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August 15, 2003Fourteen illustrations are now finished, leaving five more to complete: the front matter (including endpapers, title page, copyright/dedication) and the back matter (backstage visit and endpaper). Linda, my designer at Harcourt is willing to help me figure out how to make the borders fit the already completed pictures. Pictures shipped today. |
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August 3, 2003My husband, Jim, is my most trusted reviewer of my text and images while I'm working. Due to his travel schedule this was his first review of many of the pictures made this summer. He agreed with me that the pictures needed "containing" and I am going to start experimenting with a border of bubbles. |
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June 28, 2003Allyn's visits are rare but always nerve-wracking. This review went very well and she found a few things only in need of minor changes. It is rare to have a mid-project visit like this and even though I didn't like it, I was glad to have the close scrutiny now. |
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June 28, 2003Allyn Johnston has been my Harcourt editor since 1989. She visited my studio to look over the progress of The Incredible Water Show. Allyn's job is to find any and everything that is wrong with the illustrations, writing, or how the two are combining. |
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May 28, 2003Large curtain bubbles appear throughout this book, and tiny water bubbles appear on some pages. I color in-between the tiny circles, and then cut bubbles from the colored paper, trying to get a balance of white and color in each bubble! It drove me mad and exhausted my eyes! |
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May 18, 2003In this book the characters from Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster, return to make a play about water. I had to make a notebook of the character drawings from Miss Alaineus, as well as keep a skin tone notebook to remind me exactly how each person is colored, as well as hair. I also kept track of the colors of the boat, the dog, and the background colors. |
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May 14, 2003This new book, The Incredible Water Show, has a dog in the story. I collected dog pictures from magazines and photocopied my favorite dogs in order to make a poster of the ones I liked. Finally I sat down and drew the jumping dog you see. The next day I went to the hardware store down the street from my studio and there was a dog that looked just like the one I had drawn for the book! |
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April 28, 2003Because I'm making hundreds of bubble outlines and coloring around them in blue, I've already used up five blue markers out of the brand new packs of eight! What if I donate the other extra colors to a school but there are No blues? Couldn't that cause terrible problems? Green skies, orange water, no blue-eyed people? |
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April 28, 2003I am currently working on my new book, The Incredible Water Show, where the characters from Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster, have returned to make a play based on their science fair project. I am using colored markers once again, only this time I am making "bubble paper" instead of stripes. Here's the box of markers I move from place to place in the studio. |
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April 18, 2003I have a new studio in St. Paul, Minnesota, just over the city line from Minneapolis. It you look at this picture, go to the third floor and find the first air conditioner from the right. |
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