Cover Reveal Q&A: Drawing Is . . . with Illustoria Editorial Director Elizabeth Haidle

Do you know Illustoria magazine? It’s a magazine for kids and grown ups all about creativity and art, and it’s one of the best looking things I’ve ever seen. So when I found out that Illustoria editorial director (and artist) Elizabeth Haidle was publishing a children’s book all about drawing, I knew it would would be packed with helpful tips, ideas, and advice in a beautifully illustrated format. And it is.
Today, we’ll take a first look at the cover for Drawing Is . . . Your Guide to Scribbled Adventures (out May 6th, 2025 from Tundra Books). But first, I had a few questions for Elizabeth.
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Travis: Drawing Is . . . is such an impressive book – so much information and art. This must have taken a long time to make! How did the project begin?
Elizabeth Haidle: The whole process was almost two years, from the moment [editor] Kyo Maclear reached out to me and asked, “Would you ever make a book about the craft of Drawing, and if so, what would you want to say about it?” I immediately thought of all the books that already exist about how to shade an egg, and how no one needs another book about shading eggs, so I wondered…what could I really speak to—from my own experience—that hasn’t been done before?

I have been realizing slowly, with practice over years (just turned 50), how much of the process of drawing happens in my head. Before I even grip the pencil and move my fingers, I have to tell a story to myself about what I’m doing and maybe also why I’m doing it. Breaking the whole process down into sometimes very small choices helps. Even tiny decisions, like, here’s a dot and now it turns into a line, and where is that going? Is it a fast line or a slow line? At some point, there’s going to be frustration as I try to translate what is in my head onto the paper, so what do I tell myself in order to push through that? I can borrow the experimental mindset of a scientist, like, “Let’s see what happens if I draw in the dark while I can’t see anything?” Or I can get silly and make myself laugh through the disappointing and confusing parts of the process. I can be willing to close my sketchbook, walk away, and say, “I’ll try something new tomorrow.”

I asked myself, what IS the point of drawing, anyway? What are all the things it can possibly be, what are the many ways it can go? If it isn’t always about the resulting work— so called “Art”—which hopefully it isn’t, since results are SO unpredictable…then what can be said about the experience of drawing? How is drawing an interesting way to spend time with myself, and how can it be a joyful thing to do socially, with friends?
I didn’t have all the answers right away, just a lot of questions. Then, the chapter titles came to me. I wanted my book on drawing to be flexible—a reader could pick any order—like the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books I’d grown up reading.
Just then, I had a luckily-timed residency for two weeks on Peaks Island, off the coast of Maine, organized by the Illustration Institute. It was a tiny island, so I stared at water a lot. I tried to draw and paint the water, and totally failed to make anything that I liked. I sat on giant rocks and slowly the story began to come to me. I tried to write as much as possible in those weeks, while sitting uncomfortably on rocks.

The illustrations came later, and spilled out faster than words since drawing is something I’ve practiced longer than writing. I used to teach K – 8 at a remote charter school in the mountains, and I put a lot of what I learned in the classroom into my book. I thought about all my mentors and influences from the past, and wrote down what I recalled from their teaching. I looked up artists from history and discovered the marks they made in their sketchbooks and how they thought about those lines and shapes. Then I drew a little humanoid creature that I thought anybody could identify with, and showed this little being navigating a series of decisions about all the things a pencil could do. I sprinkled in tutorials that can be read, skipped over, tried immediately, or tried later—to introduce concepts that artists use to deepen their understanding about art. The book ends with a series of repeatable sketchbook exercises designed to get anybody going with a personal practice of their own.
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Travis: Did your experience as editorial director of Illustoria magazine help in making this book?
Elizabeth: Not as much as being in the classroom. When I worked with students aged 5 to 13, I was sad to notice how their sense of curiosity diminished each year. The kindergarteners absorbed everything immediately and came up with surprising solutions to all my assignments, while the teenagers were plagued by hesitation, fear of multiple rough drafts, and self-doubt. I was constantly trying to find humorous ways to get the older students to push their anxiety aside and apply different art supplies and diverse approaches to whatever project was at hand.
At Illustoria magazine, I am in charge of the Projects chapter—prompts for writing, drawing, and making—and so my brain kind of always has a radar out for experimental things to try, for actionable things. As a reaction to a culture that is steeped in passive consumerism, we aim to activate our readers with inventive storytelling, drawing ideas, games, and topics to get curious about and research further, on their own.
Travis: What was the toughest part of this book to get right? Which part was the smoothest?
Elizabeth: The ending! I wanted the book to feel like a diving board, like someone could read it and then jump right into to their own continuation of the story. I wasn’t sure what note to end on, I’d originally finished with an Emily Dickinson quote, “Nothing is the Beginning of Everything”—in response to the nothingness of a blank page. Later, when the book was nearly done, I found a quote by the Japanese artist Hokusai about spending his whole life slowly becoming a great artist, deciding that at 110 he would finally be really good. And I thought that was so freeing to hear a real artist talk about not expecting to “arrive” anytime soon, and to even be ready to throw more than 100 years at the pursuit of drawing. The whole quote is infused with an endearing combination of self-awareness, earnestness—and also silliness. I wished I had heard these words sooner in life, so I put it at the very end of my book—encouragement for the road ahead.

Travis: Final Question: What snack puts you in peak creativity mode?
Elizabeth: Snacks are very important motivation fuel! I love eating dark chocolate and nuts before breakfast, just the thought of it makes me leap out of bed. In the afternoon, sometimes I’ll set a timer and make myself do something really hard or intimidating for 20 minutes (that I HAVE to do, like writing an outline or sending a proposal in an email) and then take a break to eat toaster waffles with loads of butter and cinnamon.
Thanks for taking my questions, Elizabeth.
And now, for the first time, the cover for Drawing Is . . . by Elizabeth Haidle, out May 6th, 2025 and published by Tundra books.

A bit about the book (from the publisher):
An inspiring and affirming book on drawing and creativity for kids and their grown-ups by the art and editorial director of Illustoria! What happens when you pick up a pencil? How do you talk to yourself about drawing while you’re drawing? Author-illustrator Elizabeth Haidle provides an essential and captivating guide to drawing, brimming with artful exercises and perfect for anyone seeking a creative adventure. If you’ve ever picked up a pencil, drawn, stopped drawing, started again, doodle without purpose, sketched with intention, been disappointed with your art and thrown it out, yet turned the page to try a new experiment . . . this book is for you.
Filed under: Cover Reveal
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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