A family connection provided a wonderful opportunity for junior Illustration major Angela Palma for her Leadership Fellowship. Palma got to work with author Sara Shepard to illustrate a new children’s book.
Shepard, who wrote Pretty Little Liars, is married to Palma’s cousin. Even though the opportunity to work with Shepard would be available pretty much any time because of their family relationship, “I really wanted to do this before I graduated, because I wanted to have that experience under my belt before I started applying to jobs out of college,” said Palma.
Shepard wanted to write a children’s book for her two sons, Kristian and Henry.
“I very much wanted to illustrate a children’s book,” Palma said. “That’s one of my career goals, so it kind of was like a match made in heaven.”
GETTING STARTED
Palma received the 2018 Tiffany & Co. Foundation Women's Leadership Fellowship at the spring 2018 Honors Convocation after outlining her proposal in the application.
“I really wanted to do (the fellowship) in the summer between my sophomore and junior year and be able to put that work on my resume and on my portfolio,” she said.
Palma met with Shepard at the end of her 2018 spring semester in Pittsburgh, where they both live. They discussed the story line for the book, Too Many Henrys.
“The plot of the book is Kristian and Henry are two brothers, and Kristian is the older brother and gets very annoyed with Henry,” Palma said. “So he sends Henry to the end of the world and he thinks he is rid of him.” But Kristian soon gets a package with two Henrys inside, and the Henrys continue to multiply.
COLORFUL CHARACTERS
After she and Shepard sorted out the plotlines, Palma created storyboards for the 32 pages planned for the book, and also did the cover art.
“I really wanted to take my time with the character design because it is based on her two sons,” Palma said. “I wanted to make the characters not look exactly like them, but still have the essence of those two boys.” She worked with Kristian and Henry to choose their favorite colors for their characters to wear.
Palma prepared for her fellowship by taking an “Illustration for Children” class at Moore, where she learned to make a picture book dummy, which is a mock-up of a publication.
“You don’t want to send them a fully illustrated book, because if they want to completely change your spread, you just wasted all that time,” she explained.
Palma, who aspires to be a freelance illustrator, said she learned discipline from the fellowship.
“It’s very difficult if you’ve never had to set your own schedule and be doing things on your own time,” she said. She also learned how to collaborate with professionals and how to take different kinds of feedback.
Palma and Shepard are still looking for a publisher for Too Many Henrys, but for now she’s enjoying looking at her copies of the dummy that she had printed.
“I sent one to Sara so she could have it, and give one to Kristian and Henry, and then I have a couple for myself, because really, there’s nothing like holding your work in your hands after it’s been done,” she said.
