Last weekend I escaped my duties as a Mother and took a train up to Edinburgh to join the South East Scotland SCBWI Network for a Picture Book Workshop with the wonderful Elizabeth O Dulemba.

Sketching at the station

Elizabeth is an amazing writer, illustrator and teacher from the US, who we are lucky to have access to here in the UK (and the North especially!) as she has recently moved to Edinburgh to further her studies. Watch her inspiring TEDx talk about how she sold or gave away nearly everything she owned to pursue her dreams.

I had heard of Elizabeth before this workshop by listening to Katie Davis’ Brain Burps About Books podcasts; the one about how she turned one of her books, Lula’s Brew into an app and then a later one about her lovely historical fiction middle-grade novel A Bird on Water Street. She is a prolific blogger and provides many useful resources for writers and illustrators and weekly colouring in pages for children. I have previously mentioned her on my blog in relation to my Picture Book Anatomy tutorial.

The Workshop

It was a really useful and productive workshop, with a mixture of exemplar picture books, story analysis, folding paper, lots of folding paper, writing, pitching and drawing. There was a lot of information crammed in and I was surprised to find that by the end, I’d roughly storyboarded the manuscript that I took along. It was a pleasure and enlightening to see the collection of professionals’ storyboards that Elizabeth showed. I now want to check out the gorgeous work of Ruth Sanderson whom I was previously unfamiliar with, click on that link, you won’t be sorry that you did. Elizabeth brought along some of her own picture book dummies (mock ups) which were exquisite. Sadly we ran out of time at the end to make our own dummies but Elizabeth has a pdf resource on her website to help.

Folding a zine

My Storyboard

So what I will take away from the workshop is a way to look at my texts to define the essence of them, then break them down into four key structure parts, and from there into a further eight parts and then finally seeing them as a whole of 14 spreads/32 pages to eventually taking them to dummy for reading out loud and page turning in the real world.

Sociable SCBWIs

It was a fun-packed, educational time and as SCBWI’s are a sociable lot I joined them for a post-workshop drink to talk even more about children’s book writing and illustrating and despairing at how long it takes to succeed. It was lovely to hear about Sheila Averbuch’s journey and her signing with her agent. Sheila highly recommended doing Writer’s Digest courses with access to editors and agents so I’m strongly considering trying an appropriate one to me, if I do, I’m sure to report back.

Christmas is coming, what do you get the Aspiring Picture Book Author and Illustrator in your life? How about some training videos? Here are my recommendations:

Claire O'Brien Art - Computer Boy and Cat

Computer Boy by Claire O'Brien

Craftsy

The Art of The Picture Book by Shadra Strickland

I had never heard of Shadra before taking this course, she’s a Picture Book Author and Illustrator working in a realistic style and she is a great teacher. She provides useful information that she backs up with demonstrations. I like her character development, setting and using reference sections. The most valuable advice she gives, in my opinion, is on the framing of storyboard thumbnails and how you should think about their intended destination, the finished picture book, and whether that is portrait or landscape. She also provides common picture book dimensions, information I’ve looked for for a long time. Although I haven’t submitted any of my own work, it looks like Shadra is quite active in the member discussions and provides feedback on work posted. This is the best video course that I have seen on writing and illustrating children’s picture books! Buy this class here.

Skillshare

Picture Books I: Write Your Story by Christine Flemming
I really like the Skillshare’s courses, they focus on real-world, creative skills rather than what buttons to press in software, I have just bought a year’s membership after paying monthly for a while. Picture Books I: Write Your Story by Christine Flemming (12 Videos, 54 minutes total) is a good course with solid information. The course is delivered through slides and references well-known books as examples of good practice. There is a set assignment and you can share your progress with the group or publicly and receive comments from peers and Christine The lesson on rhythm is factually correct but it doesn’t help that it is delivered in a flat monotonous voice (pot calling the kettle). You will find all of this information in any good children’s book writing how-to book but if you’d rather listen to the information then this video is for you. Christine also has a follow-up course on illustrating your picture book that I plan on watching too. Sign up for Skillshare here.

Lynda.com

Lynda.com has a whole of host of courses from using software, photography, creative business, design and animation and they are all really well-delivered and very useful. They also make documentaries that are inspiring. Two that are of interest to aspiring picture book authors and illustrators are:

Creative Inspirations: Ed Emberley, Children's Book Illustrator is amazing. I probably don’t need to tell you about his drawing books for children which is how I know of him. I didn’t know that he also writes and illustrates children’s picture books, he’s published over one hundred of them. This video presents his philosophies and practice via an interview, footage of him drawing and voice overs. It shows his studio and working methods which are always fascinating for a fellow artist to see. It also features his daughter, Rebecca Emberly, who is also a picture book author and illustrator. My favourite quote from this video is when he says “I just felt like doing a children’s book” and of course it was published!

Interactive Book Designer by Stacey Williams-Ng

Picture book apps on the iPad and tablets are difficult to ignore these days whether you like them or not. If you want to venture into picture book apps then this documentary is very inspiring. Stacey talks her about her varied background to how she has arrived at digital (and now traditional) picture book publishing and creation. She clarifies what a picture book app actually is and shows how she creates her work traditionally in watercolour and brings it into the iPad via Demibooks Composer (a very good picture book creation app). She also provides good advice on interactivity, what to make move, have sounds or how to react with touch. After watching this I decided that one of my manuscripts will be ideal as an app so watch this space.

Don’t forget that watching these courses is fun and entertaining but if you don’t follow the advice and do the assignments you won’t learn. And, full disclosure, if you click through my links to Craftsy and Skillshare and buy any of my recommendations above I will get a small referral fee, if you do, I thank you for your kind support.