Category Archives: advice

Waiting

By elise | Published: September 28, 2011

While I sit in the park jiggling the pusher while the boys sleep I’ve been looking at some old drafts of stories. For a start I love Dropbox. It lets me access my documents from any computer and work on the latest version. Including on the phone. Brilliant! Secondly I’m really happy with the latest [...]

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Advice: drafting and reading aloud

By elise | Published: October 1, 2010

Next installment taken from email Q&As Now we all know that picture books will be read out loud to kids. So this means that it is absolutely vital for writers to read their work out loud as they draft it so we know how it sounds. However, even that is not fool-proof. Read on: We [...]

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Advice: the illustrator’s job – storyboards and roughs

By elise | Published: September 2, 2010

Here’s another response to a question relating to being provided with suggestions for the pictures or a storyboard by the writer: This sounds terrible but I’d rather not ever have suggestions from the author on the visuals. The exception being something vital that is not mentioned in the story, but is intrinsic to it (like [...]

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Advice: charging for illustrations

By elise | Published: August 25, 2010

I’ve been answering quite a few emails lately seeking advice on aspects of the industry. So I thought I’d put some tailored excerpts here in case anyone else was wondering the same things. Don’t forget, there is always the Getting Published page too which has lots more info and suggestions, especially about whether or not [...]

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Starting out #3

By elise | Published: May 22, 2009

#3 Don’t make publishers guess If you’re cutting-edge and can’t quite see how to make your stuff work in the current publishing environment – don’t assume someone else will. Yes, lots of publishers have an eagle eye and a thirst for the Next Big Thing, but they are also very busy. So a bit of [...]

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Starting out #2

By elise | Published: May 20, 2009

Here’s another one… #2 Folios 1. Don’t put anything in there that you don’t want to do! Sounds simple but it’s funny how often we assume we should cover everything. If you hate drawing technical pictures – don’t put them in your folio. If you hate a particular style that everyone else is doing, don’t [...]

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Starting out #1

By elise | Published: May 9, 2009

Last week in amongst markets, talks and meetings – was mentoring. There were three sessions, one hour each and it was terrific. I feel pretty privileged to get to see the work of people at all different stages of their careers – some just beginning, others well and truly on the way but perhaps just [...]

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My Palette

By elise | Published: February 17, 2009

So the word Palette can refer to two different things… 1. The actual surface people mix their paints on which can be anything from an icecream tub lid to a beautiful wooden thing with thumb-hole and all. 2. The range of colours that the artist uses when painting. One of the things that I noticed [...]

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