To celebrate the release of our “Singing with the Stars” DVD, Sesame Workshop artist Diana Leto created a parody of the cover of the Beatles iconic album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Diana and Art Director Mark Magner pulled from Sesame Street’s vast library of characters to create an intricate reimagining of the album’s cover art.

In the middle of the poster stand Oscar the Grouch, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster and Elmo. They’re placed exactly where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr stood, their fur color matching the color of the suit of the corresponding Beatle.

There are plenty of other winks and references throughout the piece. Near the bottom right of the original cover stands an unidentified bust from the house of John Lennon. Diana and Mark switched it out with a bust of composer Joe Raposo, who wrote the Sesame Street theme song among other classic songs from the show. To the left of the Beatles is an image of the fab four from their mop top days. In our poster, we replaced them with old school versions of Cookie, Big Bird and Oscar. Bert and Ernie take the place that the great comedic duo Laurel and Hardy took on the original cover. Just to their right, where Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, stands on the original cover, is a black and white image of a “Mad Hatter” Grover. Forgetful Jones, always donning his trusty cowboy hat, stands in place of Tom Mix, a star in many early Hollywood Westerns.

Lead Artist Diana Leto works on the poster.

Not every character on our version references the cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s.” Diana and Mark wanted to make sure as many characters as possible were included. But there are plenty of inside jokes and subtle references to the original cover that we haven’t mentioned. See how many you can find!

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Ed. Note: Louis Henry Mitchell is the Associate Design Director of Special Projects. He was recently tasked with drawing chalk murals of the Sesame Street Muppets^TM on the 8^th floor of Sesame Workshop’s offices. The drawings have become an office favorite, so we invited Louis to talk about his creative process.

When Sesame Workshop’s CEO Mel Ming asked me to draw murals on the recently opened 8^th floor of Sesame Workshop’s offices, I was excited and intrigued. Despite having been a professional artist for 35 years and having worked with Sesame for 20 of those, the murals presented some real challenges. I had worked on a black background before but never to this degree of detail, and, except for Elmo I had never drawn such large versions of some of the characters.

I began with Elmo. When I first put the chalk to the wall, I honestly did not know what I was going to do. I wasn’t sure how the chalk would react to the surface. I knew how large I wanted to draw Elmo but didn’t know if the fur texture effect would work at that size. I made each stroke without knowing what would be next.

As the drawing evolved, I began to realize what was unique about both the surface and the chalk. I could use the black wall to shape their smiling mouths and to make their eyes pop. It also created natural shadows in the characters’ fur, giving it an especially textured, vivid look. The chalk was so cooperative. The drawing of Elmo became a model for the drawings of Grover, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch with Slimey. But Big Bird was still to come and I did not know how I would accomplish the feather texture.

Each drawing has something unique about it. The drawing of Big Bird is actually life-sized: eight feet, two inches tall! It’s the first time in all these years that I’ve actually drawn a life-sized version of Big Bird and I learned how to create the feather texture as I drew him. I drew Grover upside-down, which I had never done before. And I was able to make Oscar’s trashcan look completely solid despite using a minimal amount of chalk.

It was a wonderful project to be a part of. After working with Sesame Street for 20 years, it’s a gift to continually find new ways to work with materials and portray our most beloved characters.

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Evan Cheng, associate art director of character design, draws on his digital tablet.

When Sesame Street debuted in 1969, the term “digital pen tablet” didn’t exist. It would be years before the use of personal computers and similar technology became widespread. But nowadays digital tablets are one of the primary tools used by our Creative Resources team, the talented people who take Grover, Elmo and Big Bird and create the vivid two-dimensional images that go in educational books, on clothes and on any other item where Sesame Street Muppets^TM can be found.

Often they’ll begin drawing an image with a pencil and paper, but the advancements made in tablet technology now allow them to complete a drawing in a small fraction of the time it formerly took. Unlike previous tablet technology, the Wacom tablets Sesame Workshop uses allow an artist to draw directly on the screen, as opposed to a separate touch sensitive pad. They also respond to the pressure of the pen, giving the artist crucial control of the thickness of lines. Whether furry or feathery, every Sesame Street Muppet^TM is incredibly textured. The artists on our Creative Services team need that level of control to render them accurately.

The tablet also allows the artist to view the drawing from a variety of angles and distances. If the artist zooms in on a particular section of the image in order to add small details, his pen strokes will affect a zoomed-out version of the image as well. That way he or she can see how the details are changing the entire drawing.

The digital pen tablets used by the Creative Resources team are just another example of the ways Sesame Workshop is using technology to encourage laughter and fun, while educating children all over the world.

To learn more about the digital pen tablet technology, watch this video in which Sesame Workshop artist Diana Leto explains how she uses it.

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Ed. Note: Mark Magner is a Design Director at Sesame Workshop. His team released a new comic strip today in conjunction with the release of our newest home video, “Elmo’s World: Favorite Things!” Mark wanted to take a few moments to tell you just how he and his creative team go about conceiving of and creating a comic strip.

Our mission here at Sesame Workshop is always at the forefront of our mind. We want to educate children, to prepare them for school, to help them better understand the world and each other. We want them to think, dream and discover, to reach their highest potential. Sesame Street‘s home videos are already effective tools for helping and inspiring children. Alicia Durand, who handles public relations for Sesame Street, approached the creative team about creating some activity or artwork to accompany the release of the home videos, and we were excited by this new challenge.

For the first video, “Bye Bye Pacifier,” Diana Leto, an artist who creates visuals for everything from our apparel to style guides to web elements, and I created spoofs of old propaganda posters, which were a big hit. The second video released was “Iron Monster,” and because of its cartoonish nature Evan Cheng, associate art director of character design, created a comic strip that would parody the story in the video, another idea that proved popular.

We realized that comic strips were the perfect way to connect parents and children while encouraging literacy. That’s why we’ve created another comic strip for our newest home video release, “Elmo’s World: Favorite Things!”

We start our process by watching the Sesame Street home video that we plan to feature in the comic strip. We choose a section of the video that lends itself well to a comic strip, and then discuss how to tell the story in a few frames. We decided it would be fun to spoof a famous comic strip. In this instance, a spoof of Calvin and Hobbes worked perfectly. The layout and design pays homage to Bill Watterson, the author of the comic, and features dinosaurs, a perennial favorite of Calvin’s.

At this point, Evan Cheng starts to sketch out his ideas using pencil on paper. Evan does several small sketches until he knows what the final comic strip will look like. Evan then sketches the final illustration, refining each frame to tell the story. Evan scans his final artwork into Photoshop and passes the file onto Diana Leto.

Diana takes Evan’s illustrations and digitally applies color, texture and halftones to the artwork, bringing it to life. In this instance, the color palette and texture was chosen with the style and tone of Calvin and Hobbes in mind. Using Photoshop, Diana layers the color and textures, fine tuning the look until it’s perfect.

We always work to ensure children engage with a story or a lesson in as many mediums as possible. That’s why, in addition to the home video and comic strip, Diana also created a coloring activity based on the comic. Our hope is that, if the child watches the video, uses the coloring activity and is read the comic strip by their parents, they’ll not only have lots of fun but they’ll learn a little something too.

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