Summer Reflections I

Wed, 6 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Outside the sun shines through the golden oak leaves casting the golden glow of fall into my studio. Autumn is a time of reflection and since I am not currently in school, I will make my own assignment of “What I did during my summer vacation.”

My summer began with the making of a movie of The Princess and Her Panther with an intimate and gorgeous reading of the text by the author, Wendy Orr and wonderful music by my husband, Matthew Smith. (You can hear it by going here.) Wendy and I showed the movie at two of the events we presented together this summer, the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota and the Hamline MFA in Writing for Children. It was well received and now I am in the midst of turning it into a longer film including an interview with Wendy Orr and a visit to my studio. Hopefully this will eventually make it into the hands of librarians and school classrooms. In the mean time, if you want ideas for how to use the book in the classroom, Wendy and I created a fun activity guide you can download here and our Australian publisher, Allen & Unwin, has a wonderful download with lots of teacher’s ideas about how to use our book in the classroom here.

The highlight of the publication of The Princess and Her Panther was the author herself. Wendy Orr and her husband, Tom, came all the way from Australia for the week of publication events beginning with a party at the Red Balloon Bookstore. I painted the store window, a delicious cake greeted the public as they entered, and we strung up a red tent and acted out the story with shadow puppets I made and puppets from Folkmanis. (Folkmanis even donated a Princess puppet and a Panther puppet to be given away as door prizes! Thank you Folkmanis!) As people arrived for the event they were given the choice to become a “princess or prince” or a “panther”, thus by the time we presented, there was a sea of princesses, princes, and panthers watching the show. What fun!

We strung up our tent at the Wild Rumpus Bookstore as well and presented to dressed up princesses, princes and panthers again, along with chickens, cats, and birds all chiming in with the story. In between presentations, Wendy and I got to relax on my back porch which is where we live in the summer with the sound of the fountains dancing in the garden and the fragrance of summer roses drifting by. The week sped by quickly and as soon as I dropped Wendy off at the airport, I drove straight to Circus Juventas to paint the sets for Sawdust. But I will save that for my next post!

Publication Week!

Sun, 4 Jul 2010 17:16:16 -0500

The Princess and Her Panther has been officially published in Australia now and will be available here in the US on Tuesday, July 6th. I have placed both covers above so you can see some of the differences. The cover on the left is the Australian cover from Allen & Unwin. The text gets a little curvy and they have added the note at the top: “From the Author of Nim’s Island”. The cover on the right is from Simon & Schuster. The colors are quite different on the covers. Partly this is the photographs and partly this is due to different types of protective coatings on the cover. Both covers tell a story in pictures and words. There are so many things you can learn from the cover of a book before you read it. The author, Wendy Orr, and I put together an Activity Guide for The Princess and Her Panther, which has lots of questions for pre- and post- reading, along with great ideas for writing and art projects to try after reading the book.

In four days, Wendy Orr will be arriving in Minneapolis. We met several years ago at a Public Library Conference and instantly felt as if we had been friends for a very long time. I look forward to seeing her again! We will be very busy reading and presenting our new book while she is here. The Twin Cities is fortunate to have two fabulous children’s bookstores! We will be at the Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul on Saturday at 10:30 AM and at Wild Rumpus Bookstore in Minneapolis on Tuesday at 6:30 PM. For both events we will set up a “red silk tent”, just like in the story and use our imaginations to pretend we are on a summer camp-out in our own backyard... or is it in the deep,dark woods? I suppose it will depend on how strong our imaginations are. I am also running around town getting supplies so everyone at the events can become either a princess/prince or a panther. Paper crowns, fancy-bead necklaces and panther ears with a rope-tail make perfect disguises for pretend fun. And for those who wish to learn more about the making of the book Wendy and I will be presenting at the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota, Elmer L. Anderson Library on Saturday at 2:00 PM. I am looking forward to hearing Wendy speak about her other books. And I am also looking forward to debuting the slideshow of The Princess and Her Panther with music composed and played by my husband, Matthew Smith! Wendy and I will also be doing a reading at the Summer Institute at Hamline University on Tuesday at 2:00 PM.

It is always a celebration when a new book comes out, but there is also a bit of confusion for me as well. By the time a new book has come out in the world a full year has passed since I finished the paintings. In that year a lot can happen. For instance, my daughter graduated from high school and chose a college to attend next fall. My son has been rehearsing for SAWDUST, this summer’s Circus Juventas production for which I wrote the script and have been intensely painting sets. I have begun drawings for my next book and I have been writing and sketching several new picture book manuscripts. My life has gone in many new and different directions in the past year, but this week is publication week--- and it is time to focus on this beautiful new book. Welcome The Princess and Her Panther!

