"Who likes to doodle?"

"I doodle all the time," children's book illustrator Nicole Tadgell recently told a fourth grade classroom at Brophy Elementary School. "I love to curl up on the couch and just doodle. I get to change my mind all the time."

Tadgell, an award-winning illustrator, with more than 15 books to her credit, spent more than an hour in Cindy Barhoff's class of about 20 students.

Tadgell, a soft-spoken woman, started her presentation reading from her book In The Garden with Dr. Carter. The historical-fiction picture book tells the story of Dr. George Washington Carver and his visit to a rural Alabama school.

"Show and tell was always one of my favorite things in school," she said.

Reading from the book ... "Who here would like to be a plant doctor? Listen to the plants and they will tell you what they need."

The girl in the story - Sally, replies "I've got it. My patient need to be moved to get more sunlight."

Plants like people, need nutrients, in order to grow, the character Sally learns in the book.

And Tadgell helped these fourth graders' minds grow with her hand-on approach in explaining her craft and the step-by-step process she takes in transforming words on a page into colorful characters with personalities and vibrant scenes.

When I get the book, it look like this, she explained has she held up a stapled series of pages from the publisher. Some pages had words and some were blank.

Tadgell told the students  she typically has very little contact with the author, and sometimes no conversation at all.

With the book In the garden With Dr. Carver, Tadgell said she did interact a bit with the author as the author loved to do research and as this was a historical book, the research helped Tadgell.

"Is anyone here afraid of spiders?" Tadgell asked the students. "I'm afraid of spiders. When I had to do research and find spiders for the garden in this book, it gave me the creepy-crawlers." The students laughed.

After the research phase, Tadgell said the next step is to actually start drawing.

She explained she likes to do sketches of the characters.

"I try to think of what the personality is," she said. "For example, Ben is a bit of a rascal in this book."

Color choice is important in illustrating too, she explained.

She said the selection of the character's dress as red and the words on the cover as red, were done on purpose.

Tadgell said she likes to use  watercolors, but that she has two color charts - one with the actual vibrant watercolors and another with what the colors will looks like when the illustrations are printed in the four basic colors of - CMYK.

Publishing companies can only print in four basic colors. C is for cyan, a blue-green color. M is for magenta, a reddish-pink tint. Y is for yellow and K is for black.

To illustratewhy she keeps two charts, she showed the fourth graders her original watercolor of a field and then what the field looked like when it was printed in CMYK.  The students easily could point out the differences.

Just like writers struggle with words and re-write and re-write, Tadgell explained that she always questions her illustrations and sometimes thinks "I can do better than that."

"Who here has drawn something they have not liked?" she asked.

Most of the students raised her hand and so did Tadgell.

"I erase a lot. I change my mind a lot too," she said.

Next, Tadgell demonstrated several painting techniques.  She said she spends money on three basic tools - paper, paint and brushes. She also showed students that every day household tools like an old toothbrush can be a a great tool for an illustrator.

Students asked her lots of questions, while she demonstrated techniques.

"How long does it take you to illustrate a book?"  Tadgell said this one was about 8 months, but many publishers give her about a year.

"What is your favorite color?" She said she doesn't have a favorite. She said some colors she likes to wear and some she likes to illustrate with and her favorite colors change often. She did point out a "teally-blue" on the watercolor chart that is not of one of her favorites.

"Who does more work? the writer or the illustrator?" Personally, Tadgell said I'd have to say the illustrator.

A few of the students disagreed and thought illustrating was harder. "There is a lot to learn," said one fourth grader student.

"Do you want to write and illustrate a book?"

"I think writing is very hard," Tadgell answered. "I'm more critical of my writing than my illustrating."