Jenny B Harris’ design background and passion for arts and crafts shine through in her illustrations for children. Her work radiates bright colors, fun patterns, and a cheerfulness that reaches out to a broad audience. Jenny’s impressive client list includes picture books for Random House and Golden Books, educational projects for Harcourt, and packaging for Pepsi. You can check out her work on her website and blog. And she was nice enough to share how she uses technology in her illustrations.
What percentage of your illustration process relies on technology? Pretty much 100% of my process relies on technology. I create my art from sketch to finish in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. The only part that I do the old fashioned way is what happens in my head! And that is definitely low-tech. ;o)
What applications do you use? I’m so comfortable with Photoshop CS, I have been dragging my heels and haven’t upgraded. But I’ll have to soon!
What digital tool would you never want to do without? I need all of them, but if I had to name the one tool that has had the most impact, it’s my wacom.
What is your favorite aspect of using technology in illustration? Since I create electronic images for display on the internet, or on iPad screens, I can use vivid saturated color. The illustrations seem to come alive!
What projects in the children’s market are you currently working on and how do you plan to incorporate technology? I’m currently creating interactive children’s books for a company called Interactive Touch Books, and technology is part of every stage. I develop the art in Photoshop, set up the books on the ITB web site, publish them to their app/bookstore and people can buy and view them on their iPhone or iPad. ITB is a great site if anyone wants to try their hand at making an interactive ebook. The coolest part is that anyone can make books on the ITB site, it was created for author/illustrators to self-publish their books. It’s free, and they only take a commission from book sales.