Many Places Make a Home...

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Happy Earth Day!
Yesterday I spent much of the day packing an illustration from my book, Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs. My beaver dam and honeycomb will have a new home for the next three years-- a nomadic home as it travels in an exhibition organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature. The exhibition is called The Golden Kite Awards: A Retrospective. Yes! That’s right, Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs won a Golden Kite Honor Award for illustration in 2002! Now it gets to travel in great company as the show will feature at least one piece of original art work from each of the award winning books from 1974 to the present. That is a lot of great books! Some of the art on display in the show will be the finished art, but other original art will also be shown, including sketches, tissues, drafts, dummies, and manuscripts. I even packed some of the early color sketches for the first page of Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs, so visitors to the show can see how I kept changing my mind- should I paint shapes? Or should I paint shapes within a rectangle? Or should I paint shapes? Or shapes within a rectangle?

You might be wondering what is a Golden Kite Award? It is an award presented by SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators) annually to recognize excellence in children’s literature in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Book Text, and Picture Book Illustration. Authors and illustrators whose books win the award receive an expense-paid trip to Los Angeles to attend the award ceremony at the Golden Kite Luncheon at SCBWI’s Summer Conference in August. Yes! I flew to Los Angeles in 2002 to accept the prize!

I brought my kids, Ruby and Cooper, with me and we ate a delicious lunch before I had to make a speech. I also met the author of Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs, Linda Ashman. We had made a picture book together over a period of two years, but this was the first time we met in person! Little did I know when I accepted that award 8 years ago, that my illustrations would be honored once again. I am very happy to be included in this very special exhibit. If you decide you want to see it, The Golden Kite Awards: A Retrospective will open July 8, 2010 at the NCCIL (National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature), in Abilene, Texas, where it will be on display through October 1, 2010. The exhibit as a whole will then travel for the next three years and be displayed in approximately 7-10 museums, galleries, and public libraries across the country! AND when the exhibit opens in Abilene, there will be a weekend of Opening Events that will include:
• opportunities for the public to meet visiting artists and authors
• FREE family art activities led by visiting artists and authors
• Docent-led tours of the exhibit
• Books signed by exhibiting artists/authors available for purchase

Now that my art is packed and on the road to Abilene, Texas, it is time to return to my studio and work on some new sketches for my next book. I will write more on that later...

The Last Day of I Love to Read Month!

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:04:40 -0600

Today is the last day of I love to read month-- which is kind of funny to imagine, since I love to read every month! February is always a busy month for authors and illustrators visiting schools and this February was no exception for me. The school visits I did this month were exceptional! Just last week I spent only one day at Sunnyside Elementary School in Redwing, MN, but you would have thought that I had been there at least a month! Wall cases displayed my books along with mittens and dinosaurs, nests and origami, depending on the book.

The media specialist at Sunnyside, spent several weeks before I even arrived, sharing my books with her students and leading them in many activities such as writing poems, discussing personification in poetry, listening to the authors Cynthia Rylant and Mary Lyn Ray read their stories from my website. She downloaded many of the curriculum guides from my website’s book pages and used those to lead activities!

Earlier in February, I visited Island Lake Elementary in Shoreview and had a winter-warm three day residency with the primary grades. We read SNOW and wrote persona poems, then cut out a six-pointed snowflake, because all snowflakes have six points, sometimes twelve, but never eight! With the poem and the snowflake, students learned about how the illustrator of picture books puts words and pictures together- it was a wonderful time- even the Principal cut out a snowflake!

Circus Sets

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:40:01 -0600

Above is the model we built to show our design for the back wall of the arena in 3D.
Tomorrow I am meeting with my partner-in-design for SAWDUST, this year’s August show at Circus Juventas. I can’t wait! My partner is the architect and artist, Susan Furr, who is also a circus mom, like myself. The two of us have just learned of some incredible additions to our initial design including a life-size elephant puppet, tiger puppet and a dancing bear! We are going back to the drawing board, but not with heavy hearts. My only worry is finding the time to design sets while making a dummy book for my next book and working on the stories I have in the works at the moment. Perhaps it is time to blend my circus sets with books, and write and illustrate a circus book? That is what my friend Debra Frasier thinks I should do. Time to listen to my friends!

To read more about my work with Circus Juventas, go here