Michael Emberley | Author & Illustrator

Book Done…almost

Michael — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:46:27 +0000

Well, it’s probably tempting fate but my latest book is just about done. Just waiting for a jacket approval before doing the art for the cover.

But it’s 99% done…

I’ve been working in this tiny rented room in the middle of my village here in Ireland, as there is no space at home with my wife, Marei-Louise, also finishing off an illustration job at the same time. She has just about finished a picture book that she also wrote.

This job is pictures only…. “only” that is… Only about 75 illustrations in total… Pencil and watercolor. Have a look. And a second new book I’m already deep into that is due right away as well so there’s no real rest at the moment. (I’ll sleep in the Summer) Luckily that book is already taking shape and moving forward. Overlap. A fatal term in book illustration. But it always seems to work out that way…

As I work the illustrations are clipped to a wooden frame I made because the room is too small to lay them out flat. I made all the other furniture as well, well, I cannibalized a few bits from IKEA (who doesn’t?)

Here are most of the final color illustrations up on the wall of fame. I had so many though they do not all fit so some are on the other wall. You can see a bit easier here. They are clipped to the frame so I would not have to bring the wrath of Khan done on me for poking a million holes in the wall. Plus it’s an old building and the wall might not be able to take it. It’s important to me to be able to visualize the entire book, for balancing color themes, for progress, for avoiding repetition, and for simply getting them to dry in the damp Irish air…. (I’m right near to the Irish sea, on the East coast. You can just see it from my window.)The biggest pain in the book (above) – Casey Jones and his freakin’ trains…(he was a real guy apparently)Too much detail, ugh!

This is one of my faviorites. I love movement better than detail.

OK I’m exhausted. More later. Gotta get going on that second book.

Maybe A Bear Ate It, in Spanish.

Michael — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:13:16 +0000

After over 35 years, there are few surprises left working in children’s books, but finding out they have made a foreign language version of one of your books, without your knowledge, is still one of them. It’s mildly annoying to discover you’re out of the loop again, but ultimately pleasantly satisfying. You want them to acknowledge that you are, in fact, one of the creators of the book, but still, as in this case, when you are the designer/illustrator and not the author, no matter how substantial your contribution, you are generally not considered “important enough” to be kept up to date on everything the publisher is up to. Publishing people will usually debate the point or completely disagree, but the fact is they don’t. I sometimes find out years later and usually by accident. Sometimes even as the author they still don’t always keep you informed. I know. I’ve been on both sides. But that’s another story …

I’m particularly glad this book, Maybe a Bear Ate It!, orginally established as a co-release of a trade/bookstore edition as well as a less expensive edition destined for the Reach-Out-And-Read program in the US which distributes free books to children through pediatrician offices and other health professionals who come into contact with children. The idea being literacy is as much a holistic health issue as an intellectual/cultural/economic issue.

So it makes a lot of sense not to leave out the ever growing first language-Spanish speaking population of children in the US, who though they tend to learn English quite quickly, far faster than their parents, they still have “bridge” reading needs as they learn to read for the first time, particularly if they have little or no English when they begin the process.

Scholastic are great to have agreed with the idea, the brain-child of Robie, the author, networking with various people/organizations before the book was even written. So it was a bit of a work to spec. project, but my end of things was the usual – make it the best book possible. The theme just needed to be about the general theme of Reach-out-and-Read(ROAR): owning and loving a book, a physical book. Part of the motivation for creating ROAR, was the discovery by some pediatricians that some of their patients did not have a single children’s book at their house.

It’s always interesting to read, or look at the printed words of so-called “foreign” editions. And even which countries choose to co-editon the book. While not last word on which cultures identify/understand/ enjoy your work over others – ultimately publishing is personal opinion after all. The national population as a whole does not vote on each purchase, some well meaning but often overworked and underpaid publishing executive at a big foreign rights fair such as Bologna or Frankfurt makes that choice …and the original publisher must choose to feature and sell the title to other rights buyers to0, while simultaneously trying to buy rights themselves to other foreign titles. So it can be hard to tell if anyone ever saw the book or got a chance to buy it at all. That said, it’s still interesting, and gratifying, to have another group of people, who have not seen your book before, to now have a chance to read it, or not. But at least they now have the choice.

