LOOKING OVER THE SCARY TRACKS

Our book, 
The Scary Tracks, arrived! 

Here the artists and author are looking over the latest finished book. 

Cover and title page pictured below.

 

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) 

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.

FILLING IN THE STORY

My grandkids created 9 illustrations for the new children's picture book. I created 5 more- making 14 spreads-pulling the story together. Shown is one of the pages I made for the project. This is our first book to be a collaboration by grandkids and their grandma.

SNOW PAGE SPREAD

Finishing up book art. Still working on the story.

Snow page by our 6 yr. old granddaughter.(below)

THE FEELING OF PROGRESS

I'm happy with the book project. It's moving along. There's a title though I'm not sharing yet. I almost have the 14 pictures ready for the final scanning and need to work more on writing the story. But today I really had the feel of progress being made. 

The project has come a long way from creating snow pages on the west coast to bringing it all together into a children's picture book on the east coast. From worktable to worktables.

GESSOING SNOW AND GLUEING DOWN STORY

Painted more 'snow' today.  I'll use it in the picture layouts for the new collaborative snow book I'm doing with my grandkids.

Actually I'm dipping a sponge into gesso and stamping, not painting, it on raw canvas. 

After the pieces dried, I cut snow shapes.  put the pieces together, making the pictures, began glueing them down.

The picture story is coming together.

HOW DOES THE BOOK FLOW ?

I'm visual. Story and pictures may not quite be ready but I wanted a look how the latest Kittykee Series book flows. 

So today I put together some of the 14 page spreads. 

Once again I'm working in Blurb's BookSmart program. 

This is one of the 'snow' pages in the new book.  

The illustrator? Our 4 year old granddaughter. 

BELLA IS WEARING PURPLE

Bella is purple but there are no more purple kitties! 

I also need more 'tracks' to put in the snow.

Time to get out the rubber stamps. 

CONSIDERING STORY

Continuing about the new snow book.  My grandson only had time to make 2 pages for the new snow story.  Kittykee is in both. This is one of the two.

I had in mind that the pictures made by my three grandkids would work into a new story. But I held the process loosely, having no story in mind.  So the 9 snow pages they made were done randomly - inspired by the materials I brought: snow fabric squares - prepared ahead, rubber stamped images (Kittykee) and painted papers.  We did not talk about story direction.  

In earlier books, Kittykee is the main character. It was not going to happen in this new book with only 2 Kittykee pictures pages. We did have 2 new characters, Sparkle and Bella though.  Keep up with future posts to see how the new snow story develops.

LAYING OUT STORY AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Continued the snow story book today. I did a lot of perking - tweaking the story, deciding about illustrations, laying the story out so I could see what is what. 

A simple children's book but a lot of thought goes into it - especially building a story with somewhat random snow pictures by my grandkids.

Tomorrow I'll rubber stamp more cats, move ahead on the illustrations and work more on the story. 

By the way, meet Sparkle and Bella, two new kitty characters in the Kittykee series. 

Til tomorrow...

WRITING THE STORY ON MY LAPTOP

Working on the text of the snow story after scanning art work by my grand kids, the artists.

WRITING THE STORY

Great morning in the studio! 

It was a challenge to work my grandchildren's snow pictures into a cohesive storyline. But the story elements came together surprisingly quickly. 

• a wintry snowy day 
• two kitty friends playing 
• scary footprints in the snow 
• an elusive wolf 
• Kittykee to the rescue  

The story needs tweaking, more images need to be rubber stamped and additional pictures need to be created, but this new storybook is coming together and that makes me happy!

AN ART STUDIO WHEREVER

I've been thinking about creating a collaborative snow story book by my grand kids and myself. We visited them last week. They do not live in snow country!  I brought art materials and snow photos and children's books to remember and inspire.

Into studio-mode we went!
We worked in 2 'art studios' - on the kitchen table and in their art room. 2 days later, I left with 9 snow pictures,  wondering how I would put them together into a cohesive story.

A few days later I spread out their art work in another art studio - the bed in our hotel room!  I began to think about a wintry story to fit the pictures.  A challenge !

Arriving home, I put their snow inspired art, on the tables in my own art studio.

This week I'll be working on the snow book and writing about the process. I'm happy to be back in inspiring snow country!