Welcome
to my monthly interview feature! I’m so excited to be interviewing all the
fabulous artists, illustrators and designers I’ve meet over the years (both
personally and virtually!) and sharing their artwork and experiences here on
Bird Meets Worm. Look for a new interview on the first Tuesday of every month.
This month I’m tickled pink to be chatting it up with my fellow
Tugeau2 artist, the fabulous Illustrator, Paula J. Becker! I am a total fan of
her fun and whimsical art for children’s publishing! Paula has been a freelance
Illustrator for over 25 years, creating engaging artwork for children’s books,
magazines, posters, greeting cards, educational curriculum and more. You can view more of her artwork here.
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| How fun is this High Five magazine cover?! |
Q: You are totally “The
Queen” of kid’s magazine illustration! Dish with us about this fun, unique
market and describe some of your MOST favorite kid’s magazine assignments
A: Well, I don’t know if I’m “The Queen”, but thanks! Whether an accurate description or not, I guess that
over my career, I've been fortunate to illustrate a good number of magazine
spreads and spots. I am grateful so many clients have employed and trusted me
to enhance writers' stories, or orchestrate puzzles. And a fair amount of them
ARE puzzles of some sort: hidden pictures, mazes, multiple puzzles in spreads,
etc. Each one comes with its unique requests, and turns out to be a puzzle in
itself for ME to figure out! And it’s obvious that I like busy scenes, a la
Sergio Aragones of Mad magazine, big influences of my work! Busy crowd
scenes are so much fun to create!
I definitely targeted children’s
magazines when I started out in the early 90’s. I also sent promos to publishing
companies, but magazine work has been my biggest client base over the years.
There are several pros to doing illustration for magazines—one being that the
projects are smaller (compared to a book), hence the turn-around time for both
the project and the compensation is shorter. I also like the variety of
projects that magazines’ need—from stories, to spots for jokes, to mazes and
puzzles of various sorts.
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| Don'tcha just love the colors & energy in this piece?! |
A: I prefer to try to keep a workday
routine of traditional office hours. I am usually up by 7:30 (unless I worked
late the evening before). I’ll have coffee and catch up on news, etc., a quick
breakfast, then start work at 9 a.m. I have a separate bedroom that is my
office/studio space. I have a weekly over-all productivity/to do list that
covers everything (I like paper, so haven’t digitalized that aspect of
organization yet). I rewrite the daily list each morning so I get a sense of
what to accomplish that day, working off the main list and previous day’s list,
with items divided up by work-tasks and everything else-tasks.
Sometimes that gets “blown” within an
hour or two, if I’ve underestimated the time an illustration takes, or
something distracts me. But I am in constant training to manage my work and
life in general. I’ve recently read several books on productivity, such as Deep
Work by Cal Newport, and Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg.
I found these books to help me understand the psychology of work and to
work….well, smarter, faster, better—and deeper! I’ve just started to read Real
Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins. Reading books on productivity,
listening to podcasts on related topics, etc. is a major element of my formula
for generating motivation and developing as an artist/illustrator.
I am often asked what medium/media I
work in, and when I tell people it’s all digital, they are surprised. I usually
say, “I work digitally, but traditionally”, or “I work traditionally, but
digitally”. I think they both mean the same things, yes? My workhorse is a
desktop computer with a dual-monitor set up, with a 22” Wacom Cintiq as my main
monitor, and a 32” monitor as my secondary. For backup systems and mobile
working, I have a Dell laptop, with a Wacom Intuos tablet, as well as a 13”
Wacom MobileStudio Pro. For software, I pretty much use Corel Painter 15 &
17. Painter 18 is out, and I’ll upgrade soon. I have the Adobe CS4 but don’t
use them often.
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| Who's else is up for #4, #5 & #7?! |
Besides the 9-5 hours, I will sometimes
work on projects in the late evening on into the early morning, depending on my
workload or if I am up against a deadline. The benefits to working a late night
shift are the lack of usual daytime distractions. It’s an ideal time to get a
good-sized creative block of time with minimal to no interruptions.
