BACKSTORY 02: THE MAP FOR MY BOOK "FORMAS"

FORMAS is an eighty-page silent book and a good example on how to tell a story only with pictures. At the beginning of the story we might thing it is the woman's journey, but the surprise comes when we realize that the main character of the story is something different. Being a journey and story told only with pictures, I had to create a map of the place for the sake of clarity and causality.

This is a detail of the map showing the first pages of the book. The girl descending the stairs on the left will walk from left to right, meet some people on the street walking in both directions and then she will meet the person who is carrying a shape that fits exactly with hers. The thing is, the story will not be that predictable, and that becomes one of the themes of the book. You can see in the book that the P.O.V. on these pages keeps the same distance for all the scenes and "the camera" moves for left to right in order to follow the girl.

In these first pages, I keep the horizontal line for the ground on the same level so it's easy for the reader to understand the actor's (the girl) movement on the stage.

When the fish falls into the water, the "camera" zooms out so I can show the boat. Later it's going to zoom in again in order to show what will happen on board.

Here's an interview where I talk about about the book at the Guadalajara Book fair in Mexico.

FORMAS was originally published by Editorial Oceano in 2009. It was then translated to Korean (Damphus), French (Alice), Portuguese (Hedra Educaçao) and Chinese (Phei Publishing House).

You can PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE

BACKSTORY 01: THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF MY BOOK "NO"

                                    

My picture book "No" was published in 2011 (Ed.Oceano). It took a lot of time in the making. With the help and wise opinion from people I love and trust, it ended up being a book I cherish and that kids and librarians adore. Things I like from this book: the rythm, the suspense, the little bear child's voice, the journey.  I'm sharing some of the steps in the making of "No" in here.

These were the first thumbnails for the book. At that time, the title was "IN", since I my. original intention was to pair it with another book about a mole who wanted to leave his home underground and it was called OUT.

This book hasn't found a publishing house yet, but it was the reason why I made the book called "No".

This is a video of one of the first dummies for the book and the one I sent to publishers for consideration. This version is very close to the thumbnails. The story is also very similar to the final book, except for the design of the spreads, more economy on the text and the final line which made it a much better book.

This is a photograph of the book in its original version, published in Spanish by Oceano Travesia.

An interior double spread from the English version, published by Groundwood Books, compared to the thumbnail version. In the final version, I began to add the snow fall from the beginning and gradually add the snow on every page. Also, I decided to add an owl, as a reference to the coming of the night.

I placed this scene of little bear playing on page 5 of the thumbnails. On the final version, it became the opening scene and the mother only appears in the text. She interrupts that very special moment for the little bear saying it's time to sleep. I also decided to add the last leaf of Autumn and a couple of snowflakes to announce the beginning of Winter.

My book "No" has been translated into seven different languages including French, English, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese.

The Italian edition of my book NO was the recipient of the Nati Per Leggere (Born to Read) Award. This award aims to support the best editorial production for preschoolers in Italy. It was also a CCBC choice in 2011 and it got Booklist Starred Review.

CHARACTER SKETCHES: THE CAT BOOKS

When I was asked to illustrate the first book of the Cat series by wonderful author Deborah Underwood, I knew from the manuscript that the story was strongly supported on characterization. I did hundreds of sketches and explored many different options for the way Cat would look like. This is a sample of one of the sketches that I brought to the meeting at the Penguin offices in New York City.

And this is the way Cat ended up looking like.

These are some studies for Cat's facial expressions.

And here and article from The Children's Book Review, where I speak with Deborah Underwood about the process of creating the book and Cat's character.

You are invited to visit my IG place

EDITORIAL
ILLUSTRATION
BY
CLAUDIA
RUEDA
LINK HERE

My new Workshop on Illustrating for Children

More info here

We were Live at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota

It was a great opportunity to talk about how picture books are children's first museums of art and how to develop their critical thinking through stories. Thanks to Marcela Escovar and to the Museum of Modern Art for the invitation.

And here is the interview (in Spanish)

Being an author in the times of COVID19

Thanks to Alexandra Vives and Nido de Libros for this interesting interview in the times of COVID19.
NIDO DE LIBROS LINK