How to Illustrate a Picture Book: Creating the Drawings 

My 7th-grade students are writing their stories and then publishing a picture book they will read to elementary students. Thank you for creating this video to show the illustrating steps for a children's book. Thank you!

great video! Thanks for the help Lynne. A brilliant insight to your practice!

I really enjoy your whimsical illustrations, Lynne!

I really appreciate you sharing your process. What a gift.

Thank you for sharing your creative process. Lovely work.

Wonderful, clear instruction and insight on how hard you work towards the end product. Thank you for sharing

Embarking on my first book illustration job. I am a graphic designer by trade, but have not lost my respect and love for true art and design fundamentals. Thank you for taking time to share your expertise in this craft!!!

A super video Lynne, thank you for sharing your talent and time - going to file this in my 'favourites' list :-)

This has been such a wonderful resource, thank you so much for sharing your process! It's always been a dream of mine to become a children's book illustrator, and I have just started the process of creating a portfolio geared towards illustration. Your videos have inspired me to take those first steps, thank you!

Thank you so much for sharing your insights! You are so kind and inspiring!

Hi Lynne, I enjoyed your demonstration and accent! I am an artist too and really appreciate you sharing how to go about preparing your illustrations for the publisher. Learned some very important aspects of being prepared for changes. Thank you very much.

This was fabulous! I have always wondered about the process! Thanks for this!

Liked. Shared. Thanks for making this clip for everyone Lynne

your drawing style is so awesome !You're fantastic !

Thanks so much for sharing this video. My daughter loves drawing and is very keen to become an illustrator. It was really good to see how the illustrations develop through drafting stages. Would love to see another video of what happens once you get the feedback from your publisher.

Very cool! Nice work, thanks for sharing your process.

Thank you. This was really helpful and you are most kind and so candid. Lovely! Awesome work too!

Thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it!

Lynn I have your Craftsy class and I have to say you are one of my favorite people as an illustrator teacher and just adorable person. I wish I could meet you! I love the way you simplify character creation!

Hi Lynne! Thank you for this video. I have found it incredibly useful. I'm about to begin illustrating a childrens book for a client who has written her first book. Thank you so much!

Thanks for your advise! I'm going to make my very first picture book recently. This video is so helpful! Love your drawing! I will definitely go find your picture book for my kindergarten children :)

Excellent! Thank you for such valuable tips.

Again very informative, I love your work and you are very inspirational Thank you

This is extremely helpful, Lynne :). Thank you for taking the time to go through the process for us, step-by-step.

Thanks so much for sharing your process. So helpful!

Thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge .

Cheers - glad you enjoyed it.

Thank you very much, this was sooo instructive! You are very kind.

Beautiful drawings and nice and clear video lesson, thanks

This was so fascinating to me. I had no idea about the process of illustrating a book. Thank you for educating me on this. You obviously love your work. I'm sure, like any job, it has its stress, but I imagine it feels more like play than work.

Thank you for sharing your process. You were very helpful.

Thanks a lot for providing such detailed and important information, i am a fresher graphic designer and this video help me understand better about how to complete my illustration projects.

Beautiful illustrations and watching it was so interesting - thanks for sharing your working process and I'd love to see how it goes on!!:)

Thank you for this! I'm not an illustrator but am trying to illustrate my daughter's book. Just listening to you helped me to think of other things that I hadn't thought about! Thanks for doing this video. I greatly appreciate it.

Your video is so helpful. Thank you!

awesome!!! thank you for the details!

Excellent = thank you for creating this video!

Thank you for sharing the process - very useful tips for beginner illustrator like me:)

So so useful! Thank you.

Cool. I like the layout paper idea. Quentin blake does something similar with watercolour paper and a light box for the same reasons.

Thank you so much for being so inspiring

Being a designer who uses a graphics tablet, I was just cringing at all that paper she was using! But I do understand it's the method she's used to. Thank you for the video!

Thanks for sharing this… so interesting.

Fab insight Lynne, thanks so much for sharing. Didn't realise how many of your drawings we have on our shelves too... Super!

Lynne, you did it all on paper. I love my ipad pro that I use for making pictures. Can I use those too for a book design?

Thank you so much for sharing this video! The drawings look great! I love your work! What kind of pastel colors are you using? Best regards, Andreea

ohhhhh, hermoso trabajo, genial linda

Thank you so much for this video!!

Thanks Lynne for a great video! Was wondering if you could actually make a video of you using photoshop and showing the steps toward enlarging the thumbnails. That would be extremely helpful, Thanks again

Thanks a million Lynne

Nice! Helped me with my project. Thank you!💖

Im so happy I found this video - great to see people still happy to give advice without getting paid for it. Very useful video, thank you for sharing! I have a question regarding the process of getting your drawings into finished book. my plan: use line-drawings & watercolour to make my scetches -> scan them high resolution -> upload my digital scanned files to Adobe Indesign, where I will create the whole book. My question is if I need to use a profesional firm to scan my pictures, or do you think using a normal home-scanner will be sufficient, with the many features adobe ( creative cloud) have included? Are you adding your colours in Adobe inDesign or is that the designers job? Trying to figure if I should add watercolour to my sketches or add all colours in photoshoop. I will be doing everything myself :) Thank you so much again, & looking forward to hear from u!

Really interesting and detailed. What happened next?

Hi Lynne, thank you SO much for sharing your expertise! Which program(s) do you use for working with the illustrations on your computer?

Hi Lynne! This has been a dream of mine- to write and illustrate a children's book. Didn't know where to start. You video was fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing. You are very talented! Quick question- What program did you use on your computer to edit your scanned images? Thanks!

