How I Learned to Love The Computer

Collage has a rich history in children's books: from the patterned paper and cloth incorporated into Ezra Jack Keats's work, to the painted tissue shapes in Eric Carle's illustrations, to the found ephemera in Simms Taback's pictures. Many of my own illustrations for The Stinky Cheese Man (1992), Math Curse (1995), Squids Will Be Squids (1998)—all written by Jon Scieszka and published by Viking—were collage. In those books, I painted textures or images in oil on paper, cut them out, then glued them onto a background.

I did the same in my new book, Pinocchio, the Boy (or Incognito in Collodi) —only this time I did it digitally. The process is virtually the same as traditional collage; after painting the textures in oil on a board, I place it on a scanner (a scanner is like a digital copy machine) and copy, or scan, the image into the computer. I then "cut out" the shapes with digital scissors and collage them together with digital glue. The computer becomes just another artist's tool, another way to experiment.

I've always taken chances. When I was in art school in the 1980s, the ideal image was a perfect, smooth, photo-realistic rendering. I didn't do that. Instead, I combined acrylic varnishes with oil paints—a real no-no, since they separate like oil and water. But the technique made interesting, broken-up textures. Professors usually overlooked my work, along with those of fellow classmates David Shannon, Tim Egan, and Kurt Cyrus. We were the misfit kids. Maybe that's why we all ended up illustrating kids' books.

After graduation, my earliest published works were made with colored pencils and paint, or charcoal and ink, or oil and collage; always mixed-media, always experimental. The artwork for my book The Happy Hocky Family (Viking, 1993) was created on four separate plates (one for each primary color and one for black) in much the same way the preseparated books of the 1940s and 1950s were created. I was trying to capture the feel of Munro Leaf's fun and preachy primers from the Can Be Fun series (Health Can Be Fun, Safety Can Be Fun, etc.). I had no idea what the final Hocky illustrations would look like until they were assembled—collaged in a way—on press.

The advantages of the computer are endless for an illustrator who likes to experiment. For example, I can now build up an illustration as much as I want without fear of overworking it. I simply compile the art in Adobe Photoshop, a software program that works on a "layers system."

The Collodi City scene in Pinocchio is a good example of a picture in which many layers, with many details, were added while still keeping the overall composition graphic and simple. I don't like pictures with too much depth, with a three-dimensional look. I only use fancy-schmancy high or low angles when necessary to the story. I usually keep the picture plane at about eye level. The deadpan humor I was aiming for in my Pinocchio text needed art that would support it. Compare the straight-on compositions in any Peanuts strip by Charles Schulz to the other comic strips and you'll see what I mean. Schulz's are more efficient and, somehow, more funny. This is also true with Edward Gorey's illustrations. Look at what he did in Florence Parry Heide's Treehorn books (Holiday). The picture plane is at eye level and the characters and their environments are as deadpan and understated as the text. In my Collodi City scene (see below), I wanted Pinocchio to look overwhelmed by his environment—a big, symbolic obstacle with lots of shapes, patterns, and colors. But I also wanted to keep it simple. This is where the software came in handy. With its layers system, I could add one building on top of another—literally building the city layer by layer. I could also delete layers of buildings if I felt the entire image was getting too complicated.

In that same illustration, you'll also notice my handcrafted letters, or typeforms. I've collaged type bits into almost all of my books. I like the way typeforms break up the space and add variety. In Pinocchio, I wanted to collage in lots of retro elements and bits of "found paper" for the billboards and signage of Collodi City. The problem? Where does one find 1950's ephemera that says, "Collodi Fudge" or "Collodi Puppet Theater" or "Collodi Trees" or "Jingle Bells 25% Off"? I found one or two things that I was able to cut up and manipulate but not enough and not with the kind of texture and distressed look that I like. So with the software program's "Type Generator," I was able to create the words I wanted, then add my own handmade textures and colors around and underneath them. In a few places, like on the street signs and store windows, where in the past I might have thrown in some "Greek type," I was now able to acknowledge (and sneak in) the names of some of my favorite illustrators from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

I'm a big fan of that era of illustration. The classic golden age illustrators are great, but I'm also enamored with what you might call the journeyman illustrator, the craftsman. I particularly admire some of the Little Golden Book illustrators—and not the usual suspects. Garth Williams, Gustaf Tenggren, and Feodor Rojankovsky are fine, but Art Seiden, J. P. Miller, Mary Blair, Alice and Martin Provensen, and Mel Crawford are really fine. They were hip and amazing draftsmen and women.

