different when it was pencil and paper. It was more comfortable, more intuitive.

(Pictured above: first pass of paint)

So when I work now, I feel it out more. There's no set point in how far I take the traditional side. For this spread, i really just mapped out light. Warm and cool, warm and cool. What will the light be touching and what will be bathed in shadow. Once I laid this thin layer of acrylic paint out over the drawing, I felt like I wanted to move forward to the next phase.
I think it's good to stay loose with process. I'm sure as I get older and work more (knock on wood ;)) I'll start to settle in more and more to a set process, but I like that there's a level of spontaneity right now and being open to change and adaptability is exciting to me. So for this, I moved to digital at this above phase. For other pages, I pushed the acrylic paint phase further before doing light final touches in Procreate.

(Pictured above: first digital pass)

This is where the noodling and the fine detailing comes in. In this case, it's a lot of signage and patterns/textures and background actors. So many of the decisions were already made. So now, it's just a matter of nudging it across the finish line. Because everything is more or less decided, any additions or changes will be generally minor and so it won't be too difficult to make. Speaking of which...

(Pictured above: the final!)

Pro tip: nothing makes things better than a pupper (or a kitty). This is where I ended up. In place of having a crowd of too many people, I made the people in the image more varied visually. He's still caught in a crowd of people, but the amount of people, the strange environment, and the different patters around him are all contributing to how jarring this new place is for our Ajesh.

(Pictured above: my book Home, Home)

If you this post interested you, please click the cover art here and it'll take you to where you can find my book. My contact info is below, please feel free to hit me up! Happy art-making, friends! Until next time.

About Me

I’m a storyteller. I make picture books that tell stories that aren’t often told, whether they be cultural or societal. They are rich, colorful, and touch on universal stories to the masses through specific, small details and moments. I work through the belief that we’re all connected by our relationships and our emotions, and all of the small moments in life that are captured in my illustrations. Born and raised in New York, I am a first-generation child of immigrants. I spent a great deal of my childhood years scribbling and sketching, dreaming and imagining. Today, I tell stories through picture books.I received my BA in English Literature at Stony Brook University and my MFA in Illustration at the Hartford Art School. ​When I'm not in front of a drawing board, I've got my camera in tow, taking pictures while hiking, and running from squirrels.

You can find me @sibutp on all the things, mainly Instagram

sibudraws.com

sibup.art@gmail.com

(Pictured above: Actual me, hi!)