On a Frame from "How Dreadful!"

Claire Lebourg

Translated from the French by Sophie Lewis

Claire Lebourg: On a Frame

For How Dreadful! I spent a lot of time working on the characters’ reactions. I wanted children to be able to “read” the characters’ emotions simply by looking at the pictures. One by one, Paty’s friends come to pose in her studio, and each reacts more excessively than the last.

While Isabelle’s reaction is fairly reasonable, Mona’s reaction is completely disproportionate, like some kind of offended diva. And the whole situation is very theatrical. Paty’s studio is a kind of little stage where the characters enter and exit.

From the start, I felt that Mona had enormous comic potential—even my preliminary sketches of her made me laugh. I reworked this illustration several times, aiming for the best possible version of her expression.

The first sketch, on the storyboard.

One of the many illustrations that weren’t used (I have thrown out the other rejects).

The illustration we chose for the book!

By changing very tiny details—making the pencil line more sustained and “vibrant,” or the color a little darker, for example—I was able to bring out Mona’s anger and disbelief.

On the other hand, for the last illustration in the sequence, I tried to make a perfect reproduction of my very first sketch, because I thought the expression in that one was just right!

Later on, when I began to think about the book’s cover, I made several sketches with Mona as the cover star, because she always made me laugh so much! But that didn’t work, and in the end I abandoned those experiments.