Can a leopard (illustrator) change its spots (style)?
How to update and refresh your picture book illustration style (for illustrators of yore)
Can we teach an old dog new tricks?
Someone has asked me to write some pointers for illustrators who once had a lucrative illustrating career, but whose options seem to have dried up.
This is kind of scary, because obviously I can only address this vexing issue from the point of view of myself being a publisher.
I therefore only speak for myself, as other publishers will have interesting things to say that I’ve not thought of.
However, like all picture-book publishers, I’m forever on the lookout for fabulous illustrators, experienced illustrators and ‘fresh voices’.
But what is a ‘fabulous’, ‘experienced’ and ‘fresh’ picture book illustrator?
1.Fabulous illustrators: these are illustrators who:
a. know how to tell a visual story
b. know how to evoke emotion in mysterious, invisible but effective ways
c. know how to create layered characters who develop throughout a story
d. know how to use tone and colour to their best narrative advantage
e. are not necessarily experienced illustrators
f. have read this blog
2. Experienced illustrators: by ‘experienced’ I don’t necessarily mean those who have published millionty-eleven books. What I mean is illustrators who:
a. Understand picture-book formats
b. Understand the restrictions and how to work with and around them
c. Are collaborative and polite
d. Work more or less to deadline
e. Know how much hard work is involved in illustrating a picture book
f. Have read this blog
3. Fresh voices: there are at least 2 kinds of fresh voices. Both can be wonderful, and both can be problematic (for a publisher)
Fresh voice A: new to the field – complete beginner or crossing to picture-book illustration from another art practice. They are
a. fresh voices that have achieved greatness in other artistic fields and who can add whole new vistas of wonderfulness to picture-book illustration.
However, they may not understand (or appreciate, or be willing to conform to) the collaborative nature of picture-book creation
b. New illustrators with fresh voices who are truly breaths of fresh air with their enthusiasm and excitement, and who make contemporary picture-books the ever-new wonder that they can be.
However, they may need lots of tuition and guidance when it comes to producing images that work in picture books, and can take much longer than they expected to finish the work.
On the other hand, they may think picture books can be ‘dashed off’, when in fact every mark on the page must play a narrative role and require deep and focused consideration.
c. They may think children and picture books need a certain style that ‘is suitable for children’ ... regarding which they are humungously wrong.
Fresh voice B: Potential – but unwilling – fresh voices. These are the Catch-22 for picture-book publishers and art directors, because
a. They are often experienced illustrators in all sorts of ways, but may also be deeply attached to the style that worked for them in 1989, and be unwilling to change and freshen up, even though they are a dream to work with
b. They may be two or three times the age of current publishers, editors or art directors, and feel ambivalent about taking advice from them, and therefore be potentially tricky to work with
So there’s the rub! In fact, so many rubs ...
For those of you who want to keep working after a couple / few successful decades in the industry, and are baffled as to why the work is no longer coming in, here are three possible reasons, plus their possible solutions:
1. Your tried-and-true award-winning style is going out of style
Ouch! But also a thing.
Possible solution
a. Try more scribbly and relaxed
b. Try more flat and collaged
c. Change the way you draw
d. Look at current trends in Europe, because one day those will be the common trends, so why not get ahead of the pack. Some trends?
flat folk art
mixed media
collage
seemingly naïve ‘outsider folk-art style’
super pared back
limited palette – like really limited
2. You present your work with a scatter-gun approach
In your desire to keep working, you send around anything and everything from your successful past, in the hope of catching a fish somewhere, somehow. The problem with this is:
a. You don’t have a recognisable picture-book style, when your picture-book style needs to be highly recognisable (and bankable)
b. You and your style won’t automatically spring to a publisher’s mind as ‘the only one’ for a particular book, as no one really knows what you represent
Possible solution:
1. Pick the style you love the most, and that you would most love living and working with for 6 months, and build a portfolio with that
2. Consider migrating your personal-project style, or your ‘other’ art style into your picture-book illustration style
3. You believe a leopard can’t change its spots, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and other excuses …
This is a shame and I don’t buy it. The world needs you!
REMINDER: please remember I’m speaking for myself, from my own experience, and according to what I wish for as a publisher and art director.
I’m not preaching from Mount Sinai.
The above observations are not carved in stone, but they may serve as drips of water to wear away at the stone that’s currently blocking your forward trajectory (if forward trajectory is what you’re looking for).