Soaked by Abi Cushman
Hello, Abi Cushman! Congratulations on your debut picture book, SOAKED! I read it in the Philadelphia Airport, during a flight from Philadelphia to Amsterdam, in a café in Amsterdam, and aloud in the Bilderberg Hotel Jan Luyken. I L.O.V.E it! It is a blast to read aloud and is perfect for storytime. I’m looking forward to sharing it during my 2020 Books I Love presentation.
Abi Cushman: Hooray! Thanks, Mr. Schu. I am so excited to be here and to share the cover of SOAKED! with all the Watch. Connect. Read. fans. Thank you for having me!
What planted the seed for Soaked!?
Abi Cushman: In August of 2017, I was eight months pregnant with my son and went out for a walk one afternoon with my husband and daughter. We were about a mile away from home when we felt the first few drops. The drops quickly escalated into a torrential rainstorm. I told my husband to run home with our daughter, and I’d just waddle back. And what I realized on my soggy walk home was that once I was completely soaked, the rain was actually quite pleasant.
Here’s a selfie we took when we got home:
Later that evening, I wrote this in my sketchbook:
Please take us through the process of creating the illustrations for Soaked!
For the final art, I drew all the characters and some of the scenery with a mechanical pencil on computer paper. I scanned those into Adobe Photoshop and adjusted the levels to make the outlines nice and dark.
Then I applied the color with a Wacom Cintiq tablet. I also kept most of the characters on their own layer/group in Photoshop so that I could move them around if necessary. And after building up the colors and details, I arrived at the final art!
On an emotional level, the illustration process went like this:
“Haha! Look at that sad bear in the rain. Huzzah! Everything is awesome! Now onto the next spread!”
“Huh. I don’t actually know how to draw umbrellas. Or puddles. Or mooses. Yes, I’m adding an ‘s’ to the already-plural form of moose because I’m beginning to panic.”
Six months of drawing and redrawing umbrellas, puddles and moose(s) later, I completed my transformation into the soaked bear.
(But a soaked bear who can draw umbrellas.)
Please finish the following sentence starters:
Soaked’s endpapers definitely do not have anyone hiding under the jacket flaps.
I hope Soaked! makes you want to hula-hoop in the rain. Or at least in a cave. With a bear, a badger, a bunny, and a moose, who are all also hula-hooping.
Picture books are tiny bundles of entertainment that you can enjoy in five minutes but have the potential to stick with you for a lifetime.
Mr. Schu, you should have asked me if mother wombats are called “mombats.” No, they’re not.
Abi Cushman: Hooray! Thanks, Mr. Schu. I am so excited to be here and to share the cover of SOAKED! with all the Watch. Connect. Read. fans. Thank you for having me!
Abi Cushman: In August of 2017, I was eight months pregnant with my son and went out for a walk one afternoon with my husband and daughter. We were about a mile away from home when we felt the first few drops. The drops quickly escalated into a torrential rainstorm. I told my husband to run home with our daughter, and I’d just waddle back. And what I realized on my soggy walk home was that once I was completely soaked, the rain was actually quite pleasant.
Here’s a selfie we took when we got home:
Later that evening, I wrote this in my sketchbook:
Please take us through the process of creating the illustrations for Soaked!
Abi Cushman: On a technical level, the process went like this:
First, I did a lot of rough sketches of a soaked bear, trying to figure out the character and expressions.
Next, I did some brain-dumping and thumbnails to work out the story and later developed that into a sketch dummy.
First, I did a lot of rough sketches of a soaked bear, trying to figure out the character and expressions.
Next, I did some brain-dumping and thumbnails to work out the story and later developed that into a sketch dummy.
For the final art, I drew all the characters and some of the scenery with a mechanical pencil on computer paper. I scanned those into Adobe Photoshop and adjusted the levels to make the outlines nice and dark.
Then I applied the color with a Wacom Cintiq tablet. I also kept most of the characters on their own layer/group in Photoshop so that I could move them around if necessary. And after building up the colors and details, I arrived at the final art!
On an emotional level, the illustration process went like this:
“Haha! Look at that sad bear in the rain. Huzzah! Everything is awesome! Now onto the next spread!”
“Huh. I don’t actually know how to draw umbrellas. Or puddles. Or mooses. Yes, I’m adding an ‘s’ to the already-plural form of moose because I’m beginning to panic.”
Six months of drawing and redrawing umbrellas, puddles and moose(s) later, I completed my transformation into the soaked bear.
(But a soaked bear who can draw umbrellas.)
Please finish the following sentence starters:
Soaked’s endpapers definitely do not have anyone hiding under the jacket flaps.
I hope Soaked! makes you want to hula-hoop in the rain. Or at least in a cave. With a bear, a badger, a bunny, and a moose, who are all also hula-hooping.
Picture books are tiny bundles of entertainment that you can enjoy in five minutes but have the potential to stick with you for a lifetime.
Mr. Schu, you should have asked me if mother wombats are called “mombats.” No, they’re not.
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