John Nez Illustration

John Nez - Artist & Author of children's books

[johnnez]

Serendipity is discovering one of your own books in the library - by chance. ..

[johnnez]

http://childrensillustrators.com/interviews/john_abbott_nez It was fun doing this interview... the story about my little life making books.

[johnnez]

It's so rare, but I think the best writing happens when the story writes you... and you're lucky just to keep running along beside trying to catch it all up and write it all down and patch it all together.

[johnnez]

A page from my new book with James Patterson - ‘Give Please a Chance!’ No doubt lots of folks can relate to this theme these days...

[johnnez]

My publisher proofs have arrived! I’m just delighted with how my new book from Abrams Kids looks in print!

[johnnez]

Lost! Tricked! Trumped! Dumped! How prophetic that this nightmare of Trump’s disaster resembles something out of a Maurice Sendak book. ‘We Are All Down In The Dumps With Jack & Guy’ - children abducted into a night of terror. Sendak understands it so well. And I see it’s actually a painting of Trump Tower!

[johnnez]

Families Belong Together...

[johnnez]

The pencil sketch to the cover of my new book ‘A Twin Is To Hug!’ With Abrams Kids. #kidlit #kidlitart

[johnnez]

Every tiger needs a hug...

[johnnez]

It's back to the woods with another step by step GIF. The experience of creating an entire landscape by one's self is uniquely satisfying - we illustrators do create our own little worlds after all.

[johnnez]

Rain, rain, rain away - the sun can come out another day… 

[johnnez]

Just a simple drawing... 

[johnnez]

When in doubt, make french toast!

When in doubt, make french toast! 

[johnnez]

The latest 'bear update'

And of course everyone is waiting for the latest 'bear update' - well here it is. As you can see if you scroll down through a little, the figure began in a swirl of vague forms driven by the gesture.  But now it's coming right along... taking care not to lose the spontaneity of the rough sketch.

My secret sauce will add some rough splashy color to increase the spontaneity. 

[johnnez]

The 'French Toast Brush' - don't leave home without it!

I think I fell for the socks on this one. I had to get out my 'french toast brush' to correctly render the breakfast. It was interesting working from the rough sketch to a rough finish - with lots of fun on the way getting there.

And this child reminded me of my own child way back when... at the start when life was all wonderful.

[johnnez]

My basic working method is simple...

Basically my working method is simple - I sketch & draw & draw & sketch until the tabletop is covered with sketches. Then the sketches are scanned into Photoshop... and when the pile of papers on my desk looks like it's becoming a fire hazard I tidy all the sketches into a corner by the cupboard, and keep on drawing. It's actually quite effective. Bridge keeps track of everything else.

[johnnez]

Today's chapter of 'Draw It Quick!'

In today's chapter of the 'Draw It Quick!' I'm drawing a farm. This is about as close as I'm going to get to illustrating a scene from Charlotte's Web - so I quite enjoyed it. The girl reminded me of Fern. I just wished the script called for Wilbur - since I do love drawing pigs. In fact my nickname as a stout young lad was 'Pig'.