How I Illustrate Poems
A behind-the-scenes look at my process for creating multi-page, comic-style illustrations of poems.
A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I’m working on a zine of illustrated poems. It will include pieces like Pressing on the Bruise along with three or more other poems, which I am in the process of illustrating.
Today, I have another finished poem to share with you called “Temporary.” I shared a draft of the poem a couple weeks ago in this post. I made a few edits to the words as I added visuals. Getting the words and images to work together is a messy process that I iterate on in my notebook, like this:
Once I get the words to a stage that feels close to right, I start creating thumbnail illustrations, which are super small, rough ideas of what each page might look like and what words would go on each page. On the messy pages shown above, I was clearly still iterating on the exact words as well!
Then I use the rough thumbnails to start sketching out the pages on my iPad. In the image below, the thin lines down the center and around the edges of the page are guides I use to keep track of where the gutter, bleed/trim, and safety margins are for a printed spread in a book format. This helps me make sure I meet the technical specs for printing, as well as visualize the overall composition of the pages. This zine will be 5.5” x 8.5” portrait — so a letter-size piece of paper folded in half.
I veered away from my original thumbnails during the final art process. When I was pacing out the flow of the text I eventually realized that the spread below felt too visually redundant with other pages, so it ended up on the cutting room floor.
Here is the finished six-page sequence as full spreads, which is how it will appear in print (imagine the fold down the center!). Keep scrolling for a single-page version that will be easier to read on mobile devices!
Single-page version:
Thanks for reading
Thanks for being here! It truly means the world to me to connect with you every week. In case you missed it, last week wrote about being one of Cotton Bureau’s featured artists! You can check out that post here.
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