I am working on my 5th children’s book. It is about the death of a loved one: Kevin learns how to accept the inevitable loss of his grandmother. I am inspired to address this topic because of personal losses I’ve experienced in the past few years as well as seeing my students (ages 10-13) grieve the deaths of mothers, fathers, and other family members.
Taking a course by Cecilia Varela (through Domestika). She’s really good, but I don’t like Kevin (Kevin and His YouTube Channel) the way she instructed. She suggested to make his eyes large to appeal to children. Maybe my book is not really for children (?) But I much prefer him to look like a 40-year old 5th-grade chameleon. I think it’s hilarious.
Varela’s-influence Kevin:
I do like her exercise in making body parts to show animation on the page. I’ll do more today.
As I began illustrating “Kevin and His YouTube Channel,” I came across this Domestika course. The instructor is Felicie Haymoz, Character Designer and Illustrator. She was the designer for “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” This course is called “Anthropomorphic Character Creation” and I’m excited to learn a lot! I want to make this book a lot better than my last one. Oh, and having tons of fun on the road to the final product is always the objective.
I like watercolor better than the shiny ink from yesterday. Still leaning toward subdued hues. (Can you see I’m heavily influenced by Arnold Lobel’s work?)
Putting illustrations in order…
I assigned my 5th graders Powerpoint presentations on the early settlers (New England, Middle Colony, Southern Colony) and the rubric included a MAXIMUM of 5 words per slide.
“Ideally, you will choose an image that represents your topic for the slide – consider a primary source, such as a drawing – and then add key words that will remind you of the content for that slide,” I instructed.
“Five words? Only five words?” They asked.
“Yes. Key words to remind you of what to say.”
Because who wants to read paragraphs on a slide?
They went to work, buzzing like angry bees. This would require them to know the material very well.
The kids had a major cow over this.
But they delivered expertly!
Kismet 
