{"id":3360,"date":"2014-03-25T14:29:48","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T20:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3360"},"modified":"2014-03-26T17:08:25","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T23:08:25","slug":"solving-puzzles-with-jonathan-bean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3360","title":{"rendered":"Solving Puzzles with Jonathan Bean"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Early car studies<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

Just last week at Kirkus<\/em>, I wrote about<\/a><\/strong> two new picture books that are about children and their families moving. After that posted, did you hear me smack my forehead way over here in Tennessee for having completely forgotten to include Deborah Underwood’s<\/a><\/strong> Bad Bye, Good Bye<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Houghton Mifflin) in that post? Illustrated by Jonathan Bean<\/a><\/strong>, it’s a wonderful picture book with a spare, rhyming text about the range of emotions children can feel when moving away from friends to a new home in a new location. The book’s strength, writes the Kirkus<\/em> review, “is in the emotional journey that’s expressed with a raw honesty.” It’s true, oh-so true. Look closely, if you get a copy of this in early April, when it’s released. The boy whose family is moving rages<\/em> on the day they get in the car to drive away. Be still, my heart. (No fear. Things are looking up for him at the book’s close.)<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I think I forgot it, though, is that I knew I’d be doing a post in the near future about, in particular, the illustrations for this book. And the illustrations are captivating. I mean, what Bean does with the depiction of light alone in this book … wow. <\/p>\n

Regular readers of my blog know I always like it when Jonathan Bean visits to talk about how he creates the illustrations for his books. In this one … well, here’s what Jonathan had to say about it: <\/p>\n

The illustrations are made in a somewhat old-fashioned way. Instead of pre-set CMYK colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), I picked Pantone colors from a book of paint swatches, similar to what you find in a home paint shop. This allowed me to create a particular mood, depending on the colors I chose. However, it also meant that it was my job to pre-separate the art (separate the illustrations into four colors, corresponding to the traditional CMYK.) This was a lot like solving a complicated puzzle, since each illustration required four paintings, a separate painting in black and white for each color. The rewards for the extra hassle are consistent and deeply saturated colors throughout the book — an effect CMYK can\u2019t match.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Jonathan offered to talk a bit more about his process for creating these illustrations, but I think that covers it, and as I told him, I like to let the art do the talking anyway. That said, if anyone has further questions about his process, I think Jonathan would be happy to continue the conversation in the comments. <\/p>\n

Enjoy the art and sketches below … <\/p>\n

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Early manuscript doodles<\/em>
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Early media study<\/em>
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Early sketches<\/em>
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The moving spread — black<\/em>
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Moving spread — blue<\/em>
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Moving spread — red<\/em>
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Moving spread — yellow<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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“Bad truck \/ Bad guy”
Moving spread — everything combined<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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The park spread<\/em>
(Click each to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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The park spread — black<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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Park spread — blue<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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Park spread — red<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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Park spread — yellow<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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“New park \/ New street New bark”
Park spread — everything combined<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

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BAD BYE, GOOD BYE. Copyright \u00a9 2014 by Deborah Underwood. Illustrations \u00a9 2014 by Jonathan Bean. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston. All images here reproduced by permission of Jonathan Bean.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early car studies(Click to enlarge) Just last week at Kirkus, I wrote about two new picture books that are about children and their families moving. After that posted, did you hear me smack my forehead way over here in Tennessee for having completely forgotten to include Deborah Underwood’s Bad Bye, Good Bye (Houghton Mifflin) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-interviews","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}