Hi Lynne- This video was just what I needed. Thank you for posting. As a 3D artist and painter, basic cartoon illustrations is all I ever done. As I try to educate myself about the world of illustration, I wondered about the actual process. I saw one post that said you use photoshop. I'm wondering about the paper you use and sizes. Also wondering about your coloring process and how you submit those. Thank you so much.

Hi Lynne, great video, I was wondering what software you use to make the computer edits?

Lovely. Very interesting!

Very helpful . I am coming out with my first children's book which I think is going to be great and looking for illustrator myself. I have the text or script ready.

hola! Lynne, soy de argentina, incursino en el mundo de la ilustracion desde hace unos años, me encantan tus videos, me ayudan bastante, hay cosas que no entiendo porque no sé mucho inglés, igualmente me encantan!!! muchas gracias! besos

Thanks for sharing!!!

What programme do you use to scan in the images and edit them? Also how do you make the lines of the drawings bolder and sharper when you scan it?

Very informative! Thank you! What scanner and program did you use? Lovely illustrations.

Super helpful! If you don't mind me asking, what kind of scanner do you use (if you use one) to get your illustration onto the computer? Also what program do you use to tweak the picture around?

wonderful !

Thank you soo much for posting! :D

This is so helpful and interesting. Thank you. May I ask what software you use to edit your art and words?

Thanks for your great video! I just finished writing a a manuscript, but I can't draw as good as you do.

Great video... I like many others are curious where and when does the color get added? Do you do that or at the publishers?

That was WONDERDUL

Very helpful!

Nice art Lynne.

Hey Lynne, First I want to thank you for these videos. I am an aspiring illustrator and this is all quite helpful to me! I am wondering what computer programs you use for when you scan in your drawings? Also, once you get the green light from the publisher, what is your next step? How do you go about tracing the drawings in pastel? Thanks again!

Wow you draw really well. Did you have to develop and hone your drawing skills or are you a born artist? I am just starting this part of my children's book and wish that I could drawn my characters like you do.

woohoo! mine is the 1000th like! That's never happened before. :) Yeah, Im easy to please. Lynne, great video, and Im so jealous, you have such a great job. Please may I pick your brains? You said you scan the sketches into your computer and put them on a layout spread -- any particular software you use to create the spread? InDesign? Does the publisher tell you the size of the spread (i.e. the size of the book)? Or you get to decide? Ive written several children's books but never had any published. I'd like to illustrate them as well. My main medium is watercolour, and I'd like the illustrations to look like paintings rather than digitally drawn in Illustrator or any other software. Please could you tell me -- should I paint them and then scan them when they are perfect? If you want to tweak your drawings on the laptop what software do you use? You tweaked all the animals in the spread you showed, but does that mean you scanned each animal separately and put them all together in the final spread? Or you used layers in Photoshop? Sorry, Im sure some of my Qs sound really dumb, but Ive never professionally studied illustration -- I just love writing and illustrating children's books and would love to see my work published. Any advice from you would be priceless. Many thanks for your inspiring videos. All the best. :)

Did you do a video about adding colour? How long did it take you to create each page?I have written several children’s books and I am searching for illustrators but as I am a novice at this I am Ill-equipped to guide them. What computer program did you use to manipulate the images? Do you ever cut and paste your drawings from one to the next to conserve time? How large a scanner do you use and at what resolution?

Great video..... How often does the editors ask you make changes to your final illustrations once you send them off?

Brilliant work! Your such an amazing illustrator (so jealous haha) just out of interest what program do you use to scan your art work into pls? Good Luck 🍀

do you color in with colored pencils or paint?

I wanted to ask what the name of the program is that you use to create the spreads online? Also thanks for all your tips!! I found them very informative!

Great video!

Nice, I'm waiting for your next tutorials ......

Hi Lynn, love the video, very informative and helpful. Like a few others I would like to know what software programme you used to move around the text and tweak the illustrations?

so helpful.

Nice!

what scanner do you use and what computer program do you use to make the layout of the book and illustrations?

Hi Lynne, can I ask what software you use to place your text on each page. Currently working on my first picture book.

How do you add colour to your illustrations?

Hello Ms. Lynne, do you only accept submissions through agents/publishers for consideration or do you welcome new authors?

Hi I really enjoyed your videos, so inspiring 🙂💞💕. I have a question what are the first step to become a Children book Illustrator?

Thanks for posting. Love your animal drawings. How did you go about getting hooked up with a publisher? How much would you get paid for illustrating a book? Hope it is not crass to ask.

thank you very helpful. I am wondering if you could recommend a software. Preferably one that does not require monthly fees but that you can purchase outright. I am working on a kids book for my grandkids and this was really helpful.

What kind of machine do you use to scan

Hi Lynne Loved your videos which I've watched this morning, 4 of them. I'm just getting into illustration and writing my own children's books, which I've been wanting to do for years but as a teacher never had the time or confidence to go for it. I am probably looking to self publish. My main question is what software is needed to upload pictures and set them with the text? But also, when do you add colour and do you always use pastels to colour? Thanks again for the inspiration

Could you tell us what materials you used for the drawings in this video, i.e, type and weight of the paper, graphite or something else, etc.? I am enjoying watching your videos. I am an infant when it comes to drawing, but I have already learned a lot from this video (about your process).

I am creating a book and looking to do both the writing and illustrating...Do I submit my book first? Or do I draw the pages out as well and then submit both?

Did you draw and paint the illustration in the same size of the book? Or bigger and how big? 😊❤

your thumbnail is great already xD

Hi! What program do you use to edit your scanned drawings on the computer?

No pressure! Geese!