Illustration Friday: Sweet

My daughter had her very first dance recital a few weeks ago. It was super sweet! This is part of a painting I did of her and the other 4 little gals in her class in their bunny ballet costumes.

The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing is a blog hop that was started in Australia and has gone global. The object is to bring awareness to authors and illustrators and their current work. Thank you, Leeza Hernandez, for tagging me! I'll answer the 10 questions about my next children's book and then tag another author/illustrator to answer these questions about her newest book. Here goes...

1) What is the working title of your next book?

PENGUIN CHA-CHA. It's available for pre-order from Random House (or Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or your favorite indie bookstore).

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
I had drawn an illustration years ago of dancing penguins for my portfolio. I used to be in a performance and competition dance group and I like penguins, so I had combined the two for that sample piece. Numerous editors and art directors asked if I had a story to go along with that sample illustration. I said yes. Then I wrote story after story about dancing penguins. Some of my stories were good, but not great enough to be published by a major publisher. It took years and lots of critiques before I got the writing part right. In the case of this book, the illustrations came first before the writing.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
It's a funny picture book.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
The little girl, Julia, could be played by my dancing daughter in another couple years, and I think Dreamworks would need to handle the penguins unless you know of some quite talented penguins.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Follow a determined girl named Julia as she tries to join in the fun of a mischevious group of dancing penguins.

6) Who is publishing your book?

Random House Children's Books

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I first drew dancing penguins in 2007. Writing the first draft of a dancing penguin story was quick, but then came complete rewrites with entirely different plots. This version was acquired in 2011 by Random House after an editor saw an illustration of my dancing penguins on my website and asked if I would submit my dummy to him. It will be published in August, 2013.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Dancing animal theme: Hilda Must Be Dancing and Prancing Dancing Lily

Penguin theme: One Cool Friend and Lost and Found

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

For years I performed and competed in a swing and Latin dance group called The Fourth Street Alley Cats. I loved it! Since being in that group inspired me to draw and write about dancing, I included my dance group in the first spread of the book.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

Illustrators often put small personal touches in the illustrations that most people aren't aware of. I always stick a mouse, monkey, or hippo in each of my books. You'll find all three in this book if you search. For the random background people at the zoo in my illustrations for this book, I used a lot of my friends and family. Maybe you should become a close friend to a children's book illustrator and see if you end up in a book!

Now that I've answered, I'm tagging:
Angela Dominguez, the talented author/illustrator of LET'S GO, HUGO!

Illustration Friday - Swim

New Book Deal

I had mentioned in my last post that I took a trip to Paris for research for my upcoming picture book. Well, the book has been announced in Publisher's Weekly, so I can officially sing out my excitement for it!

I'm illustrating a picture book that was written by Danielle Steel about a stylish teacup chihuahua called PRETTY MINNIE IN PARIS. It'll be published by Doubleday Books for Young Readers/Random House in fall 2014. Cute pooch, fashion, Paris, super fun picture book! My husband and I took that trip to Paris in January so I could get a real feel for the city of lights. I took thousands of reference photos to make sure I draw Paris right in the illustrations - small things like electrical outlets look different there and I want to make sure I draw those details correct in the book. We also visited Danielle and her own sweet chihuahua named Minnie at their home in Paris. Danielle was so warm and friendly, and we had such a lovely trip.

Thanks for sharing in my excitement with me!

Illustration Friday - Whisper

From the book BE BRAVE, WILLA BEAN! It's in a series of chapter books I'm illustrating for Random House about a messy-haired cupid named Willa Bean. Right now we're working on books 5 and 6. Super-dee-duper cute!

School Visit

I just got home from a lovely research trip to Paris for an upcoming picture book that I'm illustrating. More details on that book coming as soon as the publisher makes the announcement. Paris was absolutely stunning as you can see:

Toward the end of January, I spoke at a wonderful school, the Thelma B. Johnson Learning Center, in Henderson, Kentucky. They went all out for my visit! Quite impressive. They set up really cool activities that went along with my picture books CORA COOKS PANCIT and DANCING DREAMS.

They made pancit using the recipe from in CORA COOKS PANCIT and gave out aprons to the kids.

They brought ballet, ballroom, and broadway dancers to demonstrate some of the dances in DANCING DREAMS.

And a librarian taught parents how to read with their child in a dialogic fashion. 

So what did I do? Well, I gave a presentation on how picture books are created and then worked with the students in the audience to come up with our own new character. After I sketched our character, the students helped me decide what our character likes and doesn't like and then we created our our own story based on our character. The kids learned how a story is structured and how to come up with story ideas. We had lots of fun, and, as always, I was in awe of the imaginative answers the students gave.

The local paper covered the event. What a great day in Henderson for encouraging the love of books! 

Illustration Friday "Edge"

The cover of a book I'm currently illustrating for Random House called WILLA BEAN TO THE RESCUE!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

May your year be filled with faith, hope, and love.

F&Gs of my picture book

Guess what came in the mail from Random House? The F&Gs of my picture book, PENGUIN CHA-CHA! Yay!!!

F&G means "folded and gathered." They are sheets from a print run, folded, cut, and gathered together but without binding them together and without the hard cover that the final book will have. It shows us what the final pages will look like, so the publisher and I can approve the way the colors are printing and to see if we need to make any little changes before the real print run. Sometimes F&Gs are sent to reviewers before publication as well.

PENGUIN CHA-CHA is my first picture book that I've both written and illustrated; all the others I've illustrated but not written. So this one is extremely exciting for me. Yay for sneaky, dancing penguins!

The publication date will be October 2013.

Stretch

Sketching Stretching Puppies