Notes on Making a Picture Book
studio diary #1
Last week I gave myself a self-appointed, self-funded, self-housed artist residency. Since then, a surprising number of people have written to say they’re doing the same, and I’ve been delighted to see it. We are a movement now: a barefoot, half-feral, permission-slip-forging federation. I couldn’t ask for better company.
First up: the picture book. A while ago I wrote a manuscript titled Surprisingly, Birds about a girl who can’t stop drawing birds1. I revisited it this week as if a stranger had left it on a train, and decided it was good. This is a deliberate practice: fall for the thing completely, no notes, propose marriage on page one, then spend the rest of the summer meeting the person you’ve agreed to live with.
While I was at it, I reread Rachel Bachman’s post about what children actually want from picture books. It’s essential reading, especially for someone who doesn’t approach picture books with children in mind. That someone is me. I would like that on the record, underlined twice. There’s no specific child I’m making anything for. No small face I picture as I work. If an actual child wandered into my house, I would panic, offer it coffee, and walk it back outside, the way you would redirect a Roomba that’s gone into the wrong room.
