Why Balloons, You Might Ask?

In my first book, "I Don't Have A Prayer", I took a creative 'leap-of-faith' by including illustrations by yours truly within each of the 36 passages. The purpose was to capture the mood and sometimes the message of the passage itself, and also to lend a little humor, interest or insight. But why a balloon theme, you might ask?

However, I came to find out that the illustration effort would be just as much of an undertaking as writing the book itself. So as any novice author lacking confidence would do, I looked externally for help. I started with a freelance artist recommended through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Tami Boyce (www.TamiBoyce.com). Tami is a wonderful illustrator and my creative partner for the book's cover design and manuscript formatting. I am privileged to have found her, and unreservedly give Tami a giant shout-out, excellent reference, 5-star review, and two thumbs up for the truly inspired work she performs (please check out Tami's website for more on her illustrations and other design services).

As it turns out, Tami's work includes a portfolio centered on red balloons, which upon first glance, caught my interest as a simple way of capturing some of the sentiments in my book. After sharing some thoughts and concepts with Tami on the illustrations, I decided to incorporate a few balloon images in the book. But the more I thought about it, I realized balloons as a vehicle for story-telling are so versatile, they could potentially lend themselves to EVERY passage. And to speed up the process, I decided to have Tami do the cover and manuscript design work, while I tried my hand at illustrating.

The key to a balloon is that they can (at least in my crazy way of thinking) take on a life of their own. They can obviously carry a message, like on the balloons "Wel-" and "come" in the passage called "Church"; or the threesome "O", "M", and "G" in the opening passage, "Oh My God". And their happy little strings serve both as a body (see "Too Much of a Good Thing") and as arms (see "God's Hands, Our Shoulders"). And because they wear no expression on their 'faces' to read into or interpret, one can assign the mood to the balloon that fits their own interpretation of the image. Sort of like a blank canvas, unlimited in both options, nuance and potential.

So that brings me to my next obstacle (yes, writing, illustrating and publishing one's first book is like an obstacle course of sorts - think of American Ninja Warrior where every time a contestant gets through an obstacle, they take a brief moment to celebrate before moving on to the next, even more daunting obstacle). The challenge, in simple terms, was "how do I sketch something that would pass artistic and literary muster, considering all the talented people that do this for a living? I had done some charcoal sketches and acrylic paintings over the years just for fun (not bad I must say), but not what I would consider professional. My Mom and one of my four brothers had the lion's share of talent in the family. My Mom actually was taught in Paris and focused over her lifetime predominantly on water colors of portraits, landscapes, vases, fruits and other beautiful subjects. My Dad was also very talented and worked for many years as a freelance photo restoration artist (before the digital age, so to speak).

So with my limited illustration chops in hand, I took to Google to find out what devices, tools, apps and resources were out there to help. Lo and behold, I found that I was entering this arena in somewhat of an ideal time on the technology roadmap. Apple had just come out with its second-generation digital pencil ($129) that marries perfectly with a very powerful (and wonderful) $10 app called Procreate. Doing pretty well cost-wise so far . . . that is, until I realized that in order to really make this work, I needed to take the plunge with the new Apple iPad Pro tablet (I won't say the exact price because it's a little painful, but let's just say that all in, I was in the fourth digit left of the decimal point when all was said and done).

Then came the fun! Doing the illustrations was actually the easy part. I'm a firm believer that the creative process - from concept design to execution - is nothing less than a gift from God. The process of coming up with the melody to a song, the words of a poem, the choreography to a dance, and (turns out) the lines to an illustration - is profoundly rewarding and even adrenaline-boosting. When these things fall into place just right, the stars seem to align and that is when true magic happens. Now, not to say that any magic happened on my 11-inch tablet in creating these illustrations, but I found that with a lot of trial and error, I could create an image both fit for publication (pixel count being an interesting thing), and fit for my purpose of enhancing the passages themselves.

Finally, the choice of color vs black & white turned out to be an easy one. And even though my original intention was to use red balloons, the cost to print color in a paperback format is exorbitant (I suspect many authors of children's books are aware of this, but feel free to email me through the Contact page of this website if you have any suggestions). So, long story short, that's how I came to include black & white balloon-themed illustrations in the book. I'm actually looking forward to another project where I can take these little characters on new adventures, and I hope that you have gained a little insight to my thinking as I do. God bless and be well, my friend. - PAUL ANTHONY