Bob and Zoë Alley visit Illustration 3

Instructor Emilie Boon and her students listen as Bob talks about his multi-media technique.

On November 16, Bob Alley, illustrator of the current version of Paddington Bear for the past 20 years, visited Emilie Boon's Illustration 3 class. His wife with his author wife, Zoë Alley. They focused their talk on two graphic novels for young children that they collaborated on, "There's a Wolf at the Door,"  and "There's a Princess in the Palace." 

The couple spoke to Illustration III, with visitors from Illustration I and Book Dummy attending. They met in the newly renovated ISB, Illustration Studies Building, with it's exposed brick and ductwork and updated electronics.

Bob's storyboard with comments, and the finished book

Students look closely at different stages of the Alley's collaborative work.

Their explanation of the process of a husband-wife team collaborating on a such a large-scale project was filled with humor.

Graphic novels are a growing trend in the children's book industry, but graphic novels for young children are still quite rare. These two are a re-take on familiar fairy tales that morph into one ongoing tale. Between them, the books garnered starred reviews in Horn Book Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and Booklist, not to mention many more awards.

Original crow-quill pen art, and finished art.

Bob shared insights into the process of story-boarding, and explained how he did the artwork. He does all his work traditionally, using mixed media, including ink, watercolors, colored pencils and gouache.





Don't miss Bob and Zoe's great work. Here are some links to their websites.
http://www.rwalley.com/



Go here to see a schedule of places where you can meet the Alley's yourself, and purchase some of their books.
http://www.zoeballey.com/bio.htm

Highlights from Children's Book Illustration III––Fall 2014

Charlene, Nicole, Emilie, Eric and Sara.

The Fall Children's Book Illustration III class that ended in early December, was small but wonderful! Students Nicole Cipriani-Fox, Eric Desseault, Charlene Haukom, and Sara Israel all worked hard and were a pleasure to have in class. I look forward to seeing what will come next for all of them, and how they will further develop their art!

Here are some highlights from the semester.

Sketching in the Nature Lab.

Guest illustrator Joanne Friar shared her work with us.

  

Joanne and her lovely detailed gouache paintings.

Students hanging up their final three projects for review.

Charlene, Nicole, Sara and Eric celebrating their progress and lovely artwork! 

Kelly Murphy Visits Children's Book Illustration III

                        Kelly with artwork from "Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters"

                                       
                                      Kelly and an original from "Secrets At Sea"

                                         Roya having her book signed by Kelly

Last week, Kelly Murphy, the wonderful children’s book illustrator, visited our class. Kelly illustrates picture books as well as middle grade novel covers and interiors. She graduated from RISD in 1999 and has published many books since then. Kelly now teaches at RISD in the Illustration department. In fact, her classroom is just down the hall from ours in the ISB building!

Kelly was very generous with her time and brought many samples of original artwork, from paintings to dummies and sketches. She works both in color and black and white. Her color work is done mostly in acrylics. She starts with a gesso or gel under painting mixed with a single color in oil paint. Then she begins to layer with washes of acrylic. Her under painting helps to unify the colors in her atmospheric art. Each paintings takes her about 40 hours to complete.

Even without color, Kelly manages to create a lot of atmosphere. Some of her most beautiful sketches were done in ballpoint pen on plain paper. Kelly says she likes to sketch with pen because it forces her to get it right and be bolder. She later recreates the sketches for the finals with a micron pen. Recently she has also published work created in graphite. A wonderful example of that is the interior art for “Secrets At Sea” by Richard Peck.

Kelly was an inspiration to all of us!