The Art and Artist of Frogness

Eugenie Fernandes is the illustrator of Frogness. She created the beautiful pictures. Eugenie has illustrated more than one hundred books for children and has written many of them, too. This is Eugenie in her colorful studio, surrounded by paints and pencils, pretty canvasses, seashells, and sunshine.

This is a photo of little Eugenie when she “lived on the north shore of Long Island in between salt water and fresh water with the starfish and cattails and frogs.” Eugenie’s memories of this special place helped her imagine and paint Frogness.

Making the art for a book is a long process with many steps. Eugenie sketched and painted for several months. Below, see how Eugenie made the illustrations with pencil, pen, gesso, and finally colorful paints on canvas.

Step 1: Eugenie draws pictures in pencil.

Step 2: Eugenie transfers the drawing onto canvas. To get the image onto the canvas Eugenie uses transfer paper, tracing over a photocopy of the original.

Step 3: Eugenie uses a pen to trace, so she can see where she’s been.

Step 4: Eugenie removes the papers. This is how the transferred image looks on the canvas.

Step 5: To intensify the image, Eugenie goes over it with a fine point Sharpie permanent marker.

Step 6: Eugenie spreads on a thin coat of gesso (canvas color) to dim the black line.

Step 7: Now Eugenie starts painting. Sometimes she sprinkles salt on the wet paint to give it texture (sometimes the texture gets lost by the time she is finished).