The illustration below, the left hand page on the same spread as the right hand page illustration above, shows how much language you could learn just by looking at the book. If you were a child who could not read, the words would look just like this (unless you speak Spanish of course). The main word, is of course familiar, but the rest you could pick up by studying the elephant below, and what he’s doing. The theme of the book is the little guy has lost his book, so he imagines – “maybe a bear ate it!” (the title), then various other animals doing things. What has this animal done to his book??? See, the right illustration can help bridge the gap when learning to read – in any language. Answer below*

*”Maybe an Elephant fell asleep on it!”

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday illustration

Michael — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:10:23 +0000

In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday this month, and the recent release of the Steven Spielberg film about Lincoln that has generated new interest in the 17th President, I submit some workings from my most recent book, Forget-Me-Nots, Poems to learn by heart, (written and compiled by poet laureate Mary Ann Hoberman) which contains a poem about Abe, or more accurately, about his dead mother…

At first have to admit up front I did not even know the poem was about Abe, I plead ignorant about poetry in general, until I was politely reminded by the review staff at Little, Brown that the clothes of the woman needed to look more like Lincoln’s mother would have worn… If you have read the poem, Nancy Hanks, (by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Brown), it does not declare it is specifically about the American Civil War president. In fact even if it was intended as such it could be graphically interpreted as a story about any mother asking about her son from beyond the grave…

Perhaps that’s part of the reason I did not focus on the narrator’s identity, because was was too busy trying to figure out how to represent such an abstract concept in the tiny column space surrounding the printed poem. It was , after all about a woman, a mother, clearly not around anymore, presumably dead, asking someone, anyone, about the welfare of her son, mentioning him as a child when she left him, to when he becomes an adult. Clearly she cannot see him herself or she would not be asking. But who she is able to talk to or hear, who can see him, or would know about him is also unclear. Perhaps it is simply a sad rhetorical plea she understands full well cannot be answered.

At any rate, it is a complex idea that works well without images. But could it work as a picture? And without using a black coat and top hat?? In the end, as you can see in the images below, I made her arching about the poem as if floating above the world, reaching out to the young son from above, whom she would have known, as he blindly reaches up, for some memory of his mother perhaps, while the older version of the boy, separated by time by the column of text, and facing away, oblivious to the mother’s yearning, studies away in his book, to become the well known learned politician he becomes as a man. Quite a complex thing to pull off and one of the problems of this book I’m most proud to get anywhere close to solving. I know nobody can ever know how hard we puzzle these things out when it all looks so simple after the fact. But you do need to feel satisfied that someone someday my scrutinize the book as much as I did, and not be disappointed.

The progression of sketches is as follows: Early concept drawing directly onto the “galleys”, or rough printed layouts of text, which I often do first, then sketchbook puzzling of options, then a tighter sketch, then the same sketch inserted in the layout and given some black and white shading in Photoshop to present as a final dummy, then the final pencil line drawing, then the final art in watercolor. You can see in the early version she is dressed more ambiguously, and looks a bit like she’s been hung out with the laundry… and I made her a little squiggly to make her seem a bit more like an apparition than flesh and blood. also you can see early on I illustrated the poem on the right, facing page as two frogs whispering, then changed my mind as I went through the book and linked the poems visually where I could, regardless of how related they seemed in the manuscript.

This was actually one of the most straightforward illustrations in the book, and very close to the original concept. I’ll post some of the more circuitous drawings next. (Of course, all copyrights to the text of poems shown here are strictly the author’s or the author’s estate and not to be reproduced in full for any reason without their specific approval and due credit.)

