Interview with Elizabeth O. Dulemba, author/illustrator of SOAP, SOAP, SOAP

Read on to find out more about Elizabeth, her creative process and new book, and advice for hopeful children’s book writers/illustrators…

Elizabeth O. Dulemba is an award winning children’s book author and illustrator. Her first picture book, The Prince’s Diary, was named No. 1 2006 Valentine’s Day Pick by Book Sense, and her bilingual Paco and the Giant Chile Plant was a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Bronze medalist. She also illustrates for Highlights Magazine, writes articles for the SCBWI Bulletin, and teaches at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

You can find more info about Elizabeth and her books at her website, plus you can follow her on Twitter.

What was your creative process for writing/illustrating Soap Soap Soap?

For SOAP I sketched most of the elements by hand – pencil on paper every which way (it’s pretty funny looking) – then scanned them in to my computer where I arranged the compositions in Photoshop. I added flat color in Photoshop then did all my rendering in Painter. (I use a Wacom tablet and dual monitors.) For this book, I did something new – I added textures to the grass, bricks and mud. It’s subtle, but I really liked the affect and would like to do more of that.

I love the textures, plus the feeling of warmth and light throughout your artwork. What influenced the atmosphere you were going for?

Thank you! Paco’s story had such an immediate impact on me temperature-wise – hot. So it was easy to choose the color palette. I think of SOAP as taking place in a middle Georgia small town so wanted a bit more lush and green. The light ended up a little lower in the sky with more cools than in Paco. I especially like the way the shadows worked out – they pushed Hugo into the viewer’s realm – the foreground. I also played with adding textures because, frankly, I’m a texture junkie. Working digitally, everything is very two dimensional. I do everything I can to build it into three dimensions. I hope to do lots more of that in future work!

Do you have an agent?

Since I write and illustrate, I have a literary agent – Courtney Miller Callihan of Sanford J. Greenburger in New York. She’s awesome. In the past I did a pretty good job sending out promotional postcards to a select group of Art Directors, so never got an Illustration Rep.

How did you get your agent?

My current agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, used to be the assistant for my original agent at Sanford J. Greenburger, Faith Hamlin. I was thrilled when she started taking on her own clients because Faith was getting really busy with Fancy Nancy and the Duchess of York and the like, um. I was referred to Faith by a friend. And yes, it’s ‘who you know.’ But you don’t know who you need to know until you’ve been pounding away in the right circles for a while. So it all boils down to hard work.

Could you describe your typical work day?

Hmmm. I wake up to a cold nose about 7am every morning. (That would be Bernie’s, he’s in all my books.) Make a pot of hot tea and stumble into my office. Check emails. Walk 2 miles with the pooch at the track. Back to emails and business stuff. Lunch (sometimes out with my writing friends). Turn off email to try to get real work done without all that infernal dinging. I often listen to audiobooks if I’m illustrating. If I’m writing, it has to be dead quiet. Hubbie arrives home about 6:00pm. Oh no, I haven’t showered yet….rush, rush. Feed dogs. Eat dinner (or go out). Collapse on couch and read or draw to tv. Then either to bed, or my office sucks me back in where I work until ten or so. (That last part only happens when I have too many projects going on or a tight deadline. Hm.) Oh, and the cat walks all over us at 2, 4 and 6am. That’s 6 days a week. One day a week I go play with my hubbie. Ahhhh.

What about the planning stages for Soap Soap Soap? Did you make sketches while you were writing the story? Did the story come first? How many revisions?

The story came first for SOAP. In fact, while I was writing it I had very different looking images in my head from what it turned out being. As far as revisions, writing bilingual text is tricky so there was some back and forth with my publisher initially. When they hired a new translation company mid-process that brought about another round of revisions (quite intense). All said though, I’m thrilled with the way the text finally worked out.

Soap, Soap, Soap is your first book as BOTH author & illustrator. How did the experience compare to your other projects? Any new challenges?

The process itself wasn’t very different although the sense of pride throughout was enormous – and of accountability. I listened especially hard to that little voice in the back of my head about any changes I needed to make since in the end the main person to answer to was me. I always try to do the best work I can no matter the project, but I do think my expectations were a bit higher on this one.

How long did it take you to complete SOAP, SOAP, SOAP? (including entire process of planning, writing, illustrating)

I can’t remember exactly because there was some back and forth dealing with deadlines on other projects. But I presented the story to Raven Tree in May 2008, then I believe I started sketches back in June 2008 and turned in final art in February 2009 – so 7 or 8 months total. I must have had a lot of other deadlines overlapping because I remember it as a lot of long hours and overtime trying to hit certain dates so it could have a Fall 2009 release date. Good news was, I did it!

What’s your opinion about the relationship between the text and illustrations in a picture book? e.g. Do you think the text should enhance the illustrations or the other way around? Any other thoughts?

They definitely need to work together to move the reader through the story. A block of text is a visual element and needs to be designed with the flow of the image in mind. For instance, when I do my thumbnails, I always draw a “wave” right across the spread to determine where the image and text shapes should fall. And the words need to work like images too – like a wave compelling the reader to turn the page.

What advice do you have for hopeful picture book writers? I’m especially interested in any tips you may have from an illustrator’s point of view.

Butt in chair. It’s an old line but it’s a good one. Nothing will serve you like practice.

But one step further than that – you need to develop an objective eye for your own work. You do that by critiquing the work of others (in a formal group or just to yourself) – work you’re not emotionally attached to. By teaching yourself the language of critiquing that media (illustration or text), you learn the vocabulary and awareness to then turn that objectivity to your own work. For instance, “the colors are too saturated” or “the text is chocked full of clichés.” You can see it in other people’s work, but can you see it in your own? It takes time to develop this objective eye, but it makes you a more capable creator.