Agent Monday: Halloween Treat – Behind the Scenes with Illustrator Lee Harper

Happy Agent Monday – Halloween style! For a special treat, I’m excited to have a guest post from our talented client, author/illustrator Lee Harper. He’s going to take you into his studio for a behind the scenes look at how he created the images for Wendi Silvano’s too-funny TURKEY TRICK OR TREAT (Two Lions). Lee’s currently hard at work illustrating the sequel to Leslie Helakoski’s wonderful WOOLBUR picture book, titled WOOLBUR GETS READY FOR SCHOOL (Harper Collins). To see his portfolio, and get info on his books,  visit his website here.

****LAST MINUTE UPDATE! I just found out that TURKEY TRICK OR TREAT is read aloud by Scandal’s actor Guillermo Diaz on the show BOOK-A-BOO. The reading has fun animations and is available for streaming here.  Perfect treat for kiddos of all ages. 😉

Okay, take it away, Lee!

Tricks Behind Illustrating Turkey Trick or Treat
by Lee Harper

After I received the manuscript for Wendi Silvano’s Turkey Trick or Treat, I started by filling up sketchbooks with drawings. In the beginning, I let the story and my imagination take me wherever they wanted to take me without worrying about how it would all come together. A lot of the character development happened during the sketchbook drawing stage. There were a lot of animal characters to develop.

There were also a lot of human characters to develop, each with their own costume.

All the characters needed to look like they belonged to the same reality.

Only a small percentage of my early stage drawings made it into the book.  As a result, I have a vast collection of storyless characters as this illustration shows.

I mixed in some experimental painting during the drawing process to make sure the drawings would work in color. This sheriff turkey didn’t make it into the book but gave Wendi an idea for another turkey story!

When I had a general idea of the characters and an overall visual theme in mind, I started the dummy by creating a storyboard with thumbnail sketches on Post-its. At this time I also gave myself a drawing schedule that kept me moving along. I like to do this part fast, in one fell swoop. Details can wait for later.

The great thing about storyboarding with Post-its is you can quickly mix and match images —like putting together a puzzle — and because each drawing is small, it’s impossible to delve prematurely into too many details.

When the storyboard was done, I began a more detailed dummy by drawing each individual element of each page, scanning it, and placing it in Photoshop.

I then arranged all the elements of each page, including the text. Since each element of the drawings was an individual layer in Photoshop, I could easily re-arrange things and make revisions.

Once I had all the drawings completed, I saved each two-page spread as a JPEG file and created a PDF dummy to email to my editor and art director at Two Lions. After revising the sketches according to their notes, I printed out the pages 10% larger than actual size and traced them onto watercolor paper using a light table.

After the lightly drawn drawing was complete, I soaked the watercolor paper with water and stretched it on a board to keep the paper flat during painting.

While painting I referred to photo-reference material I collected during the drawing stage. I needed to show the farmer’s feet in one of the illustrations so I photographed my son Dan’s pants and boots. (There’s nobody in there.)

This is the illustration with the boots and pants.

Because Turkey Trick or Treat was the third in a series of books about the same character, I regularly referred to the first two books to make sure I kept things somewhat consistent.

Here’s my watercolor palette while I was working. This is actually the first book in which I use a black pigment. Usually I make darks by mixing other colors, but for Turkey Trick or Treat I wanted a very pitch-black sky.

I have an unusual painting process that involves spraying a mist of water in the air and swinging the painting through the mist. It eliminates hard edges.

Here’s a painting under construction.

And finally, an illustration comes to life.

Thanks so much, Lee, for giving us such a great behind the scenes look into your studio and fun creative world!

Happy Halloween, everyone. And keep your eyes peeled tonight for Turkey trying to steal some of your treats!

*Marie is a Literary Agent at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency in New York City. To keep up with all her Agent Monday posts, subscribe to her site.

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Agent Monday: So What DO you Want?

Happy Agent Monday! Just spent the last three weeks pitching out a ton of great client manuscripts. It’s a thrill to see these projects, which began as queries, at last sent out into the world for editors to consider. And now I’m able to turn more attention to my query inbox, which is pretty full. So today I thought I’d talk a little more about the types of things I do and don’t want.

