Christopher Denise's Blog, page 12
March 21, 2016
March 18, 2016
March 17, 2016
Incredible details of Titian drawings.
So great. Think Sendak was a Titian fan?-yup.
http://linesandcolors.com/…/eye-candy-for-today-titian-pen…/
http://linesandcolors.com/…/eye-candy-for-today-titian-pen…/
March 16, 2016
Wow!
This is a great cause and an amazing auction. The items up for bid range from top tier editorial reviews to vacation digs in Scotland. Please take a moment to click through and share with friends. P.S. I have a thing or two in there as well!
https://www.32auctions.com/KidLitMacLeod
Interview with the wonderful Alison McGhee
From MPR news:
"Firefly Hollow": The children's book that began with a painting
In the publishing process, children's books typically begin with a story — then the illustrations follow. But that's not how "Firefly Hollow" came to be.
Writer Alison McGhee, who has published several books for both children and adults, received a package on her doorstop six years ago. Inside were full-color paintings of entrancing creatures: A mouse-like character in a sailor's outfit and a cricket curled up with a cup of tea. The illustrated companions were adrift in a small boat, sailing down the river....
listen to the full interview here
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/12/28/books-firefly-hollow-alison-mcghee
"Firefly Hollow": The children's book that began with a painting
In the publishing process, children's books typically begin with a story — then the illustrations follow. But that's not how "Firefly Hollow" came to be.
Writer Alison McGhee, who has published several books for both children and adults, received a package on her doorstop six years ago. Inside were full-color paintings of entrancing creatures: A mouse-like character in a sailor's outfit and a cricket curled up with a cup of tea. The illustrated companions were adrift in a small boat, sailing down the river....
listen to the full interview here
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/12/28/books-firefly-hollow-alison-mcghee
March 15, 2016
Catching up!
I just realized that I have not updated my posts from my professional Facebook Page, Christopher Denise Illustrator. So, for those of you that do not use Facebook, I will, over the next few days, post a few of the highlights.
This post from December 5th was to mark the completion of the art for my next picture book, Lucy's Lovey,written by Betsey Devany. This is probably the funniest manuscript I have ever had the pleasure of working on!
This post from December 5th was to mark the completion of the art for my next picture book, Lucy's Lovey,written by Betsey Devany. This is probably the funniest manuscript I have ever had the pleasure of working on!
November 18, 2015
Podcast interview on Picturebooking!
Ever hear of the of the Picturebooking Podcast? It's run by the nicest guy ever, Nick Patton. Nick has interviewd people in our industry like Molly Idle, Dan Santat, Peter Bown, and Kelly Murphy, to name just a few.
He invited me on the show to talk about Firefly Hollow and making books. He's got a way with his guests that reminds me so much of the radio show from Northern Exposure that I assumed we would be stopping by Rosyln's cafe for a few cold ones when we wrapped it up.
But don't be fooled by Nick's laid back approach. His questions are spot on and there is top notch content in the archives for anyone in the buisness or interested in children's books. I've learned quite a bit from listening to the shows while working. Subscribe(free) on itunes and take a moment to rate or review it. This small thing helps podcasts like Picturebooking stay on the air keeping us all more informed about children's books and the people that create them.
Then, you can listen to me ramble on for about an hour!
http://picturebooking.com/040-christopher-denise-the-mindset-of-a-visual-communicator/
September 13, 2015
Publishers Weekly Q&A with Alison McGhee
from Firefly Hollow, Atheneum Books for Young Readers 2015 From a wonderful interview here with Alison McGhee author of our new book, Firefly Hollow.
PW: "What, in a nutshell, do you hope that young readers take awayfrom the story?"
Alison: "No matter how lonely and misunderstood you may feel, there is a place foryou in this world, and there are people who will love you."
Read the interview here:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/67659-q-a-with-alison-mcghee.html
Alison McGhee on the writing of Firefly Hollow
If you have had a chance to read Alison McGhee's Firefly Hollow, and hopefully liked the book, then you may enjoy this wonderful post she has written on the creation of the story. In it, she shares her own thoughts and struggles in the writing of the manuscript with inspiring honesty and grace.
