I got my copies in the mail last week of a picture book I did for Kar-Ben Publishing (a division of Lerner Publishing Group) last summer. It turned out really sweet! The book will not be released until August 1st, but is available for preorder on Amazon.
Speak Up, Tommy! is about a kid who is teased about his Israeli accent and the way he speaks English.
But his knowledge of Hebrew makes him a hero when a police officer and his dog come to visit Tommy's school.
The story, written by Jacqueline Dembar Greene, was inspired by a newspaper article about Sgt. John Fosket of the Helena, Montana Police Department, who was given a dog by an organization called Pups for Peace. Sgt. Fosket had one problem. Miky, the dog, had been trained in Israel and only understood Hebrew commands. Sgt. Fosket enlisted the help of a rabbi and his Hebrew-speaking friends, but in this picturebook, Tommy is our hero.
I loved working on this book. It it's always such a relief when the book prints exactly as the art looked on my Mac. I'm a hybrid artist....I paint some of the art traditionally, some of it digitally and manipulate a lot of the layers by adding textures. So there is a lot of anticipation before I see the book in print.
I'll show you more art once the book is released and I will be doing an interview with the author later in the summer. So stay tuned!
Is it Monday already? I've been working every day and through the weekends for the last couple of weeks to finish my picture book for Kar Ben Publishing. It's a story about a classroom full of kids and a police dog that could use some obedience training. It's such a fun book for me right now as I'm also working hard on training my rescue dog "Mack." We have obedience class on Monday nights at our local park. He is a quick learner, so I'm really pleased with his progress. His biggest obstacle is that he is just so full of excitement and very vocal. He just needs to learn a little patience....just like his mommy, lol.
I worked all weekend, so today doesn't really feel like Monday to me. And I usually post on Friday, but Kathy Weller and I have switched days. So I'm surprised I actually remembered that I was posting today!
I'm currently working on another picture book for Kar Ben Publishing. They are a lovely publishing house to work for. They let me have a lot of freedom. Picnic at Camp Shalom was the first book I did for them. The setting was summer camp and there was a lot of variety in the scenes. This current book takes place in a classroom with lots of kids, so it has been challenging for me to come up with creative ways to make the classroom look interesting on each of the spreads.
I'm also using my new printer, which I posted about
here, that prints out waterproof ink onto my watercolor paper. It's working out wonderfully and I'm much more relaxed while I paint, knowing if I make a horrible mistake, I can just print out another drawing. As with the last book, I am painting this book in layers. The characters are painted separately so that I can resize or manipulate them on the spread if I need to. I don't know about you, but if I walk away from artwork for 24 hours, when I come back to it, sometimes I can see glaring errors or distortions that just don't look right. Having the different elements on separate layers in photoshop makes it much easier to correct.
Have a great week everyone!
Illustrations look lovely and bright! Well done, looks really nice.Sounds like a good subject too!
Thanks so much Julie!
It looks ADORABLE!! Can't wait to get my copy. Go Macdeb!! :o)
Aw, thanks Ali.....you're such a great cheerleader!
Congrats! It looks amazing of what I can see! Can not wait to see it in person! Great work! :D
Thanks Ann...a fun book to work on with the dog :)
The sneak peek looks fantastic! Congratulations, Deb.
This looks adorable, Deb!! How exciting!