THE SCARY TRACKS - OFF TO THE PUBLISHER

Yesterday Nelson & I did one final edit of The Scary Tracks before sending it on to the publisher.  Though I thought I found all the changes that needed to be made, it was good to have 2 sets of eyes editing.

We took a close look through the 'book preview' (top) feature of the BookSmart program - where there are no editing features (bottom photo-editing mode). 

We flipped from 'book preview' to 'book editing'-making corrections. 

Then with a click, we ordered 2 copies from Blurb,  one for ourselves and one for our grandkids-the 3 artists.

(middle photo - 1 of 5 art pages I made, facilitating storyline flow.)

ART ON SPECIAL PAGES

Only one of our 3 grandkid's work could be on the cover but there are 2 other pages in the front of the book to give the other young 2 artists an important place. 

Here they are - the title page (above) and the intro page (at right).

Hoping to send it off for publishing over the weekend.

9 BACK PAGES

Almost ready for publication - the latest Kittykee adventure: The Scary Tracks.  

There are 9 extra pages in the back of the book that I'm using to show the art by each of the 4 illustrators (my grandchildren and myself), photos of the creative process and other shots.  

Below is a 2 page photo spread about Nelson and I putting the book together and the illustrations that I did to fill in the story gaps. (click on cover at right to enlarge) 

BACK IN PREP MODE

Martha came for the weekend. There we both are - working in the studio, Martha cutting squares for collage surfaces and me diving in a big box, looking for interesting glossy pictures to be cut up and collaged onto the squares. Last time she came, we painted papers. Martha will be going to Greece next month, where she'll be using the materials we've been gathering for teaching storytelling collage processes to teens at a conference. She'll teaching cross collages and story tags. Fun in the Aegean sun ahead! 

COVER OF OUR NEW BOOK

Here's the cover of our new children's picture book. This one is a joint effort as you see on the cover. 

'Captured' cover image from editing page.

Well on our way to getting it published. 

CHOOSING ART FOR THE COVER

Today I spread our grandkids artwork out on the dining room table. Time to choose which pictures to use for front and back covers, title page, and additional pages not part of the story.

I wanted the cover design to wrap around the book edges and a picture that had space for the title. These design requirements narrowed the options of which pictures would work. 

Nelson helped move the process along - photoshopping and uploading selected pictures into the program.  

PUTTING IN THE STORY

After Nelson loaded the snow pages into the BookSmart program, I put in the story text. 

Pondering changing some of the story's wording as I work. (dry brush filter) 

Keying in text across from our grandson's picture page.

GETTING THE SNOW PAGES READY

Moving toward publishing our 13th children's picture book,  I put the fourteen dummy spreads on the dining room table. Snow art pages are scanned into the laptop. click on photo to enlarge

All 14 snow pages, made by the grandkids and myself, need to be tweaked and sized before they are put into the BookSmart program. Nelson is brilliant at photoshop - which he uses at this step.  With great finesse he 'cuts and pastes' the snow image parts to get them just right, before loading them into the BookSmart program. 
Nelson at work this morning in the 'book-making' studio - now on the dining room table.