Debbie Tilley's Great Illustration Adventure: Working Backwards

Is Debbie Tilley Available?

Is Debbie Tilley available?
On June 28, 1995, yes that was 15 years ago, my rep, Richard Salzman received a call from the art director at Gallaudet University Press. Is
Debbie Tilley available to do samples for an up coming project? We're going to be publishing a signing dictionary for children, needing
around 1000 illustrations.... and that's how it all started....

Fast forward 15 years:
On December 4, 2010, Richard, my rep received an email from the Editorial Director of Gallaudet University press, they were ready to get started
on the Children's Sign Language Dictionary! I think that is the longest lead time in freelance history! As it turned out, I had been illustrating children's picture
books nonstop for a long time. The thought of doing 1,000 individual drawings sounded so great to me, I couldn't wait to get started.......

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Working Backwards

One way I use to come up with different ideas is to work backwards. I start by making lists of things like, time periods, occupations, famous people, fictional characters, etc. Then I choose one, for example,Venus Fly Trap is an interesting looking thing. I guess that was under the category, "interesting looking things. So I start going down my list of words to see how I could use it. It didn't take long, when I came to CLOSE (V). So there it was, a Venus Fly Trap closing on a poor little fly!