Episode #155: How do you create the art in your books?-with Adriana Hernàndez Bergstrom
Welcome back! Today, we welcome Adriana Hernàndez Bergstrom to the podcast. Grace and Adriana will be answering this wonderful kid question, “How do you create the art in your books?”
TRANSCRIPT:
Grace Lin: Hello. I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and the picture book, A Big Moon Cake for Little Star. Today, I'm here with Adriana Hernández Bergstrom, the author and illustrator of the picture book, Abuelita and I Make Flan, and the book Tumble, which should be out in 2023. Welcome, Adriana.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Hi. Hello, Grace. Thank you for having me.
Grace Lin: Oh, thanks for coming on. Are you ready for today's kid question?
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: I am. I think I am.
Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a kid named Francesca, and they ask ...
Speaker 3: How do you create the art in your books?
Grace Lin: How do you create the art in your books?
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Ah, that's a great question. So I create the art in my books in a couple of different ways. It goes through kind of an interesting process. I start with drawings and I can draw with a pencil and a paper, or I can draw directly onto my iPad or my Wacom tablet, which is a kind of giant iPad thing, and then I add color. Sometimes I take painted paper and I use those colors and textures and I add them digitally to my paintings. And then an editor or an art director will talk to me about my art, and then we'll have a conversation about what should be changed, and then I change it until finally all the paintings are done on Photoshop or Illustrator or a combination, usually a combination.
And I send it to my team, the editing team, and they print it in the book. We test out the colors when it's printed and it comes back and sometimes those colors look a little odd, and so we'll have to do a little tweaking, which means we change it a little bit until the colors look just right. And so that's how you get those pictures in the book.
Grace Lin: Do you send them actual artwork or do you just send them files?
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Ah, that's a very good point. I send them files because my work is considered mixed media, so I send them files because I use digital painting on top of real painting. Yeah, exactly. If I were just doing my old ... I used to just do acrylic painting, I would send in my paintings, but I don't do that anymore. I send in digital files.
Grace Lin: Because I am still doing the traditional way where I paint and I send the paintings in and they have to scan it and then everything.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Oh, my gosh. I've painted many different papers. I've painted a rice paper, and I scanned them myself, so I have a collection of painted papers and painted textures, and I use that library of painted textures in my backgrounds and on top to add texture to digital painting. I have my favorite digital brushes. But yeah, it took me four years to create a collection of digital brushes that matched my paintings.
Grace Lin: Now, do you think that you work faster by doing it this method with the computer, or it takes the same amount, it's just different style?
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: I'm laughing because I asked myself that question a lot. I'm like, am I actually faster doing this digitally? In some ways, yes, it's faster because scanning takes a long time for me, and when I was painting, I would still find mistakes that I needed to fix digitally anyway. So I do think I'm faster digitally, but drawing those initial drawings, I'm faster I think with pencil and paper, I think
Grace Lin: It's so interesting because I am slowly dipping my toe into working digitally, and I'm like, "This is not faster for me."
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: It's not.
Grace Lin: Everybody's like, they're like, "Oh, you just have to get over that learning hump and then you'll get faster." And I was like, but it's so much faster if I just do it by paint.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: For example, pen and ink, I still think I'm faster, pen and ink by hand than I am digitally because I'll go over the same line 50 times with a digital brush. But if it's painting, yeah, I'm faster digitally now because I'm so much more free. It takes me a lot less time mixing colors and I don't have to be scared of baking a mistake. So those two things are freeing.
Grace Lin: That's true. Like I said, I'm just dipping my toe into digital. I am far from mastering it, but I do see the advantage. It's very easy to change things.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Yes.
Grace Lin: Like, oh, I don't like that yellow, I think I want it a little brighter, and so I don't have to go and remix the yellow color.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Remix the color, the entire background.
Grace Lin: And then then try it. Like, oh, no, that didn't work either.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Yes, those experiments feel faster, but I feel, I think the thing that you miss, and Francesca asked a great question here, the thing that you miss when you do digital painting is the little mistakes that are actually happy accidents. That's what you miss, I think. I think you miss those little moments in the paint or the textures from a dry brush or the layers of a glaze, those are missing.
Grace Lin: All right. Well, thank you so much for answering Francesca's question, and thank you Francesca, for asking such a great one. That was really great. I feel like I should talk to you off recording about all the technical things that you use so I can get advice.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: I would be happy to answer any questions you have, Grace.
Grace Lin: Thank you. All right. Thanks so much, Adriana.
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom: Thank you. Bye.
Grace Lin: Bye.
Today’s Kid Book Review comes from Kaia! Kaia is reviewing, “Abuelita and I Make Flan” by Adriana Hernàndez Bergstrom.
The book I would like to talk about is called Abuelita and I Make Flan by Adriana Hernandez Bergstrom.
The book is about a girl who wants to make flan with her Abuelita, and there's a special plate for it, but then she accidentally breaks the plate and is worried. But everything turns out fine. I like this book because it has a recipe for flan in the back. I also like it because I think it is a good story about being honest.
Thank you Kaia!
More about today’s authors:
Adriana Hernández Bergstrom is a Cuban-American artist and children’s book author-illustrator. She studied fine art & theatrical set design at the University of Miami, FL and industrial design at RISD. She loves literacy and languages and speaks English, Spanish, and German. Her debut as a children’s book author and illustrator is the upcoming ABUELITA AND I MAKE FLAN (Charlesbridge, 2022) about a little girl learning to make amends when making flan goes terribly awry.
Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.
Thank you so much for tuning into to Kids Ask Authors! We would appreciate your continued support on our Patreon page! Please consider becoming a member for all kinds of exclusive perks. https://www.patreon.com/kidasaskauthorspodcast
Sign up for Grace's author newsletter: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/kEmJMT3/newsletter