A Decade of Web-Weaving (Part II)

As I mentioned back in February, This fall marks the 10-year anniversary of my picture book adaptation of Mary Howitt’s classic poem, The Spider & The Fly.

To celebrate, I’ve created a new (perhaps creepier) dust-jacket with a vintage 1930′s-styled film poster on the reverse side.

Unlike other stories where I’ve had to visually explore to find just the right shapes and forms for a character’s design, I had an instant vision of both Ms. Fly and Mr. Spider when I was asked to illustrate the poem back in 2002. Of course I was conjuring the dark comedic visions of Charles Addams and Edward Gorey, but also I thought of the Spider as Lon Chaney in an old Dracula movie. I continued down the path of great actors to draw from, using a hint of Marlon Brando’s charisma and Raúl Juliá’s devilish grin.

I completed the new art for the jacket in the same technique I had used back then: a detailed Berol Prismamcolor pencil drawing with washes of Holbein’s acryla gouache.

However, what has changed since 2002 is my use of Photoshop. In fact, The Spider & The Fly marks the first time I had used Photoshop as a tool for creating final illustrations for a book. The ghost bugs were drawn separately and then digitally dropped into the final paintings, complete with an eerie glow.

Since the new images for the 10-year needed to work both in the horizontal layout of the dust-jacket and the vertical format of the poster, I created them in the same fashion so as to have the freedom to move and size them.

I am indebted to my (then) editor Kevin Lewis to offer me the opportunity to illustrate this picture book. I honestly had no idea how much it would change my life. The Spider & The Fly’s success gave me the support from my publisher to embark on an ambitious fairy-themed chapter book series, which will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary next year (gulp)…

…looks like its time to get back to the drawing board.

PS – Look for the 10-year anniversary of The Spider & The Fly later this month in a bookstore near you.