Drawing

Eric says that it takes him about a year to illustrate a book. That would be like going to school for an entire grade, plus summer holidays, and only working on one thing the whole time! That takes a lot of patience!

Because he had never illustrated a children's book before, Eric found making the pictures difficult at first. He had a lot to learn, but he also had fun doing it.

When he's making pictures for a book, Eric goes through many different stages. First, Eric takes a copy of the story and makes little drawings in the blank spaces of ideas that come to him as he reads it.

He also writes out a copy of the story. Then he goes through it and underlines all the words that need to be in the picture.

	Eric wrote notes of his ideas for this drawing. From the start, he had a good idea of how it was going to look. Copyright/Source
	Eric underlined all the important things that he wanted to draw in the picture. The picture has to match what the words say! Note: Anyone can make a spelling mistake! Copyright/Source
	This is the rough sketch that Eric made for his drawing of the Nile. Notice the words he's written in the margins. These notes remind him to put these things in when he makes the next sketch. Copyright/Source
	In the final drawing you can see all the ideas Eric had, right from the beginning. Copyright/Source

Eric will read the story over and over again as he does the pictures.

Drawings get done over and over, and get a little more detailed each time.

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All of these sketches are necessary
before Eric can make the final drawing for this page.

The final drawing Copyright/Source

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