Lizi Boyd

After a day of stimulating, substantive presentations at SLJ’s annual Day of Dialog on May 29, Rita Auerbach, children’s literature specialist and storyteller, moderated the final panel of the event, "Visual Storytelling,” which featured a diversity of acclaimed author/illustrators speaking about their art. The panelists were Lizi Boyd, Inside Outside (Chronicle); Oliver Jeffers, The Day the Crayons Quit (Penguin); Matt Phelan, Bluffton: My Summer with Buster Keaton (Candlewick); Chris Raschka, Daisy Gets Lost (Random); and David Wiesner, Mr. Wuffles! (Houghton Harcourt).

Oliver Jeffers

Boyd set the scene by quoting from Rilke—“art is childhood”—and naming the poet the source for the title of her latest book, Inside Outside. "It was as if I was transcribing it from a child's eye," she said of her concept book, which begins and ends with winter scenes. Her artwork was inspired by the changing of the seasons in Vermont where she lives, she said, noting that, while winter is her favorite time of year, spring in Vermont offers one special "lime sherbet day” when the leaves near her home begin to bud. Jeffers drew laughter from the audience for claiming that he didn't know he had to prepare for today's event. He continued to entertain as he related some of the the funny (and true) inspirations for his stories, the advantage of being both author and illustrator of a book (which is how he usually works in picture books), and how he came to create the artwork for Drew Daywalt's The Day the Crayons Quit  (a clever—and tricky—editor was the matchmaker for artist and writer).

Matt Phelan

“I intended to be a fine artist, a painter,” Jeffers told the crowd. “Then I realized I was trying to create this narrative,” for which picture books are perfect for exploring. He said he didn’t consider himself a writer, but “a storyteller who uses words and pictures.” Talking about technique, Phelan, who considers the graphic novel a "medium" rather than a genre, described some of the various artistic styles he employs to set the tone of different stories in his graphic novels, and the ways in which utilizing various sizes of panels can help control a story’s pacing. “I am really fascinated by that, and by the power of the silent panels,” Phelan said. Raschka also noted that "more and more I'm doing books with fewer and fewer words.” He called it “a fascinating thing to do” but a scary one, too, since “it all hangs on the pictures. You can’t hide behind anything…it has to keep you turning the pages.”

Chris Raschka

Raschka then showed the audience some of the “little books” he creates when he pitches new stories to his editors. Each features color artwork in a bit of a rough storyboard. “This is how Daisy  began—this is what I send to my editors,” he said, revealing some of the vibrant pages within. “I just keep making books like this over and over again, until finally I have a book that everyone likes, but it’s not a hardship for me; this is the closest thing to the art form that I like.”

David Wiesner and Rita Auerbach

Wiesner also talked technique, and demonstrated his use of visual language by taking the audience through his various color and typeface choices in Art and Max, which he uses to identify which character is speaking, plus the very intentional layout of Flotsam. The final version of his award-winning picture book differs from its earlier drafts in many key ways, and Wiesner shared examples of these in black and white to show how the layouts evolved during the publishing process. The final color version, Wiesner said, aims for maximum storytelling impact. “The turn of the page is the essence of the picture book,” he said. Weisner also revealed some inside spreads of his new release Mr. Wuffles!, whichs includes visual depictions of an alien language, a bug language, and a cat language—but no text. “Is this [really] a wordless book?” he joked. Ultimately, attendees were left amused and amazed, yet with the feeling of wanting to know more about these artists and their intriguing creative work.