Emily Winfield Martin's Blog, page 5

More Wonderful (and ALA, the Caldecott, etc.)

These bright and crisp postcards just came back from the printer, so we've begun sending the little balloon baby out into the world.

And...I got my first bound copy of Wonderful Things (and the Dream Animals board book edition, so chunky & cute, which is out the same day!)

It won't be too long now...only a month & change. I'm so happy holding this new book in my hands...even if I know *exactly* what they look like, I peer at the endpapers at least every other day.

Other bookish news:
At the end of June, I spent the weekend in San Francisco for the ALA conference. I did a signing on the show floor & inscribed books to children with beautiful names & met lots of lovely librarians. Random House also threw an Original Art cocktail party, where they celebrated the art & background story behind several soon-to-be-released picture books (and Wonderful Things was one.) I was too swept up in all the excitement to take pictures (rats!) but there was a whole table full of original art & big blowups of the illustrations. So nice!

I felt lucky to be at my first Caldecott/Newbery dinner & hear (and cry embarrassingly during) Dan Santat's Caldecott acceptance speech. You can read it here. It's so vulnerable and true. All about doing the work and when the work is too much. Every relatable doubt & thought is in there. I couldn't find a place where you can listen, BUT if you want to hear him talk about the making of Beekle and all of the other dozens of books he's made, here's his interview on the Picturebooking podcast.

Whew!

I'm working hard on my next picture book & I'm excited...the next thing is always my favorite thing.

The Flower Channel Continues

 A new bunch of English roses have started to bloom, so even if things are a little fried and already too summery for my liking, there are new roses to go visit every day.

The peachy gold one (never enough peachy roses!) in the next to last photo is my favorite of the new varieties I planted this year, Crown Princess Margareta. What a gem! There is such a spectrum of bloom colors on this girl. There are so many variations in color on all the plants, really, depending on time of year, heat, water, etc (see that pair of dark & pale pink buds above.)

I've really loved watering them, weeding them, pruning, etc. lately. Those are all kind of terrible tasks (especially if it's too hot) but I'm comforted by the meditation of them.

It's a good break from working inside, from thinking and planning and sketching and painting. I've realized that my breaks are often comprised of other kinds of work (gardening, sewing, etc.) and that's just how it shakes out. Maybe it's because my work-work can be done lost in my mind, nestled into a couch, listening to podcasts or watching Netflix, so weeding or ironing or pressing a sewing machine pedal really is its own kind of break. Tasks with beginnings and endings you can see in an hour, in an afternoon.

This is turning into a ramble, when all I really wanted to say is: the flower channel continues!

This Year's Liberty Dress (2015 edition)

I've sewn up this year's Liberty dress (I've actually made a few so far, from fabric I squirreled from the Liberty store...maybe more on those in another post?) So technically, this is one of this year's Liberty dresses.

You can see the last two years here & here if you'd like to (2013 & 2014 respectively.)

The print is called Poppy & Honesty (I think) which is so pretty in all colorways but I was especially liking this nice demure blue & gray colorway. The pattern is my devising, a kind of pared-down version of this beautiful No.6 dress, the Alice dress, with nice long ties that wrap around the back & tie in the front.

It's light as a feather, really comfy and easy to wear (all extremely important as it seems to be getting toastier & toastier in famously gray, chilly Portland.)

And of course, (most importantly) it has nice big pockets!

I found this excellent little tutorial/technique for creating perfectly matched patch pockets and I've been going crazy putting pockets on everything. I've always had a hard time not only matching the pockets, but also pressing the rounded edges under so they lay nicely to stitch them down. But now I've got this little trick!

Pockets. Pockets for everything!

Outside In

Kitchen flowers are one of my favorite things. When I'm digging holes deep enough for rose roots in the March cold, covered in mud, I think of that. Of walking barefoot on May grass, filling a jar with flowers to bring inside.

These are all kitchen flowers from the past month or so. The roses have been so perfect this Spring, all voluptuous ballet-skirts and hopeful buds and magic perfume. The geums and Moroccan daisies and the burgundy ninebark I love are blooming and the foxgloves are about to reach their fairy-garden peak. 

 And I watch them outside, and bring them inside, and try not to blink.

The Wonderful Things You Will Be

I was wondering about when to spill the beans about this newest book. It's out at the end of August, which is still a little while away, but reviews are already coming in so...I feel like it's time to introduce The Wonderful Things You Will Be !

My tribute to possibilities (whether playing in a band or sewing pants for squirrels, just to name a few) just received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. Such nice news.

Here's a snippet from the publisher's description: From brave and bold to creative and clever, the rhythmic rhyme expresses all the loving things that parents think of when they look at their children. With beautiful, and sometimes humorous, illustrations, this is a book grown-ups will love reading over and over to kids���both young and old.

This book makes a nice trio with Dream Animals & Day Dreamers, but it's quite different. More grounded in the real, actual world (although plenty of surreal and weird little bits got in there, of course.) It's brighter & more airy, and a bit more modern. Well, more mid-century than 19th century.  ; )

I'm so excited for this book to be out there!

In the meantime, you can pre-order via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's -- all the usual suspects. 

Wrapped Up in Books Etc.

I feel like I'm forever getting the hang of juggling all these behind-the-scenes things and not vanishing from the face of the earth (the internet-earth) completely.

I've grown used to the waiting, to the long lead times for everything -- all this work that is done in semi-secret and then it's a year or two or more before anything real comes from it. This is just the way of books, and that's where a lot of my mind is right now, but the strangest thing is that it's even become the way for my personal art/projects. I guess I've adapted to these long incubation times so much that now I'm working on large amounts of my own things in semi-secret. There's a big stack of paintings growing in my matchbox studio, and I'm starting them, stopping them, changing them, watching them to see how they evolve and if they all belong together.

So thank you, always, for visiting me here or on Twitter or wherever I'm posting bits & pieces.

As I'm working away, I'm also watching my flowers grow & trying to do some warm-weather sewing before the real warm weather is here. At least I can post dispatches of those things! Things like flowers don't need to wait.

It Won't Be Too Long...

before the book these bebes belong to is out! This Summer.

I can't wait! In the meantime, we'll just have to hang out with this little crowd.

Back to the Sea

I've gone back to the sea for a project I'm working on, and my mermaid heart is very happy about it.

I can't wait to share more as I'm able to!

In Progress

It has become clear to me that my next art show is basically going to Angela Carter fan art.

Here is a glimpse of the elusive & very fancy paper palettes that I use! It's grey, which, I suppose, is some kind of help for color-mixing according to the palette manufacturers.

I just wanted to stop in & say hello & post this...I hardly ever take photos of things in-progress. And now I'm vanishing again, back to The Company of Wolves!

The Smartest Person I Know

Even when I'm happily lost in working away on things, the siren song of books & bed & cat is always there.

Thank you for the nice words and excitement in the last post re: this longer book. I am busily working on a few projects right now that I love. I can't wait to see how they turn out when they really take shape & become what they're going to become!