Keeping up with one’s books and taxes
is a part of the business, albeit not as fun and creative as illustrating! I don’t use any special accounting
software for that, but I do have spreadsheets for keeping track of invoices and
business expenses, as well as anything licensed. The only specific routine I
have related to this aspect of the business is, when I create an invoice, at
the same time, I record when, to whom, and the amount on the spread sheet, and
then when a payment arrives. I also print out invoices and file them, and have
a file for business receipts. At some point, I want to make this a “mastery”
type of project, to improve and maybe overhaul my system, but with such a small
amount of invoices and business expenses, I’m in no hurry, as it is fairly easy
to maintain as it is.
I should add that I will sometimes take
time to look at other illustrators’ work. There is so much amazing talent out
there, and I like to study other illustrators’ techniques and visual problem
solving. I have a file on my computer just for collecting illustrations. I find
it inspirational and many times, viewing other’s illustration helps me push my
boundaries.
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| Don't worry if you're cornfused! Of course, you'll make it out—mwaaahhh ha ha! |
A: For a recent illustration project, The
“Creepy Corn Maze”, created for this
October issue of OWL magazine, is a recent favorite of mine. I really like how
that turned out in the end. I pushed myself on that and did a more painterly
style as well as darker and richer color scheme. When I saw how it looked in
print, I was quite happy with the end product.
For an “older” illustration project I
chose “10 Fun Things To Do With Your
Family”, a two-page group of spot illustrations created in 2011 for a Focus
on the Family magazine. I am pleased when I can succeed in keeping an
illustration light, loose and fun. I had fun with line and color and pattern
here. Contrary to how a style like this looks, it is not so easy for me to pull
off. I have to almost always fight over-working an illustration.
Q: You’ve illustrated countless stories for kids—both in
magazines and in books. Dish with us about your process for creating narrative
illustrations—beginning with receiving the manuscript thru to the final art.
A: Projects come to me in different forms. Some come as just the
manuscript (copy with art notes and dimensions), while others come as PDF files
with all the copy on the spreads/pages, and also containing art direction notes
(I like when my clients send me a template
to work from. I prefer to organize my illustration around the copy and space
provided, then there’s no guessing game).
I do pretty much everything from start
to finish digitally—sketches, revisions, and final art. There are many benefits
to working digitally, one being the ability to revise images. Cutting and
pasting, trying different colors, and erasing are all made easier and faster. I
use many, many layers in my illustrations, but you get used to the “chore” of
labeling layers, so you don’t lose time figuring out what layer is what! So
when an illustration is completed, I also can easily and quickly get that to
the client.
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| Carnival—art direction |
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| Carnival—black and white sketch |
Q: You’ve had a long and successful career as a freelance
illustrator and you are still going strong! (Go, Paula!!!) What are your top 3
tips for working illustrators looking to land new clients?
A: Uhm…I think that’s a question I
would ask, too! We’re all in that boat!
Marketing is not my strong suit (many
creatives feel that way) and I would almost say that the course of my career
and the jobs that have come have been more happenstance than a solid marketing
plan! Though the Internet and computer have changed a lot about the profession,
there are some fundamentals that are still the same in regards to marketing,
and looking to land new clients. I may not come up with three, but here’s what
I do:
1—Research potential clients that would
buy and use your art style. The internet has just made it enormously easier to
research said clients!
2—Mail-outs (Promo package, postcards):
Still the standard way as far as I know, to reach existing and new clients.
3—Repeat 1 & 2 over and over again!
Of course, having an online portfolio,
networking, attending illustration-type conferences & workshops, etc., are
all part of moving your business forward. It’s a lot to keep up with, and you
do what you can. It’s like any other business: you do the hustle!
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| Carnival—finished color art |
Q: Describe your most perfect day.
A: A perfect day for me would be doing
whatever appealed to me that given day, free from the cares of the world
interfering, either physically or mentally. For example, a solid day of
progressing on client or personal projects, but without the body pains, money
worries, or computer crashes! : D
Thank you for chatting it up with us here at Bird Meets
Worm, Paula! You’re fabulous!