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Sebastia Serra modeled his pirates and ship
Those aren’t my words above (although they’re my sentiments, certainly.) They are the closing lines of “A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas”, the new children’s picture book by Philip Yates and Sebastia Serra (Sterling Press.)
"A Pirate's Night Before Christmas"
I’ve never done a “two-parter” on a children’s book before, but this is a special occasion.
First, it’s so close to Christmas and this book is a quintessential Christmas greeting, as told by one scabrous seadog to another.
Second, the wonderful illustrator Sebastia Serra who lives just outside Barcelona, Spain, just finished a deadline.
And so he was able, just this morning to share with us some words about how he created his magical pictures for this brand new “Christmas classic.” (We heard from author Philip Yates, who lives in Austin, Texas and is part of our amazing Austin SCBWI chapter in the previous post.)
Serra says, “For me, A Pirates Night before Christmas is a very special book.
“ The subject of the pirates has always been of interest for me but I never had the opportunity of illustrating it before. For this reason, I felt very much like doing it. Moreover, the text of Philip Yates is just wonderful and enormously inspiring for an illustrator. It is absolutely full of suggestive images and close characters.
“My working process always starts with a very thorough documentation work. I try to look for the atmosphere of the book in order to make it “breathing” like the text. For this reason I had to do a deep immersion in the pirates’ world: engravings, books, films, websites, etc.
“For the characters’ process I use plenty of paper. There are many attempts and sketches before I find the character that fits the text.
“I often create some characters in 3D and in this way it is easier to draw them from all viewpoints. This time I was lucky to find an 18th century scale model ship that was very helpful to develop the different settings in a coherent way.
“The design of the scenes is always very intuitive. I usually have the image in my mind before starting to draw. Most of the images start forming in my mind from the first reading of the text.
”From here on, the work with the computer starts. The whole of the process is digital. I add different textures like wood, ink stains, papers, etc. For this book of pirates, that has an atmosphere of old sailors’ song, I used papers of the 18th century which I scanned from the back of documents I found in a museum in the city where I live.
“I am really proud of this book. On one hand due to the greatness of Yates’ text, and on the other, because I have the feeling that this time my work as illustrator has brought more to the whole of the text,” Serra says.
You can find Sebastia Serra’s website here.
For more images by Sebastia Serra from “A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas” see the previous post and interview with author- poet Philip Yates below.
'Sir Peggedy' visits the pirate ship in "A Pirate's Night Before Christmas"
My two all-time favorite Holiday Season picture books are by members of my own children’s writing group!
One is Santa Knows by Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, illustrated by Steve Bjorkman (Dutton).
The other is the new A Pirates Night Before Christmas, by Philip Yates, illustrated by Sebastia Serra (Sterling .)
"A Pirate's Night Before Christmas" by Phillip Yates and illustrator Sebastia Serra
I guess there would be one more, and that would be the classic A Child’s Christmas in Wales by the poet Dylan Thomas, but that’s because of the fascinating wash illustrations by the great Edward Ardizzone. (David R. Godine, Publisher)
But how amazing is that when the two quintessential (modern) Christmas picture books you can think of are by writers from your own tribe, in your own town?
Yates is a poet and humorist as well as an author, and in “Pirate’s Night Before Christmas, he applied all three gifts to a sea-yarn retelling of Clemment Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas.”
“I wrote the whole story by asking questions and putting myself into this workd that is uniquely the pirates,” he told Cynthia Leitich Smith in her children’s and YA literature blog Cynsations.
“That’s what writing successful picture books is all about — asking the right questions and letting the answers come in the most heartfelt way. “
How would pirates celebrate Christmas? Yates wondered.
They would be too bad and mean to deserve a visit from Santa come so they would need their own ornery ’sea dog’ version of Santa — and he would drive a marine sleigh pulled by seahorses!
The rhyme structure of Moore’s famous Christmas classic is anapestic tetrameter. It’s the meter also found in Dr. Seuss’s beloved Yertle the Turtle and Cat in the Hat, Yates said.
“It’s a breezy, whimsical, magical form that just flows beautifully and is highly contagious when read out loud,” he told Smith.
To prepare to put new language and new word pictures into old poetic forms, Yates steeped himself in pirate lore – ”the grammar, the slang, the history, the parts of the ship… ” he told Smith.
