SCBWI Conference '08 - Chris Wormell

After Saturday's focus on my writing, Sunday was picture book day for me. This was the main draw to the conference weekend. I had to get working on new picture book ideas.

It all began with the Pitch competition entry. (Incidentally, I didn't win but I had my pitch ready for a picture book submission on the following Monday. Fingers crossed!). Then on to Chris Wormell's breakout session, Style Versus Content: Working In Different Media.

This is the style I recognise as Chris Wormell in his first book:

Blue Rabbit and Friends

And this:


George and the Dragon

Chris felt limited by his wood engraving techniques and colour pencils took too long. He said that using Watercolour in books like George And The Dragon, gave him the chance to be more realistic in his illustration. More realistic! He passed around some of his original lino engravings - the detail in the rhino cut, for example was astonishing and highly realistic by my standards! If anything, I would say the dragon is less realistic but it is more immediate and makes you feel part of the action.

As the session continued, I began to be inspired by his work all over again as he revealed, Molly and the Night Monster -

Painted on 300gms of heavy weight pre-toned paper. I asked him how he masked out areas of his work (by now I really am thinking of painting again, even though I said I'd given up!) - masking fluid and silicone molding brushes, he replied. Right.

Chris is a perfectionist. His first four spreads are thrown away before he's happy.

Just when we thought it was all over - Chris offers each of us a double-page spread to work on. We had a choice to write the text for one of his illustrations or to illustrate some of his text. I chose the latter and I'm very proud of my first rough. I wonder if I'd be happy after my fourth attempt!

When I showed this to Chris, he said it reminded him of the giant story he had been working on and never quite finished - he showed us his rough spreads for this story in the afternoon talk. This was probably the most exciting moment of the whole weekend - seeing his roughs. It all starts with the roughs...