The 1940s, '50s, and '60s were an interesting time. There was a lot of experimentation going on in animated cartoons, kids' books, advertising, and album-cover design. Images became angular, stylized, and graphic. The most influential for me was UPA (United Productions of America), which was started in the late 1940s by several Disney studio defectors. They created groundbreaking animated cartoons like Gerald McBoing Boing (1951), written by Dr. Seuss. They were influenced more by modern art and design than by naturalism and the Disney tradition. When I first saw Gerald, I felt like I was looking at a picture book that had come to life, more like a Leonard Weisgard drawing with its graphic shapes and intersecting lines and less like the Disney films we all knew. Later, Mel Crawford adapted the movie's images and turned them into an illustrated book. The cross-pollination between animated films and kids' books continued when UPA Studios made the first and most faithful version of Ludwig Bemelmans's Madeline, as well as John Bechdolt's Little Boy with a Big Horn and adaptations of stories by James Thurber and Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1953, Disney outdid UPA at its own game with Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, a very geometric film, directed by Ward Kimball and Charles Nichols, which to this day continues to influence both animators and illustrators. Previously, Disney had dabbled with a graphic style in The Three Caballeros and Alice in Wonderland, animated films that feature designs by Mary Blair. Blair's bold shapes translate well enough to moving animation, but it's her flat, graphic illustrations that work most effectively. Some of this can be glimpsed in her Little Golden Books, such as I Can Fly and Baby's House. Along with Blair, J. P. Miller did impressive design work on several Disney features, then went on to make the oblique angled, asymmetrical pictures for Little Golden Books'The Little Red Hen, The House That Jack Built, and many others.

From the world of album-cover design, there was James Flora who jazzed up many a 1950's kids' book with his cubist-like designs. The Day the Cow Sneezed and The Fabulous Firework Family are two of his best. Finally, there was the ink and collage work of M. Sasek whose series of This Is books—over a dozen of them from 1959 to 1970, including This Is London and This Is

Israel —continue to inspire with their mosaic-like cities and collaged bits and pieces. With its angular design, bright palette, and geometric shapes, Pinocchio, the Boy, I hope, is a tip of the cap to that era.

Back to 2002 and the digital age. Molly Leach, the designer of all of my books, makes the words and pictures work together. She usually resists my suggestions to use cartoony typefaces; her choices are classier than that. But this time a retro-cartoony style felt appropriate. So she selected the fonts Myriad and Nueva, which are playful but not outright wacky. And since my files were digital, Molly was able to throw the text directly onto the picture, hand it back to me, and let me work around the text. It was a lot easier than working on some of our older books. Back then, if I hadn't allowed enough room for her text, we'd be forced to overlap the words onto part of an illustration or if we were working with an agreeable sort, like Jon Scieszka, he might help us out by cutting a few lines.

The computer has made the printing process much easier too. Years ago, Viking's design director, Denise Cronin, and I would go through six, seven, or even ten proof checks, trying to match colors. For some of my previous books, the art was painted on a board, which meant it wouldn't bend, which meant it wouldn't wrap around a scanning drum, which meant we had to shoot transparencies and send them to the printer, which meant from the beginning we were one generation removed from the original art, which meant from that point on we were just crossing our fingers and hoping to match the actual colors. This time, however, because the art was digital, and because there was no middle stage, and because what the printer saw on his monitor was exactly what I had seen on my mine, the first proof came back perfect.

So from the creation of the art, to the design of the type, to the proofing and printing of the book, the computer has turned out to be a great new tool all around.

And that, as Pinocchio would say, is it in a nutshell.