Lecture with Salvatore Rubbino

Today we had a lecture with famous children's book illustrator Salvatore Rubbino, who gave us lots of useful tips about how to approach a new project and lots of advice on story writing. I made plenty of notes, seeing as my final project takes the form of a children's picture book.

 The main points I took away from the talk, is how important it is to draw what you are studying and make roughs of scenes, as I tend to focus on accurate drawing even when experimenting. He gave tips on how to build character, such as giving the character an object or a scenario to react to, and he stressed how important tension is in a picture book (making the character look at something that the viewer cannot see, in order to make them eager to turn the page!). And the most important part is to be interested in your subject and be able to engage with it!

Salvatore left out some of his books for us to observe, so I picked out 'A Walk in New York', which was the one that he had left with his rough, unfinished version, in order to compare the rough and final copy. 

Here are a few pages from the finished book that I really enjoyed:

Here are a few pages from the mock-up book that I really like:

In some instances, I was able to recognise areas where the mock-up had become a part of the finished book!

In this instance, I was able to recognise the mock-up front page and it's similarities to the final outcome. The building on the left in the mock-up was used, but from a different perspective.

I actually prefer the mock-up drawing to the final version on this occasion! The rough painting gives the feeling of urgency as if it was painted hurriedly, and that really suites taxis in traffic. 

I think the perspective of the mock-up is far more interesting than what was used in the final outcome in this instance.

Personal Feedback

As an aspiring children's book illustrator, I did not pass up the opportunity to seek advice and feedback from Salvatore Rubbino. I firstly showed him some past work, in order to show how my style has developed and how what I am producing for this project is different.

I began by showing him my foundation year final piece, 'The Adventures of Wellington Duck' and Salvatore really liked the character, especially his backpack and goggles. He liked the story a lot and suggested I write another with the same character, but have more breaks in the story as it is very fast paced. There was one particular scene, where Wellington takes a break at the hot springs, which Salvatore really enjoyed.

He particularly liked this drawing as the character is easy to relate to and we can sense his enjoyment in the hot water. Drawings that people can associate with are those that they enjoy the most.

I then went on to show him 'The Butterfly Dragon and the Pear Tree'. This book was not part of any main project and was for an experimental project. It is a wordless narrative and is written in a 'comic book frame' style. He really enjoyed the twist that I included in the story and stressed how important they can be to enhancing a story's plot. He suggested that with this story I alternate frame sizes a little more. He also insisted that I use this character in future work, and look up 'Clown' by Quentin Blake to assist with the writing.

I then turned to my current story, to get any tips on how to carry on with the project. He really enjoyed the gouache medium, and really liked how expressive my paint experiments were. He suggested that more characters will help improve the story, and suggested a possible twist in the plot to make it more interesting. Salvatore agreed that the subject matter is perfect for the target audience as children love dinosaurs. He suggested that I look up Simon James' book 'Rex' to assist me when developing the story, as it handles a similar type of plot and uses dinosaur characters.

All in all, I found the day to be very helpful and useful for my project!