1. Figuring out the style

Every new book I do seems to call for a different style of illustration. Often, the hardest part of starting the pictures is figuring out what that style is going to be.

For The Lion’s Share, I began by sketching animals using a bunch of different techniques to see how they might look.

2. Making patterns

I like to use the computer for my illustrations. The problem is that sometimes pictures made on the computer can look too artificial.

For this book I began by dripping black ink onto wet paper. I wasn’t trying to make anything specific; I just wanted to see what would happen as the ink spread across the page. It was really surprising and fun.

3. Adding color

After they dried, I scanned all the patterns into the computer and colored them using Photoshop. In the example below, all the dark areas became red, and the light areas became yellow.

4. Putting it all together

The final illustrations were created by adding these colored patterns to the pencil drawings I drew.