How do you ask for something you want? "I need chocolate milk!” is heard by James’s mother all day. He doesn’t just want chocolate milk, he demands it and provides many imaginative reasons why he needs it. By the end of the book, James realizes all he has to do is simply say "please."
I Need Chocolate Milk! is a story written and illustrated by Rachel Mattei. All of the artwork is original and traditionally drawn in colored pencil. The eBook is currently available on Amazon. The hardcover book is available on Amazon and the Baldwin Terney Press store.
Like most of us during the Coronavirus pandemic, I decided to pick up an old hobby and start drawing again. I have drawn all my life minus the last five years. The reason? Becoming a new mother. My children are my inspiration and, thus, they have became the subject of my art.
We live in the Phoenix, Arizona area and are notorious for our hot summers. My family has to stay inside much of the summer, so we read a lot of books. As a matter of fact, we read an average of 6 children's books a day. Reading all these children's books has impacted my life. I often find myself quoting and reciting from them throughout the day. Probably a strange thing to do! I absolutely love revisiting the ones from my childhood. Oh, the nostalgia! This gave me the idea of making a children's book for my own children. However, my son's constant requests for chocolate milk was also a great motivator and inspiration for this particular book.
The first step in creating this book was writing the story. This was easy because the book is practically a work of non-fiction. My son, James, truly asks me all day for chocolate milk and he often does not say "please." He also likes to give me many crazy scenarios why he "needs" chocolate milk. I was able to write this book in an evening by writing what he says verbatim.
The next step was creating the illustrations. I took a lot of photographs of my children and used those as references. Each illustration took about 8 to 12 hours. When working with colored pencils, I like to lay down many light layers of different colors. Once I am happy with the layers of color, I go back over to blend, burnish, and glaze with more colors.
This was my first book, so I have a lot of lessons learned. My biggest obstacle was "digitizing" my traditional artwork. I had to find a large format scanner that could scan my 9 x 12 artwork and maintain the color and texture. After scanning, I used Procreate to add the story text. Last, I used Adobe InDesign to format in PDF for my printer.
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