Actually composing the poem took him only two days.
He sent the ms out to five publishers and received offers from three!
He went with Sterling, who offered first, and Sterling pulled in talented Spanish illustrator Sebastia Serra, who lives in a village on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona.
Children’s book illustrators and pirates have a special relationship with each other that pre-dates Disney and Johnny Depp.
Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth leap to mind, and so does Gustaf Tenggren.
Serra’s pirates evoke wooden toys, marionettes and bright-colored sea creatures. There’s something oddly menacing about them, as there should be — particularly that ’outlaw santa’, Sir Peggedy.
Serra’s illustrations for the book were created with pencil and ink on parchment, and then digitially colored.
Pirates — even cliche pirates — are never cute — not in the best depictions of them that resonate with children and the child in all of us.
Robert Louis Stevenson knew this. Long John Silver had us wondering up until the very end of Treasure Island if he was a bad guy or a good guy. We were never sure, not even after turning the novel’s last page, although he usually treated young Jim Hawkins decently.
As in the word portraits of pirates, pictures of pirates must include some minor key sounds – disturbing elements in the colors, details of the caricatures, or the ’spirit’ behind a scene (even when the Christmas socks are hung from the bowsprit with care.)
Pirates in children’s picture books can be poignant and a tiny bit endearing. But if they come off too cuddly, they’re just wrong! Children get this. And so do Yates and Serra.
Serra's pirate ship from "The Pirate's Night Before Christmas"
Yates talked with us about the illustrations that appear in his book.
When you were writing, were you imagining the pictures in the book-to-be? Did you kind of visually “thumbnail” the whole work in your head?
Or did you mainly focus on the language of the poem – already sort of knowing that the stanzas would work as a rollicking, page turning, picture book experience.
A lot of the creation of the narrative involved inserting pictures in my head as I wrote. I knew the structure of the poem’s anapestic meter so well that I trusted the language to guide me on the voyage. The poem already works and has stood the test of time for nearly 190 years. Since the language was already there, I just had to pop in the images that worked best.
I immersed myself so thoroughly in the pirate world that the images came first and guided the language. For example, in the opening stanzas, I couldn’t hang stockings from chimneys so I had to research how pirate ships looked and where a stocking would hang and it wasn’t until I came across a picture of a bowsprit that I realized it was a perfect place to hang a stocking.
But with what? Well, I found illustrations of ships that used tar to make repairs and since tar rhymes with thar,the two came together in perfect synchronicity.
I’m not an illustrator, but the book truly was guided by the ”picture” first, the “narrative” second.
From "The Pirate's Night Before Christmas"
Were you permitted any kind of communication with Sebastia Serra during the illustration process?
The whole discovery of Serra was simply amazing and all credit is due my editor at Sterling Publishing. Serra had submitted a portfolio to Sterling and one look at his artwork and they knew he was perfect. All the communication regarding the artwork was done between Serra and Sterling, or Sterling and me. I never spoke to him by phone,
communicated by email, or anything. It would have been heavenly to talk to him, but sometimes you have to trust your art director and this was a case where I totally put my trust in them from the start.
Were you given an opportunity to share ideas about the art. (Or did you even want such an opportunity?)
I had very little to contribute since the art was so splendid. I almost think it was eerie how perfectly he captured the world I envisioned. But there were tiny things like “I want to see more seaweed on Sir Peggedy,” or “His tooth needs to be golder,” since this was boldly expressed in the verses themselves.
I also wanted more people of all colors and races because pirate worlds were pretty diverse, when you think about it.
Any insight into why your editor at Sterling selected
Sebastia to illustrate?
His artwork was modern, moody, had an edgy quality to it that was appealing. Similar to Lane Smith, I think. Lots of clutter, but I mean that in a postive way. Detail upon detail. He could also handle crowds of pirates in one picture, which, when you look at the illustrations, you can see this was necessary. They were also struck by the world he had created on his own with my language as the starting board—the monkey running around,
the fish hanging on the Christmas tree, the treasure map with it’s unique geography. It was all in the details.
'Sir Peg' with the men. Illustration by Sebastia Serra
What was (is) your reaction to his art for the book when you saw it?
