This is Birgit. I'm delighted with the quality of the printing and the layout. Thanks to Alejandra. I'm very proud of this book.

It's published by "El Jinete Azul". The ISBN. is 978 84 938352 5 5 and you can see some pages here: http://issuu.com/eljineteazul/docs/birgit

Birgit - Cover

Cover for Birgit.

Birgit is a incredibly sad, delicate, powerful story about a little girl whose sister is dying from brain cancer. She relates the facts, her thoughts and her feelings with an honest, not sentimental innocence as she tries to understand what death means. The illustrations build a sequence showing the progression of the illness.

Pencil, white chalk and gouache on grey BFK Rives.

The Gathering

Editorial illustration for "El Norte de Castilla"

El Pacto del bosque. Double-Page2

Process for the second double-page of "El Pacto del Bosque". The quality of the photos is not wonderful, I work mainly at night and usually I don't have day light to take them.

I've used pencil on polyester and, for the little flower at the bottom I used blue pen. I like Faber-Castell Pitt, because it reacts oddly on polyester, you can use them like a kind of watercolor if you keep them wet with some water. Anyway, it's for a little time. It works better for small areas. After scanning I processed it a little with computer, adding warm hues.

The Rose and Death

Illustration for an article by Gustavo Martín Garzo in "El Norte de Castilla".

The original drawing is pencil on White BFK. I wanted to draw on something other than polyester just for a change. The roses are watercolor. I use a light box to place them where I wanted they were, with the first drawing below it. My father made a wonderful light box for me, with a pretty strong light. I love it. Both drawings were combined in Photoshop.

El Pacto del bosque - Cover process

This is part of the process for the cover of "El Pacto del Bosque". I'm sorry it's not as complete as it could be but I take photographs from time to time along the process and, as I'm lost in the work, sometimes I forget it. The first drawing is pencil on polyester. At first I thought I would do the cover with this technique, but when it was barely started, I noticed I didn't like it for the cover. The close up needed more texture and density than I could obtain with pencil, so I transfer the drawing to a white BFK Rives, I coated it and then I paint it with water based oils. They're a kind of mystery for me. I really can't understand how they work, but they work. I'm really happy with the outcome, so I'll surely use them again. After the oil painting is finished, I scanned it and I did some minor corrections of color and such. Since it was almost finished, the digital manipulation is very light. Fortunately, as I mentioned in the previous post, it was managed with great care in the press, so the printed cover of the book looks great.

El Pacto del Bosque

This Wednesday we launched "El Pacto del Bosque" (The Forest Pact), in Valladolid, in the book shop "Oletum". The author is Gustavo Martín Garzo, a very renowned author whose articles I've illustrated this year in "El Norte de Castilla".

The launch has been great. I've enjoyed a lot. Antonio Ventura, the publisher and good friend came from Madrid with his musketeers, Cristina and Sergio. There was a lot of media and we had a lot of little interviews and photos and there were a little microphone tangled up in my underwear. I get lucky nobody recorded my almost sreaptease trying to free myself from the little bug.

I'm very happy with the work itself. I hadn't seen the printed book yet and I was surprised with the great care it has been made. Sergio, who did the layout, told me that he had been in the printing workshop to be sure the printing was accurate and they had made color corrections, they've used a kind of smaller half-tone too, so it's one of the best printed books I've had.

I'll upload some of the illustrations to my portfolio, but in the meantime, in the publisher page there's a kind of application which allows you to see the first pages of the book. Here:

http://www.edicioneseljineteazul.com/web.php?seccion=catalogo&idioma=es&id=16

As illustrating is a kind of lonely job, I enjoy immensely these moments, the chances to talk with people who loves making beautiful books. This is the first big format picture book for a new publishing house, "El Jinete Azul" (The blue raider). The owner is Antonio. He has decided to begin this adventure out of love for books. It takes a lot of courage doing it now. I hope he has a lot of success.

Society of Illustrators

Hello everybody
I should begin apologizing again because my lack of ability to keep this updated but, well, I’ve understood I’m a disaster and it’ll surely happen again, so, here I go.
First of all, a happy new, I’ve been selected for the annual exhibition of the Society of Illustrators of New York. Specifically the illustration chosen has been “Witch” from the Russian Tales for Anaya. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to attend the award presentation neither the exhibition, because the ocean standing between New York and my home but, someday I’ll go, I’m sure. The good part is that the work will appear in the Annual next year “Illustrators 51”, so I’m happy anyway.

