HELLO!

Welcome to Chapter Eight of The Happy Book. In this chapter, I'll be talking to you, illustrators! I'll be talking about becoming a next level illustrator, about how rapidly I've grown my own illustrator journey and the book contracts I've secured.

I'll then shine the laser light on you and how you can hone your own illustration skills, my thoughts on character development and movement, understanding colour, and ideas for both expanding your skillset and illustrating a narrative (which can be very different to just creating a stand-alone image).

We'll also cover portfolios and how to put something eye-catching together-both online and in a bricks and mortar folio you can take with you to conferences, festivals and maybe even to the offices of a particularly desired publisher.

Fire up your device, cram in those earbuds and enjoy this foray into the magical world of kids' book creation. If you have any questions or comments, you can say hello at [email protected].

I'm Tania McCartney and I'm an author, illustrator and editor of children's books. I've always wanted to live inside a book, and now I practically do. Welcome to The Happy Book.

SHOW NOTES

00:35 Introduction

01:37 A delicious flat white thanks to a good husband

01:52 Reconnecting with your 8-year-old self

03:54 Losing connecting with illustration

05:15 The birth of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge

07:12 Being in your path of flow-miracles unfold

07:26 The opportunities and contracts that appeared when I dared reconnect with illustrating

08:44 Expanding my career as both author and illustrator

09:26 Illustration style

11:15 Mimicking the illustration style of others

12:20 Feeling like a fraud

13:14 Developing your digital skills

14:00 Digital illustration resources

14:52 Illustration courses

15:19 Practice is everything

16:14 More course ideas

16:54 Thinking you can't draw

18:11 Children are natural artists

18:58 Hating the work you create

19:50 Non-dominant hand drawing

20:42 Blind contour drawing

21:55 A big glass of mineral water

22:01 Colour is EVERYTHING

23:29 Ideas for your colour palettes-Australia Illustrated

24:50 Colours that qualify as neutrals

25:04 Tonal values

25:35 The use of neutrals

25:55 Use of patterning

26:22 Texture

27:03 Transparency

27:34 Muddy, dull colours

29:05 Paint sample cards

29:59 How colour aligns with a narrative-At the End of Holyrood Lane and Smile Cry

31:32 Colour in books for babies and toddlers

32:00 Colour for junior fiction and chapter books

32:39 Illustrators with beautiful colour palettes

33:04 Using a limited colour palette

33:29 Contrast, depth, light and shadow

34:55 Use colours you like and enjoy-I hated purple until Hip Hip Hooray

36:38 Backgrounds

38:10 White space as breathing space

39:30 A caffè lattè

39:37 Illustrating to narrative

40:43 Using Mamie as an example of illustrating to narrative

45:10 Those little visual extras

47:08 Ivy Bird's sub narrative

47:59 Wordless spreads

51:06 Creative Tools

52:45 Tools for digital illustration

53:23 Illustration portfolios

101:16 Digital portfolios

101:51 A pile of fresh Queensland figs

1:02:04 Illustrator confidence

1:03:57 A Bear a Day 90 auction

1:04:36 The 52-Week Illustration Challenge 'likes'

1:05:54 Art is not...