Welcome Back Sun with a sweater

Michael — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:52:16 +0000

Since it is the season of darkness, or the Murketiden, I thought I’d revisit my most wintery book, Welcome Back Sun, now out of print. It’s all about the darkness of winter and waiting for the sun to come back. It’s based in Norway where winter takes on a whole new meaning. This new sweater based on an illustration of mine was designed by Marilyn van Keppel.

From the website Feral Knitters:

“Dear Knitters, As it becomes more and more difficult to pretend that the days are not shortening, I am reminded of a touching children’s book, Welcome Back Sun, written and illustrated by Michael Emberley (Little, Brown,1993). Thinking of the seemingly endless sunless months that people in far northern climes endure makes our short mid-winter days positively cheering. I love the book very much, and the beautiful watercolors of numerous Norwegian sweaters gave me a reason to stock the title until it went out of print. Marilyn van Keppel was equally enchanted by the illustrated sweaters; particularly the painting in the frontispiece. She knitted it again and again and, with Michael Emberley’s permission, we have reproduced his painting to accompany Marilyn’s instructions for the Welcome Back Sun Sweater (SPP#22); a yoke-style cardigan in 3 sizes, knitted in Shetland Jumper Weight wool. When I went to pick up copies at the printers yesterday, they thought an artist had been inspired by the photograph of Eli to produce the painting. Actually, Eli had studied the painting carefully and practiced getting just the right expression to match it closely. Good job, huh?”

Sweater design by Marilyn Van Keppel based on an illustration from Welcome Back Sun by Michael Emberley

Schoolhouse Press

Welcome Back Sun (SPP 22)

Marilyn van Keppel

Marilyn’s sweater design was inspired by a painting in the frontispiece of the touching children’s book, Welcome Back Sun, by Michael Emberley (Little, Brown,1993), sadly now out of print. With Michael Emberley’s permission, we have reproduced his painting (see at left) to accompany Marilyn’s knitted version; a yoke-style cardigan in 3 sizes, knitted in Shetland Jumper Weight wool. 4 pages. $10

Discount Until January 6, 2013, $8

http://www.schoolhousepress.com/patterns.htm

Multi Lingual Blog review of Maybe A Bear Ate It!

Michael — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:20:41 +0000

This is from a blog by Mônica Carnesi, originally from Brazil, her blog is called “Blogging about Art and Books.” it’s worth a look as is her website.

www.http://msc4art-books.blogspot.ie/2008/07/picture-book-wednesdays.html

This is her website : http://www.monicacarnesi.com/Monica_Carnesi/Welcome.html

It’s nice to be talked about in three languages for a change. The US is far behind in reaching out to the rest of the world with other languages besides English. Unless you grew up multi-lingual, that is, like in San Diego, CA, where I used to live, or San Antonio, TX. If demographics are correct, the residents of these cities will be ahead of most Americans when the USA starts officially speaking a lot more Spanish in the near future. Change is a good thing in this case. Shake things up…

Spotlight on Books and Illustrators

I’m going to start posting weekly recommendations of picture books that have made an impression on me. The fun part about working as a selector of children’s materials is that I get to see some really wonderful stuff! But I’ll also be mentioning some older books that I’ve added to my collection and that I really love. I’ve always loved picture books and children’s literature in general, even prior to becoming a librarian.
Here’s the pick of this week: “Maybe a bear ate it” by Robie H. Harris, and illustrated by Michael Emberley.

This is a lovely story with very simple text and loose and expressive illustrations — a perfect combination of words and images. A little cat (in full-body stripped pajamas!) gets ready for bed by gathering his favorite stuffed animals and book. And then, in a moment of distraction, he realizes his book is missing! He proceeds to imagine all sorts of tragic scenarios regarding what might have happened to his book (all of the accounts include one of his stuffed toys, very clever…) After searching for a while he finds his beloved book and can finally go to sleep. Adorable! This book is funny and tender, perfect for storytelling or bedtime reading. Check it out! And coming up next week, suggestions of some neat wordless books.