Every editor and every agent, just like every reader, has personal things she’s interested in and things that are just never ever right for her. It’s a lot like shopping – there’s no one size or style that fits all. It’s hard for writers to know everything about an agent before subbing, but knowing some things may help you zero in on the right person to send to. That’s why the first stop should always be the agent’s submission guidelines. These can sometimes be a little general, but do pay attention to what an agent definitely does not want so you can put your efforts in the right direction when you query.

I also really recommend that you at least Google that agent to see if there are any recent interviews or write ups that may clue you in on their interests and how those might have changed. Not all agency sites are up-to-the-minute up-to-date, so that’ll help you fill in any gaps.

Now, as for me? I definitely am NOT the person for you to sub to if: you write category romance, your book is loaded with violence/gore/gag-inducing stuff, you write non-fiction, poetry, short stories. I am also not interested right now in straight up paranormal romance, dystopian, steam-punk, zombies, werewolves, that sort of thing. Just not for me. Also not at all interested in erotica.  I’ve put this info out there before, yet my inbox is loaded up with this stuff anyways. No matter how you dress it up, I promise you I will not be requesting to see the full of your paranormal romance featuring a hot erotic werewolf who slices the heads off his beloveds. PLEASE don’t send me that one!

What am I looking for? Novels: middle grade, YA, adult. Memoir that is important and moving and eloquently written. I like contemporary novels, historical, character-driven and voice driven. I love to laugh like crazy, and bawl my eyes out too, but first I have to care about the characters. I’m not the right agent for genre-based page turners that are all action and plot. I’m also not right for novels in verse.

What about fantasy? Don’t send me high fantasy. Do I like magic? Yes, IF original. Anything with a whiff of fan-fiction or that’s derivative is just not right for me. Across the board, if I can say oh, this is just like HUNGER GAMES (or any other book or movie out there) only the main character is (fill in the blank with something slightly different) – then your project is not going to be original enough to hold my interest.

Ghosts? I do like a ghost story – the sort that is full of longing and atmosphere (check out my novel DRAWN and you’ll see what I mean), but I HATE ghost stories that are all about gore and blood and slasher-like stuff. I hope you see the difference.

I don’t rep romance, but what about plots with a romantic bent? Yup. Love as part of a character-driven non-genre plot, whether it is YA or adult, is great – but it shouldn’t be all there is in the book. Something you should know about me? I love chick-flicks, but Nicolas Sparks makes me barf.  When it comes to women’s fiction, I’d LOVE to find the next great funny and wise woman’s novel that can spin into the next hilarious yet moving chick-flick film. SEND ME THAT! But what I get instead are imitations of what’s already out there. It’s all Bridget Jones and Shopaholic, etc. No been there done that stuff, please.

And I’ve gone on record as saying that I do not rep science fiction. Yet I rep the science fiction/fantasy master Gregory Frost. What??? Greg writes character driven exceptional fiction that crosses boundaries between a number of speculative genres, and he’s masterful (did I mention that?). So, unless you are masterful and transcend that genre, please do not send me your space odyssey. I will glaze over.

Finally, there has been a big shift in my recent guidelines (our agency website is undergoing a change, so it’s not quite up-to-date yet on this).  I now DO represent picture books, BUT (and it’s a big but, I cannot lie) only from established picture book authors with a track record in picture books at traditional houses. I will also take submissions from folks I personally request pbs from at conferences, or on reference from either a publisher or a client. Other than that, it’s a no go. I can’t open my inbox for pbs beyond this.  What sort of picture books do I like and not like? They must be fresh and original. Hilarious or lovely. Important in some way. Non-fiction picture books are a possibility if they are story-based vs. all facts.  What don’t I like? Books that seem to go nowhere, feel forced or too familiar, and rhyming texts are usually not successful.

I’m also now taking on illustrators. Not as an artist’s agent (meaning I’m not the one to get you into galleries, etc.), but as an agent who will rep you to publishers. For this, also, I’m only open to established book illustrators or those who I either meet and request from at a conference, or who are referred to me from a publisher or a client.

I hope this gives you an idea of whether or not a manuscript you have is right to send my way or not. And, just because it’s not right for me, doesn’t mean there won’t be another agent who is all about that gory page turning novel in verse.

Happy manuscript shopping!

 

*Marie is an Associate Agent at the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency in New York City.  To keep up with all her posts, subscribe to her site by clicking on the Follow link located on her page on the upper left margin.