Living color — Artist makes a living illustrating children's books

While most people probably wouldn't consider drawing and coloring pictures to be a good way to make a living, it's an essential part of Val Chadwick Bagley's livelihood.

The Syracuse resident works as a professional cartoonist, illustrating board books, coloring books, card games and clip art for Covenant Communications. To date, his products have sold over 500,000. Coloring is an important aspect of his profession.

"Coloring is hard. You have to stay in the lines and have to know which colors to use," he said. "There's a lot to it ... (and) your hand goes to sleep."

Bagley doesn't know how many books he's illustrated in the years he has been working for Covenant, but it's a lot. A couple of his favorites are his "Remember When" and "Book of Mormon ABCs" books. The Book of Mormon ABCs was one of the first he completed, and he is in the process of redoing it as a lift-the-flap book.

The first cartoon Bagley ever did was while serving an LDS mission. Instead of simply writing about his experiences, he illustrated them.

"My drawing style has changed a lot since then," he said, noting this has been a springboard for some of the cartoons he does now.

His favorite thing to draw is bad guys, because they're easy to depict. Most of the ideas for characters in his books come straight from his head, Bagley said. Usually he will see a character in his mind and must bring him or her to life on paper.

"My brain has a stage and just sees (the character) up there," he said. "That doesn't mean I draw and that's it. I have to refine what it is. ... I get my ideas sometimes just looking at a blank piece of paper."

Bagley is constantly searching for new ideas. Deseret Book has a company policy to come up with 10 new ideas every week, and he tries to follow this ideal. Of the ideas he submits to Covenant, about 75 percent are rejected. However, Bagley says having even 25 percent accepted is a huge ratio, and he's grateful for his success rate.

"I'm lucky I get 25 percent accepted," he said. "If you put it in perspective with all the other authors and all the other books (you can see why). The publisher says there's only so much money people are going to spend on my books."

Bagley said his publisher is careful not to let him compete with himself.

"You become your own worst enemy if you have too many of your own products out there sitting on a shelf," he said. "(Covenant) is aware of that and spaces me out, so they don't let me saturate the market with my stuff."