Vou recomendar semanalmente livros infantis que eu gostei de ler. Uma das coisas divertidas de selecionar materiais infantis é a chance de ver muitos trabalhos maravilhosos. Mas também pretendo mencionar livros antigos que eu amo, e que acrescentei a minha biblioteca pessoal. Sempre gostei de livros e de literatura infantil, mesmo antes de me tornar bibliotecária.
Aqui está o livro escolhido desta semana: “Maybe a bear ate it” de Robie H. Harris, e ilustrado porMichael Emberley.

É uma estória adorável, com um texto simples e ilustrações bem soltas e expressivas — uma combinação perfeita de palavras e imagens. Um gatinho (vestido de um pijama listrado de corpo inteiro!) prepara-se para dormir pegando seus animais de brinquedo e livro favoritos. Quando, num momento de distração, ele percebe que o livro desapareceu. Ele então imagina cenários trágicos do que poderia ter acontecido com seu livro (todos incluem um dos seus animais de brinquedo, muito bem feito…) Depois de procurar por algum tempo ele encontra o seu querido livro e pode finalmente ir dormir. Uma graça! Este livro é divertido e terno, perfeito para ler em grupo ou na hora de dormir. Procure-o! E na próxima semana. sugestões de alguns livros sem palavras bem interessantes.

The Emberleys join Draw-A-Thon!

Michael — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:07:46 +0000

When home in the USA for Thanksgiving, my family and I contributed to the OGY “Draw Food” event. My drawing is below. See the rest of the drawings, and read more about the cause on the OGY site:

http://oygdraw.tumblr.com/

http://oygdraw.tumblr.com/ask?about

Photo above: Ed Emberley and Michael Emberley drawing by candlelight.

Photo above: Rebecca Emberley and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick.

Above is the drawing I did.I had to draw “Pollo con Arroz”. Or, chicken and rice.

The rice is going off the paper to the right…

(Text below from OYG DRAW blog) http://oygdraw.tumblr.com/post/36668031122/the-emberleys

“In case you were wondering how an entire family of fantastic (and generous) illustrators spends their Thanksgiving, we’ve got the answer. We were very lucky and extremely thankful to have the ENTIRE FAMILY OF EMBERLEY artists contribute drawings for the draw-a-thon. We randomly selected 4 drawings and sent them off to Massachusetts for a little family style Thanksgiving draw-a-thon. Check out the drawings (oh, you lucky ducks who get these!)

We can’t thank them enough for contributing their time and talents to the event!

I’m feeling !

TAGS Emberley drawing ed ed emberley emberley food marie-louise fitzpatrick michael michael emberley photo rebecca emberley thansgiving fitzpatrick

Painting with kids at the Ark

Michael — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:12:35 +0000

Last Saturday the 3rd of November here in Dublin, Marie-Louise and I went in and did a “GiganticIllustration” workshop at the Ark with 40 kids age 4-6. there was another workshop after us for 7-12 done by Irish illustrators Steve Simpson and Niamh Sharkey. The studio space is lovely with a small garden outdoor area and views of the rooftops of Dublin.I will have more pictures when the paintings are mounted and hung, but for now these are images from the day. The far right is one I did with the kids on “birds”, and the far left, you can just see a lobster claw…, is one of undersea creatures, mostly fish.

Each of us worked with 10 kids at a time on four canvas paintings, about 4 by 8 foot. We used poster paint and acrylics. I have done many events with kids over the years but never an art workshop like this. It was a challenge to get 10 kids to paint these giant canvases, on the floor, with pots of open paint, brushes, and sponges, without making it all look like a dog’s dinner. Some were more than eager to have a go but others were shy to even touch it.

As you can see from M-L’s painting in the middle of mice and hedgehogs, she had more control over her kids than I did…This (left) is Steve working with the kids. Below is the painting Steve worked on.

