Guest Post: Julianna Swaney on Illustrating Birds on the Brain
Birds on the Brain—Book II in what has now become the Book Uncle trilogy!—is out today from Groundwood Books!
When we first asked Julianna Swaney to tell us about the cheerful, lively art she’s created for the book, we hadn’t quite understood the extent to which her love of birds informed her work on this story. What a lovely surprise! Here’s what Julianna wrote:
Photo courtesy of Julianna Swaney
When Groundwood contacted me about illustrating a new story with the characters from Book Uncle it was easy for me to reply with an enthusiastic “yes!”. I was even more happy when I learned the story was going to center the character Reeni’s love of birds. Growing up as a child who owned her own pair of binoculars, I could really relate!
Birds and bird watching was always a part of my life growing up. My dad was an avid birder so family vacations were always to places where we could see a special bird, he brought binoculars on every walk outside, and tapes to help mesmerize bird calls where always playing in the car. I absorbed a lot of knowledge about birds this way but while I loved birds and nature, I sort of took it all this for granted at the time. As an adult I’ve realized how special it is to recognize and be able to name the birds, animals and plants I see and to be curious about the world around me.
I’m always a little surprised when I realize some people are not at all curious about what’s going on around them in nature and don’t see how they are a part of it. That’s why I so love the message of this book that care for a tiny bird ripples out to the whole community, humans included.
It was also interesting for me to come back to characters that I’d first drawn so early in my book illustration career.
I’m sure a lot of creatives can relate to seeing work they did years ago and picking out what they’d do differently now. I’ve learned so much in the intervening years between these books, and I feel like I’m a better artists now! Still it was important for me to keep continuity between the artwork for Book Uncle and Birds on the Brain, while also updating it slightly to be more in line with my current style and way of working.
For me the first step of the illustration process is always the same: to read the manuscript. On my first read through I jotted down any notes about the main characters. I sort of remembered them from the first book, but not all the details of their appearance and characteristics. Next I made some fresh character illustrations that would serve as my reference for the final illustrations and would also show the publisher and author what I had in mind for the style and look of the artwork.
Look at Julianna’s adorable character studies
Here it helped to have the same constraints on the artwork as the first book: it had to be in black and white.
This book is told from Reeni’s point of view so I focused on getting her right first. When I do character illustrations I like to draw them in several poses & doing things they are going to be doing in the book. Doing these illustrations also helped me work out how I was going to make the final artwork and have it somewhat match with the style in the first book.
I did all the artwork for Book Uncle traditionally, which means that I drew with ink and ink washes on paper. For this book I knew that I wanted to work digitally on my computer using a drawing tablet, it gives me more control and it’s easier to make changes. However I still wanted to keep some of the “handmade look of the ink washes, so I used some scanned in ink splashes and splodges that I have saved. You can see them used on Reeni’s hair, school uniform and leggings.
The publisher was happy with the look of these so next it was onto the interior artwork sketches!
Whenever I have illustrated chapter books the publisher has always sent along a selection of ideas for places and scenes within the book to illustrate. Out of the scenes they suggested I picked the ones that I most wanted to illustrate and that I thought would be most interesting and useful to kids reading the book. I especially wanted to do some scenes that would give a sense of the place the book takes place.
When I illustrated the first book, back when I was just starting out, one thing that really overwhelmed and intimidated me was drawing the city setting. I just didn’t have much experience drawing city scenes and I didn’t feel capable! For those illustrations I tried to work around that and mostly focused on more the intimate scenes between people. I think that’s fine, but for this book I really wanted to show more of the busy and vibrant Indian city. I’ll admit that I still don’t love drawing buildings and super busy scenes, but I know how to fit them into my style now and make it more my own, so it’s not as overwhelming for me!
I’ve never traveled to India, so it was easy to put myself in the place of a child reading the book who hadn’t been there either and may wonder what a typical street or apartment building might look like there. All the illustrations took a good amount of research on my part, I’m sure they aren’t perfect but I did my best and I hope they give a sense of what the city that the story is set might look like!
“Even though I planned to do the finals on the computer, I prefer to do my sketches in pencil on paper.”
I usually start with some super super rough sketches that are only for me and help lay out the major parts of the scene.
When I’m happy with those I do another more cleaned up version of the same sketches with more details, and that’s the version I send to the publisher.
Even though I planned to do the finals on the computer, I prefer to do my sketches in pencil on paper.
It’s actually hard to find pictures of everyday city streets online, but eventually I found that I could use Google Maps’ Street View and that was extremely helpful! I would just zoom into neighborhoods and wander around
When it came to illustrating this street scene, part of the text says:
We squeeze past the crooked tree that juts out into the road. It has a sign on it too. The sign reads, Caution. Protruding Tree. That is a silly sign. Surely anyone coming along in a car or on a scooter or a bicycle, or even on two feet like us, can see that is a tree. And that it’s protruding, which Yasmin says means it is sticking out.
After wandering on Street View I could really see how a lot of the streets in Chennai are like tunnels under overhanging branches, with huge trees growing right up to the street! I was also able to see how much life and activity goes on in the street. Also how there are scooters absolutely everywhere, so that was really helpful when it came to picturing how that scene might look!
Street view was also somewhat helpful to see how people dress every day, not for special occasions, which tends to be when most people get their pictures taken I’ve found. Still Uma had to help me with some feedback about exactly how women in that part of southern India drape their saris! The woman on the scooter in the above sketch is wrong, I had no idea they would not drape their sari over their right shoulder. I made that mistake in a few places so that was really helpful to learn!
Once I had fixed that and made a few more changes and additions the publisher asked for it was time to clean up the sketches and make the final drawings. At this point I moved to working on my tablet connected to my computer. Since my roughs were actually pretty detailed it was just a matter of cleaning them up and adjusting so I was able to move from roughs to final art fairly quickly.
While I was waiting for final feedback on the interior artwork it was time to start work on the cover! Since I did the cover for Book Uncle traditionally with paint the publisher felt that it would be best to paint this cover as well, rather than doing it digitally.
I don’t remember where the initial idea for the cover came from anymore, but this was the only idea I sketched and sent to the publisher so I must have been pretty confident in it! The publisher must have liked it too because they didn’t have many notes.
I know I wanted to have all three kids from the book and to show something of their personalities. Having them up on the roof looking at birds seemed right, since they do that in the book, and it shows a touch of the city in the background without being too busy. I feel like having a flock of birds flying through a scene always gives a sense of energy, and here I thought it was a good nod to both the title and the bird count that happens in the book. In the flock I included some of the birds mentioned in the book as well as a few other common species you might see “backyard” birdwatching in southern India.
Illustrating this book was truly a joy! I loved spending time with these sweet, thoughtful, and funny kids and I’m so happy we get to share them with all of you now that the book is out!
Thank you, Julianna! Thanks as well to Jen Breach for coordinating this post.
