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...

TEACHING STORY TAGS IN GREECE

2nd post: Prep for Greece:
Martha will be teaching teens how to tell their stories on tags.  These are mailing tags that are purchased at office supply stores. (photo right) 

Though a very small space, I have seen simplified life stories collaged on these! (click for story tags in Asia)
Martha's goal this past weekend was to prepare painted papers for collaging the stories on tags and she did! Martha will return in a few weeks for more prep for Greece.