I was overwhelmed, to be honest. As I said earlier, it felt like some telepathic thing had been going on between us. After seeing all the illustrations together for the first time, it almost felt like he had been looking over my shoulder the whole time I was writing it, it
was that spooky. But mostly, to be honest, was the feeling that I had accomplished what I set out to do—I had given him enough of this world so that he could go off on his own and expand it and give it his own twist.
At one reading recently, a parent came up to me and she thought I had done the illustrations and was surprised when she saw Serra’s name on it.
She said that the language and the visuals so perfectly meshed and how did it manage to come out without me even being in the same room with him. I was also proud because now he has several illustrator offers on his table, thanks to the Pirate’s success.
Have you done any kind of teamed promotional activity with Serra? Or are there plans to team the two of you somehow on the promotional circuit?
Well, Sebastia’s in Barcelona, Spain and here I am in Austin. He has been promoting it as best he can, but I imagine that it’s difficult to translate Clement Moore’s poem from English into Spanish without messing with the rhyme or meter in some way. I imagine the story can be told successfully in Spanish because the pictures are so great. I do hope to meet him some day and he is eager to team up again on another project, but right now it’s difficult for both of us to get together.
Author Phil Yates
A Declaration of Art!
Illustrator and Fine Artist Theresa Bayer, who has written and taught before in these pages, cogitated on the following statement for a while before she finally got it the way she wanted it. Then she ran it on her blog . She calls it The ‘Fun Art ‘Manifesto.
I thought she expressed it so beautifully that I asked her if How To Be A Childrens Book Illustrator could help her spread the word.
Sorry, there is no place to sign your approval on the bottom like America’s forefathers did on the Declaration of Independence.
(I asked.)
But you can post a comment on her blog — or post one here and I’ll forward it to Theresa. And while you’re at it, link to a picture on your own art blog that you deem a good example of this new (and old) genre.
OK, then. Ready? Let’s take our Tennis Court Oath.
The Fun Art Manifesto
© 2008 Theresa Bayer www.tbarts.com
Somewhere between the noble realm of Fine Art and the mighty realm of Illustration, lies a curious little field that is coming to be known as Fun Art.
Although Fun Art is neither fine art nor illustration it has elements of both. It doesn’t seem to have an official history, although it’s probably been around as long as there have been artists. Fun Art may have a future, but no one is betting on it. Fun Art is simply Now.
Like fine art, Fun Art is all about being individual, having something interesting to say, and saying it in your own voice. Unlike fine art, Fun Art does not take itself seriously. There are no weighty ponderings about symbolism or realism or abstract outsiderism or any other kind of ism. There are no isms in Fun Art, yet Fun Art embraces all isms. Fun Art is a prism of isms, but not a prisoner of isms.
Like illustration, Fun Art is highly accessible, can easily be read and absorbed and has the same immediate visual and popular appeal that good illustration has. It can be cute or corny or even commercially appealing and that’s OK. Unlike illustration, Fun Art can stand alone and without a story or product to enhance– although it can also be narrative.
Fun Art is joyful, even when veers toward dark and edgy. There is a zingy energy to it that doesn’t depend on gravitas; its finest examples express a genuineness that goes beyond any commercial concern, even if the subject matter happens to be highly salable. You might call some of it a glorified doodle, but that’s OK too, because there is glory to be found in doodling.
An Artful Moment
Fun Art has its own set of challenges. Just because it’s humorous or easy on the eyes does not necessarily mean it’s easy to make. Fun Art is of the imagination, and drawing straight from the imagination is a tall order. Foreshortening, perspective, lighting, composition, and fascinating little details are difficult enough when drawing from life. Doing all this from the imagination can be brain wracking indeed–some form of reference is always a help and can inspire an artist greater heights of creative fancy. Any art that is worth looking at is something an artist has put a lot of work into, and Fun Art is no exception. Composition, color, expression, freshness, detail, and originality are every bit as important in Fun Art as they are in fine art and in illustration.
What deep insights can possibly be had out of Fun Art? None whatsoever, unless by now you’re alive to the notion that joy and humor are meaningful enough to take seriously–in a lighthearted sort of way of course. No angst, no snobbery, no credentials in Fun Art. All it requires is daily practice and a passion for wackiness. Now that’s fun!
Theresa Bayer, a professional artist in Austin, Texas
received her B.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. See examples of her work at her website and blog .
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