Secrets

"Secrets", para Lothian, Australia. Éste es mi primer libro como autora. El primero de muchos, espero. Lo hice cuando terminé en la Escuela de Arte. Ese año fui a la Feria del libro infantil y juvenil de Bologna (la cita más importante para ilustradores y autores de libros ilustrados). Estuve enseñando mi carpeta a algunos editores y varios me dijeron que les gustaría ver una historia en vez de sólo ilustraciones sueltas. Fue por eso que, ese verano hice esta historia. La verdad es que más tarde descubrí que la razón por la que los editores quieren ver historias es para saber si puedes mantener la continuidad de un personaje en distintas situaciones y si tienes sentido de la narración. No lo sabía entonces, así que hice lo que me pareció: una historia con muy poco texto y que cambia de personaje en cada página. Lo increíble es que funcionó. En Noviembre mandé una maqueta muy pequeña a Lothian y poco después me dijeron que lo querían publicar. Lo gracioso es que yo ni siquiera me lo había plantado. Lo mandaba para que vieran que podía hacer una historia. Y se lo mandé a ellos porque son los editores de los libros de Shaun Tan. Por eso le enseñé a Helen mi carpeta en Bologna. Helen es la directora de Arte de Lothian y la persona a quién más tengo que agradecerle en lo que llevo de carrera. Para mí el momento en que me dijo que querían publicar esta historia fue el momento en que vi que realmente podía dedicarme a esto para vivir.
Respecto al libro, nunca he visto preparar uno con tanto cuidado, me consultaron hasta las cosas más pequeñas y lo trataron con un cuidado exquisito. Me enviaron pruebas de imprenta, Inari me rediseñó el texto y se ocupó de todo el diseño general del libro. Y de arreglar mis errores de principiante como no tener en cuenta el margen que hay que dejar para la guillotina. No podría estar más satisfecha con el trabajo que han hecho. Ni con el resultado. Es increíble tenerlo por fin en las manos.

"Secrets" for Lothian Publishers. I’m very, very happy. This is my first book as author and illustrator. I did it when I finish at school because some publishers told me, when I showed my portfolio in Bologna’s Fair, that they prefer to see a story better than single illustrations. Very later I find that’s because they want to see if you can draw the same character in different situations and your sense of narration. As I didn’t know then, I did a story in which there’s a different character in each page. And it didn’t matter at all!. Sometimes ignorance is wonderful. In fact I didn’t intend it was published. I just want it to show I could make a full story. Then I sent it to Lothian. That’s because I love Shaun Tan’s books and they’re published by Lothian and that’s the reason I showed Helen (Helen Chamberlin, art director. I love you Helen) my portfolio in Bologna. And they decided to publish it. So easy. It was a very important moment for me. I didn’t know if I could live from being an illustrator before it. And from a creative point of view is great being the author of the text too. I hadn’t consider seriously this possibility before. In other side the edition work has been great. And the care in the making of the book, amazing. I’ve seen all kind of proofs, and a lot of people has worked to make of this book the best it could be, specially Helen, my editor, and Inari who has redesigned the text and has done a wonderful work with all the design of the book.

Cuentos rusos

Publicado al fin. Bueno, de hecho fue en Febrero. Me gusta el formato y la edición y el hecho de que se venda tanto en pack con el tercer volumen como separado, pero los colores han perdido un poco en la impresión. Aún no me acostumbro a las variaciones en los colores que se producen en la imprenta. De todas formas estoy muy satisfecha con el libro. Los cuentos daban muchísimo juego para la ilustración. Ha sido un montón de trabajo, hay más de setenta ilustraciones pequeñas y dieciocho grandes pero ha valido la pena.

Russian Tales for Anaya Publishers. A lot of work, about seventy small illustrations and eighteen full-page images. I have some problems with the way the colours change when they're printed, but I suposse that's because I'm quite new in this. Anyway I like the book a lot, the tales were very interesting to illustrate and I'm very happy with my russian tales.