Christmas Ahoy!

Avast! Books off the starboard bow!

Hi! I’m Kayla Stark, an illustrator working primarily in the children’s publishing world. You’re reading “Odd Thoughts”, my blog/newsletter where I talk mostly about illustration, process, publishing, and anything else that’s tangentially related in my life. Join in! Everyone’s welcome!

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What do the Numbers 1-10, Christmas, and Boats all have in common?

-End of year inventory at the marina? (good guess, but no)

-Christmas gifts for 10 men going through a mid-life crisis? (nope, wrong again)

-10 boats a-boating? (eh kinda)

It’s Christmas Ahoy!—a Christmas-y, counting, boat parade of a picture book—written by Erin Dealey; illustrated by me; published by Sleeping Bear Press.

And on the subject of numbers and counting, I want to share 5 Fun Facts¹ about the illustration process with you!

1. Infinite water and sky

There is water and sky on most every page of this book. I had a *big brain* moment early on and realized I could paint a BIG page of sky (like this)

sky made with watercolor

and a big page of water (like this)

water made with acryla gouache

and use them on EVERY spread! SMART ME! 😬

I could duplicate sections, flip them, reverse them, clone in areas from other parts of the page, etc. and viola!—sky and/or water that fit every composition. (like these)

2. The perk of being friends/family

This book is about a parade so naturally that means I had to draw a lot of people—like A LOT of people. 💀

see them all speckled about! like ants!

That also means that I included boatloads (ahem 🤓) of friends and family in the drawings. It’s easier drawing someone I know than coming up with a new character every time AND I’ve now immortalized real people (plus some pets) into the Library of Congress archives. haha

some of you may recognize yourselves!

3. Gulls were my favorite part

I mean…naturally.

I took the liberty of adding cheeky gulls throughout (sometimes wearing coordinating hats). They weren’t mentioned anywhere in the manuscript, but if you are near water and there’s a crowd of people, there’s bound to be a gull or two nearby—waiting to nab a french fry and scare children.

Which gull are you?

4. Pieced together like a puzzle

I didn’t want to do 100% digital illustration for this, but there is A LOT of detail and I needed to consider lighting effects. So I didn’t feel confident going 100% traditional either. This led to a digital collage type of process!

I illustrated boats, people, etc. to scale on watercolor paper (using mostly gouache and colored pencil/graphite) haphazardly, wherever they would fit. (like this)

I have pages and pages like this…ha

Then I scan these big pages and arrange all of the pieces into the final composition digitally (on Procreate). I also added a few digital lighting tricks to make it feel glow-y and set at night.

how it all comes together digitally

In the beginning I thought “wow, so smart, this will really speed me up”. I was wrong. It did not increase speed. 😅

5. Based on a real life boat parade!

Though I’m sure there are many many holiday boat parades around the world, I was told this specific story was inspired by the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade!

I looked up photos from this specific parade to inspire the illustrations. :) They really do it up BIG. (photo credit for the above 3 photos to christmasboatparade.com)

ACTIVITIES!

This is the first time I’ve made activity sheets for a book! There’s a coloring sheet for all of you coloring fiends AND a “decorate your own boat” activity! Go wild!

Books make great gifts! (any time of year)

You can get a copy of Christmas Ahoy! wherever you like to get your books. I recommend supporting your local indie or buying from Bookshop.org (where your money still supports local bookstores!)

As always, thanks for reading along with me! Hit me with questions if ya got ‘em!

1. They’re fun, I swear! Spread the word.