When Kathleen McMillan and I started looking for an illustrator for BlueBeary and the Open Eyes book series, this is the first picture Rebekah sent to us:
This was her initial conception of Samantha and her bear. Girl a little too skinny, bear not quite what we imagined, but definitely eye catching and promising. So we gave Rebekah (and our other applicants) a few tips on what we were looking for.
Rebekah’s next official communique to us was an 11-page PDF file that included the following elements:
- Cover page with her Catch The Red Balloon logo
- Resume
- Bio
- Artist’s Statement
- A paragraph titled “My role in this project”
- Three excellent professional references
- Sketches illustrating two pages from the story
- Sketches: an emotion study
Very tidy and impressive. We liked the sketches fine:
But what really blew us away was the emotion study:
We had not asked for this. Immediately several things became clear to us:
- Rebekah is serious about her craft and her business.
- Rebekah could give us consistency in drawing/painting the same characters over and over and over again throughout an 11 book series.
- Rebekah could convey a wide range of emotions—a key factor for Kathleen educating young children.
- Rebekah would take initiative with the extra things that we might not think to ask for.
- Rebekah is entirely delightful. (Actually, I think we knew that much earlier in the process, but the portfolio confirmed it.)
So we hired her, and she painted Samantha consistently with a range of emotions in the first book:
And she took initiative with colouring pages before we even asked about them:
And she painted Samantha consistently with a range of emotions for the second book (pending):
And she’s got lots of ideas and connections for promoting the series and for spin-offs.
And (Lord willing) she will paint Samantha consistently with a range of emotions for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh books!
Hiring and working with Rebekah has set the bar really, really high for relationships with future illustrators. We have all been learning so much from each other in this immensely satisfying process.
We sure like Rebekah Joy Plett!
NOTE:
Rebekah used her blog to document the process of painting the first project:
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-1.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-2.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-3.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-4.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-4-5.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-6.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-day-7-and-things.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/merry-friday-to-all-and-to-all-good.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-its-near-end-and.html
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/06/illustration-of-story-nearing-end.html
A couple of extras about this project:
- http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2009/08/all-my-love-and-then-more.html
- http://booksidoneread.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-that-make-me-go-squeee.html
Rebekah’s official website:
Rebekah used to be on Facebook, but she decided to disable her profile in favour of the antiquated, immensely personal and slower communication form: snail mail letters.
We are thrilled for Rebekah that she’s getting married in June! Congratulations and a thousand blessings on you and your intended!
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