The Ark is an amazing building/organization somewhere between a children’s theatre art center and a children’s museum. It’s not full of permanent displays to play with but it has lots of events relating to the arts involving children with complete art studios upstairs, interactive exhibits involving art or books, and a huge theatre space that can be used indoors…or the back of the stage/building opens up to the market space behind it so they can give outdoor performances as well. www.Ark.ie

This (left) is the entrance of the building from the Temple Bar street side. On ht far right of the shot is another Dublin arts resource organization called the Button Factory, specializing in music. They have recording studios and stages for performance. ww2.buttonfactory.ie

Below (right) is what the other side looks like facing the Temple Bar market square behind it. This is the location of the Temple Bar food market, surprisingly enough, held each Saturday. There are lots of good eating stalls, mainly for hot food as opposed to many produce vendors. It’s a fantastic use of the area which is better known as a tourist haven and drunken delight on weekend nights. It’s a bit like Faniul Hall area in Boston.

When the stage opens up, the aluminum ‘curtain’ folds like a paper cut-out (below left).

Huge mechanical umbrellas open and close to cover the space in rain and let the sun in…when it shines. that make the outdoor space more ‘weather friendly’(see below right).

Awards and deleted scenes for Forget-Me-Nots

Michael — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 22:56:14 +0000

Forget-Me-Nots won an Parent’s Choice Award for children’s books recently. Silver medal.

“The poems in this well-rounded children’s collection are chosen as“poems to learn by heart,” but they make for excellent read-alouds or silent reading as well. Editor Mary Ann Hoberman, a former Children’s Poet Laureate, groups modern and classic poetry into categories such as Delicious Dishes, Beautiful Beasts, and Happiness Is. There are poems for many moods and in many styles; some of them are from the genre of children’s poetry, while others are poems that appeal to children and adults alike. Each page is cheerfully illustrated by Michael Emberley in watercolors, pencil, and pastels. This is a great addition to a home or classroom library.”

Below are a few deletedscenes from this book. These would have been early dummy sketches sent to publisher and never used.

This is an early idea for the sinister poem about death being dealt by the narrator. The final idea is an archer aiming at the witch on the opposite page. It links the twopages in a nice way. But this idea, with the victim reflected in the sward I still like. I would have been happy with both. (all text – copyrighted by the listed author)

Below is a deleted idea for the so called “front matter” of Forget-Me-Nots. I wanted to play a bit more with the idea of the poems leaving the book and entering your brain. I still like it.

Below is a deleted selection of dancing animals from a chapter opening. Cute but rejected anyway. Can you spot the Numbat? (all text the copyright of the authors)

Below is the one idea I still think was better than the one chosen. I argued and lost. I have no proper defense other than I feel it is better. It makes no sense. But time makes no sense. Times running out for King Kong? A silent observer duck? Just a gut instinct. (all text copyright of the authors listed)

This ones different because it was still playing around with type and memory and the words having a life of their own – but the idea was strongly objected to. I still like it.

And this one was completely ridiculous but the poem was so conventional… in the end we could not put art on the left page at all due to copyright holder restrictions. Those are little Robots walking around a landscape, a bit like a Japanese scroll with the same character appearing left to right.

“Emberley offers cozy mixed-media cartoons, which warmly evoke the poems’ themes and images. A multidimensional and thoughtful cross section of verse with keepers on nearly every page.” — Publisher’s Weekly starred review

Forget-Me-Nots book art: the process

Michael — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 18:20:58 +0000

Here is a piece of art from my latest book, Forget-Me-Nots, Poems to Learn by Heart, A poetry anthology compiled by Mary Ann Hoberman and published by Little,Brown/Hachette. Below you can see the preliminary sketches of the spread, and the changes it went through. The finish art work is done with mechanical pencil line and tube watercolor on Arches cold press 90lbs. Some dry pastel is used here and there in the book, like below in the shaded bit in the water and at the bottom.For those who don’t know what paper designations mean, Arches is the name of a very old French art paper maker. They make most of their paper by hand. They are quite famous and popular so the paper can be found all over, both here in Ireland where I live, and in the US where I did the first few books in this series with Mary Ann Hoberman. 90 pound is the weight, or thickness of the paper. The “press” is hown the paper is moulded, or more simply how rough texture of the paper is. “Hot” is the smoothest, “cold” is medium rough, and “rough” is the roughest surface, with lots of pits and lumps.

