Although the finished art and final story edits whizzed off to the
printers long ago, "Creekfinding", written by my pal Jacqueline
Briggs Martin, is just starting to hit the shelves.
Holding a book you've been part of creating for the first time makes me feel like a proud parent. An entity that came together one element at a time- word by word, picture by picture, page by page- is now whole.
The magic of a picture book lies in its joint creation. From separate wells of creativity, the author and illustrator create in a wondrously woven process. One person's work does not exist without the others and yet, together a story is born.. . I love how enthusiastic readers confirm a successful match!
The Australian Children's Book of the Year Award Committee
annually honors author and illustrator jointly for one single
book: “The award [is] made to outstanding books of the Picture Book genre
in which the author and illustrator achieve artistic and literary unity..."
I love this. “Literary Unity” is a good way to put what most
picture book teams aspire towards (and somewhat easier to achieve when you are
both author/illustrator!). If a picture book has a different author and
illustrator, the process is more complex, yet rich and rewarding. The words do
come first, but as smooth as a baton exchange in a foot race, the story then
transfers and expands from the words to the pictures. In the
end, good words and good pictures should tell a story that comes together
harmoniously over the finish line.
A picture book manuscript may take years on and off to write, but
the illustrator lives quite intensely, immersed for many consecutive months
producing the pictures. The amount of detail to the story-line decided by an
illustrator (visual setting and character placements, pacing, actual page
lay-out ) is it’s own act of creation. I can attest that when the illustrations
are complete, the parental feeling about the story is as strong for the
illustrator as it is for the writer.
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So happy birthday to our book, word by word, picture by picture,
page by page.
