Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Rats!! Deseret Books rejected my children's book


Well, the best laid plans.....Deseret rejected my children's book. The very nice rejection letter said that they are too busy with editorial duties to specify why it was rejected. The good news is that now I can share some of the color images from the non-existant book! Here is a two page spread of the temple at Temple Square in Salt Lake City during the Christmas season. The orange area on the lower left is for the location of the words. All the art for the book was done on Wallis Art Paper (like a sandpaper) with dry pastels. I used them because they give intense, vibrant colors and reproduce wonderfully....no glare! The colors seem to actually leap off the page at you. I also enjoy the roughness of it- the idea is to see the artist's hand in the work: strokes, blurring, and dabs of color. Sort of reminds me of a bullfighter dashing his cape around a bullfight. The down side is that they are very, very messy and fragile.
My story is about a mother who takes her small son and baby daughter to visit temple square for the first time and it just happens to be during the Christmas season with all the lights and Nativity. They visit several of the land marks there and learn more about Jesus Christ at each one. At the conclusion of the story, the boy learns that his feelings for Jesus Christ have grown and that he can take the wonderful feeling of temple square home with him by reading the scriptures. It was supposed to be a children's book and temple square souvenier book all rolled into one. Atleast my someday grandkids will have a book about Temple Square to read when they come to visit grandma.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Interior two page spread


This image is of the two main characters walking down a neighborhood street at Christmastime. The mother is taking her small son and infant daughter to Temple Square in Salt Lake City for the first time. The blank area on the right side is for the words in the book.