"The long and winding road that led to my novel Firefly Hollow began with some photocopied paintings that arrived in the mail one day. They were by an artist named Christopher Denise, and I spread them out on my big wooden dining table and stood there studying each one.
The idea was that I would write a picture book to go along with them. I love an assignment, but this one intimidated me. The paintings were just so damn beautiful. There was a vole wearing a little sailor's cap, and there was a cricket, and there was a boat and a river. There was the night sky and moonlight and the colors in each painting were like jewels.
Could I write a picture book worthy of those paintings? I wanted to, and I tried. For about a year and half, I tried. But everything I wrote—and I wrote a lot—kept spiraling out into more story than a picture book, with its tiny word count and strict page limit, could handle."
Read the rest of her post here at the Pippin Insider:
http://www.pippinproperties.com/blog/entry/conjuring-firefly-hollow/?comments
"The long and winding road that led to my novel Firefly Hollow began with some photocopied paintings that arrived in the mail one day. They were by an artist named Christopher Denise, and I spread them out on my big wooden dining table and stood there studying each one.
The idea was that I would write a picture book to go along with them. I love an assignment, but this one intimidated me. The paintings were just so damn beautiful. There was a vole wearing a little sailor's cap, and there was a cricket, and there was a boat and a river. There was the night sky and moonlight and the colors in each painting were like jewels.
Could I write a picture book worthy of those paintings? I wanted to, and I tried. For about a year and half, I tried. But everything I wrote—and I wrote a lot—kept spiraling out into more story than a picture book, with its tiny word count and strict page limit, could handle."
Read the rest of her post here at the Pippin Insider:
http://www.pippinproperties.com/blog/entry/conjuring-firefly-hollow/?comments
August 18, 2015
Firefly Hollow development part 2: Curiosities.
This is part two of a short series of posts about the development of my most recent book, Firefly Hollow written by Alison McGhee. See my post from June 26th to read part one.
Putting a story together, or rather discovering one and unearthing it, is tricky business. Steven King describes it this way:
“Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible. Sometimes the fossil you uncover is small; a seashell. Sometimes it’s enormous, a Tyrannosaurus Rex with all those gigantic ribs and grinning teeth.”
What parts of my story did I have? Not much. I had a few sketches that were resonating and some notes about the characters, but still no real sense of the story yet.I tried asking myself questions about the characters: Who is this vole? Where does he live? I caught a few glimmers of things but any sort of narrative remained elusive.
So, I did what many illustrators do when they are stuck: Research.
I started collecting images of voles, crickets and paintings of water that I really loved. I looked up rafts and boats, grabbing anything that caught my eye. Some of the images I already had in a folder that is constantly updated called "curiosities". In his book on creativity "Catching the Big Fish", David Lynch calls these collections "firewood". I love the term, and it is perfect the way he describes it, but I shied away from naming my folder likewise. I didn't want to burn through my material too quickly! I started putting things up and soon I had a wall of the shed covered in images.
Writing is hard work, I happen to think that it is MUCH harder than illustrating though many of my writer friends disagree with me. Writing good picture books is particularly difficult, you will know this if you have ever tried. Trying, as I was, to write something like the final manuscript of Firefly Hollow Firefly...was....lets just say that it is like showing at Wimbledon and trying to compete because you beat everyone in your family at badminton. Nevertheless, I tried to write the picture book version of my story-numerous times. They were terrible; really, really bad. As an illustrator, I respond to a text and then begin to add my own voice. Ultimately, I try to create a corresponding visual narrative that enhances and supports the written word-basically creating a parallel emotional narrative. That is a summarization, and I don't think about it that way when I am working, but its the closest I can come to describing the process. I had nothing to respond to so I continued on with what I felt right...the pictures. I sketched little visual "notes" about things that I thought would be fun to paint.
I was still on hold for the project in my desk so I scanned a few of the sketches and painted them up in Photoshop (just for the fun of it) as a color studies. 
