Tags
chapter book, Dogs, Emma Chichester Clark, HarperCollins, illustrator, illustrator tips, illustrators, interview, Michael Morpurgo, middle grade, Plum, The Wizard of Oz, Toto
Emma Chichester Clark is the illustrator of the beautiful middle-grade chapter book, Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz. Its 250+ full-color images showcase Chichester Clark’s signature style.
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! In Toto, you collaborate once again with author, Michael Morpurgo. How does illustrating well-known stories differ from working on new fiction? Does having a dog as the narrator change your focus when you work on the art?
EMMA CHICHESTER CLARK: In fact, it’s my sixth collaboration with Michael. We have also done versions of Pinocchio, Aesop’s Fables, Hansel and Gretel, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and a Christmas story called The Best of Times. Almost all of them were about well-known characters and I had to find my own ideas about that. This is a challenge because the images we all already know so well are imprinted in our heads. With each character, I have to draw and redraw them, over and over again, until I find someone that belongs to me but who is, at the same time, true to the character I’m representing. [In Toto], having a dog as the narrator was the most fun of all because I adore dogs. I have one, Plum, who is not unlike Toto in appearance and I spend a lot of my time trying to interpret what is going on in her doggy brain.
CVZ: You are also an author. Please give us some insight into your process, both as an illustrator and an author-illustrator.
I met Stan Yan, a Denver-based writer/illustrator, caricature artist, and instructor, at his booth at San Diego Comic this year. I’m a bit of a zombie-aficionado and could not resist checking out his kids’ picture book – 
Sarah Parker-Lee: You’ve written and illustrated comics and books with horror themes for adults and older readers, but There’s a Zombie in the Basement is a picture book for kids. How did that come about? Were you worried it might be too scary?
Picture books are like little paper theaters inviting us to take a journey. When we provide a believable sense of space, we invite our readers to step into that world.
Meet SCBWI member and illustrator Lauren Gallegos in this quarter’s “Illustrator’s Gallery.” Read on to hear Lauren’s story and see some of her amazing illustrations!
In one of my early illustration classes in college, a professor gave us a quiz to see if we were more cut out for being an in-house illustrator or a freelance illustrator. The test placed me VERY much in the camp of in-house illustrator based on my personality and working style. I was pretty discouraged by this. I was still new to the illustration world (I started out in Graphic Design), but was already on my way down the path of wanting to become a children’s book illustrator. In my mind, that could only mean that I had to do freelance. So what did I do? I set out to prove that quiz wrong! No one was going to put me in a box and tell me what I was destined to be! 
SCBWI member Anne Berry is an illustrator living and working in Huntington Beach, California. She’s been doodling ever since she found paper and pencil, and could get her cats to sit long enough for a portrait. At the 2015 SCBWI Summer Conference, she won the SCBWI Mentorship Program award and the Portfolio Honor Award. Read on for her valuable tips about perfecting your own portfolio and to check out her awesome illustrations!
We love our volunteers at SCBWI and couldn’t exist without them! “Volunteer Spotlight” is a great way to get to know them for yourself and learn more about what they do and how you can volunteer too. Now meet Gina Capaldi, Illustrator Coordinator for the SCBWI’s Inland Empire, also known as SoCal.