Most people don’t use 90lb paper for watercolor. I use a lightbox for line art, so I need thin paper. I’ll explain that another time….

It can make a big difference switching papers, to ones that you are not used to, so I try to stick to one easily available paper, as I am likely to screw up and run out of paper, just when art is due in two days time, and it would be an inconvenient disaster to have to mail order special paper in a hurry. It’s simply unthinkable to use two different papers in one book. It would change the art too much.

This is the final sketch (above) with text in place that I would have sent in a revised dummy to the designer in New York.This is a cleaner design rough(above) of the whole spread idea. The rabbit is still rowing the boat. the blocks are used to visualize where text would be.This is a new idea (above)for the spread incorporating the entire spread as one design image. Here you can see the text I was imagining in different places with more sky and less water. The sketch art is usually roughed out in a sketch pad, at home or sitting in a coffee shop, then scanned, then combined with the text in photoshop which has been roughly set ind placed on a page layout like this shown here. Sometimes I draw directly onto a xerox of the text proof. Below is an example. Some of the shading is added by computer as I prepare to send them off to the publisher/editor/designer for review. Sometimes they are just smudged pencil line.
This is the original design (above) sent in the first sketch dummy to New York. The two pages were different at this point. But you can see the elements of the final design in this one.

The spreads, or two facing pages together in an open book, were not intended to be, or described to me as one continuous image, but they were assembled as closely related. For most of this book I tried to bring one image if possible to incorporate the poems appearing on the two pages. I did not have a say in the choice of poems or their grouping, though I did change the audiences perception of them by linking them in this visual way. The pencil line would be the same mechanical pencil I use for sketching.You become accustom to a pencil’s “personality”, so it makes sense to stay witht he same exact pencil for the final. I switched to mechanical pencils, instead of wood pencils you need to sharpen, as the line is consistent and predictable. Not always a good thing but sketching out in the world is much easier with them and they make better ones all the time.

Let me know if there is anything else you’d like to know about how the art is made. M.E.

Michael Emberley’s illustrations called “an unassuming wonder”

Michael — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 17:27:09 +0000

“Emberley’s art is an unassuming wonder…”

“…a playful masterclass in using the page…”

A great new “In Depth” review for my latest work, Forget-Me-Nots, Poems to Learn by Heart, an illustrated anthology of poetry compiled (and with contributions) by former US Children’s Poet Laureate Mary Ann Hoberman, was featured in the June 2012 edition of the highly respected review publication Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. “The Big Picture”, a regular Bulletin feature both on-line and off, is a special monthly in-depth look at selected new titles and trends.

Below is an excerpt from the review that discusses the art. See the full article here.

“Emberley’s art is an unassuming wonder, a playful masterclass in using the page to support and extend the verse visuals. Watercolor lined with pencil and touched with pastel, the illustrations perform their job with assurance, taste, and humor, subtly linking spreads across the gutter and framing verse in negative or even positive space. For instance, the first anthological spread is a clever perpendical, subtly framing the verses with a focused vertical downpour on the side (which falls on a mournful, umbrella-wielding auk) and an oceanic horizon line on the bottom (the auk bobs in a tiny boat). The subsequent spreads plaster poems on the broad backs of animals, illuminate them in the diagonal lightspill from a flashlight, or curve around them with snowy footprints. Small jokes, visual stories, and sneaky allusions to the poems add to the visual entertainment, insuring that kids will want to return to the book even when they’ve tucked the poems into memory.”

–Deborah Stevenson, Editor

The Bulletinof the Center for Children’s Books
The Big Picture, a regular Bulletin feature both on-line and off, is an in-depth look at selected new titles and trends.