We have been busily working on the next Bobbledy Book. It’s called Archipelago, and it’s a book about words. If “Archipelago” seems like a difficult thing for a kid to say, that’s just the point. We contend that if you break it into small pieces, saying “Archipelago” is easy, and quite a bit of fun. There are so many long and wonderful words out there (and plenty of short and wonderful words, too), and so we decided to write a book that helps kids discover them. And also, we hope, develop a lifelong love affair with language.
Because there are lots of words in the book, Robbi had to draw pictures to illustrate them all.
See below drawings of different kinds of sauces, a sloop, and various zoo animals.
Robbi draws the outlines with pen and ink and then she colors them with watercolors.
But then we need to get them into the book. Here’s how it’s done.
Robbi asks (I mean commands) her assistant to scan the images, in this case, an image of a reluctant marsupial.
The assistant places the image face down on the scanner, which is a special kind of camera that takes a picture of something flat (like a painting, in this case).
Once the scanner has done it’s work, the painting shows up on the assistant’s computer.
Notice how the assistant also has lots of laundry to fold. This poor guy is constantly under the gun.
Once the paintings are all scanned and on the computer, the assistant sends them to Robbi.
Robbi opens the images up in Photoshop, and makes all sorts of adjustments on her external tablet monitor, removing smudges or improving shading, that sort of thing.
Then she puts the image into the InDesign (the page layout program) layout, which is on one of her other monitors.
Here is the layout with one finished painting (the cat) in place, and several others (the tree and the doll) still in sketch form.
But then she imports the colored doll painting.
And puts it in place.
And then she does this about sixty more times. This book has a lot of illustrations.
And that’s one tiny part of how we make a book.
The moral of this story is, Robbi is lucky to have such a fabulous assistant.