Good news

ABIGAIL SPELLS has been named to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice list. Hurray!

CCBC Choices is the annual best-of-the-year list of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) is a unique examination, study and research library of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For more information and the complete list of choices, click here.

Also the f&gs for Disappearing Desmond just arrived! Aren't they nice and shiny?



Wilbur says they smell pretty good.

Survey and buttons- comment and get one for free!

Happy first day of school! This week I am taking a short break from painting Disappearing Desmond to focus on Abigail Spells, since it is a book I hope will appear in many classrooms this fall.

To that end I am very curious to know where you expert educators out there look for resources to fill out the curriculum in your classes. We authors are always trying to find ways to make our work useful to classrooms and a creative jumping off point for teachers. I'd love to know what your favorite sites are, so that I might be inspired in creating my own curriculum.

SO. I posted this short survey on my blog last week, but thought I might post it here as well to appeal to teachers and educators of all kinds to share your back to school planning.

*If you are a teacher or educator who works with kids, where do you go to research your lesson plans (can include books, web sites, magazines, articles, etc)?

*Are there any sites or other materials that have helped you develop spelling lessons in particular, and teach them effectively?

*Any great online resources that you use to find activities for your kids?

Thanks in advance for the help, I really appreciate it!

In case you're curious, here are some responses I've gotten so far:
Carl's Corner
Reading A-Z
Enchanted Learning
Pro teacher
Super teacher worksheets

On another note, I am making some little buttons of Abigail for giveaway... which design do you like the best? Place a vote or answer the survey above and I will send you a button when they're done*! Make sure your email address is in the comment, or you can email me at anna@annaalter.com.

*Giveaway ends 9/15. Only for folks in the US, sorry!

Happy Spelling Week and a blog tour!

This week 293 spellers will go to the Scripps National Bee in Washington D.C.! If you've seen the movies Spellbound or Akeelah and the Bee, you know how fascinating a real live spelling bee is. Some of you might remember my post about the one I went to in Brookline when I was researching Abigail Spells!

To celebrate all the goodness that is a spelling bee and the book I wrote about a dedicated speller, I will be blog touring all week in the kidlitosphere. Visit me at the below blogs to learn more about the book and I how I made it. Some will feature reviews, some interviews, and all will have book giveaways. Comment on their posts and you can win a free copy of Abigail Spells!

Monday the 25th: MotherReader
Tuesday the 26th: A Patchwork of Books
Wednesday the 27th: Katie's Literature Lounge
Thursday the 28th: Brimful Curiosities
Friday the 28th: Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup

MotherReader's post yesterday asked what word gives you the most spelling grief. I have many, but the ones that probably trip me up the most are isn't, weird, and coalesce... all those i's and e's and s's! What are yours?

Packing and drawing, packing and drawing

This spring has been the busiest I've had in a very long time; two books came out within a month of eachother, I'm planning my wedding in July, and moving from Boston to Northampton (children's book author Mecca) in a few short weeks- eek! Right now I am going back and forth between sketching for my new project Disappearing Desmond and packing all our belongings for the trip West. I am excited for all the change but also sad about leaving Boston, where I've made my home for the past 12 years. Boston has been good to me, sigh.

Anyhow, not much time for posting today, but I would like to invite everyone out to The Andover Bookstore on Saturday, where I will be reading, presenting about, and signing Abigail Spells. There will be fun activities for kids (a spelling scavenger hunt is in the works), snacks, and all sorts of great spelling fun. Come join me!

The Andover Bookstore
Saturday May 23rd at 11:00 am

Abigail Spells is out at last!

Last week Abigail made her debut in bookstores, hurray! I am so proud of this book, and so excited that kids will be able to read it at last. For those of you that have been following our blog for a long time, you will remember this book going through many stages... from picking Abigail's handkerchief color, to choosing color schemes and patterns, to making the paintings. I posted about making a jacket sketch, painting the jacket (also here), and finishing the artwork.

Now that the book is finally in bookstores, the work to get the word out begins. Speaking of which, I have just launched a web site for Abigail: www.abigailspells.com. The site is a collaboration between myself and my computer genius fella- the one with the cupcake below! He helped me put together some Abigail spelling video games in a few short weeks by learning flash and animating Abigail... check out the "games" page to see her yourself!

If you'd like to learn more about the creation of the book, I have a number of events coming up this month where I will be presenting, showing artwork, and signing books. You can see a full schedule of where I will be here, but here are some highlights (all are free and open to the public):

This Saturday May 9th, I will be speaking about and signing both Old Red Shoe and Abigail Spells at Olivia Browning in Charlestown.
10:30-12:00 Preschool program and art activity
1:00-2:30 Grade school program and art activity

I will be celebrating the release of Abigail Spells at The Andover Bookstore. Come join me to learn about how the book was created, play spelling games and activities for kids.
May 23rd at 10:30 am

I will be signing Abigail Spells at Newtonville Books. Learn about the making of the book and see the original artwork!
June 27th Program will begin at 10:30 am

Spring events for new books!

This spring I am very excited to see the publication of two books a long time in the making, What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? and Abigail Spells. I invite you all to come celebrate with me! If you live in any of the areas below (or even if you don't) I would love to see you there, it is always fun to meet BRG readers face to face.

*I will be returning to the Virginia Festival of the Book. This year I am offering a free event where I will present the process of creating a book to kids, run an art activity, and sign books. All are invited!

Saturday March 21st at 12:30
McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, VA

*I will be reading, signing, and presenting about my books at The River's Family Music Meltdown & Book Bash. This will be a fun event, co-organized by fellow author Jarrett Krosoczka that includes book readingss, music, hula hooping, and trapeze!

March 28th from 10-4, my presentation will begin at 11:40 am
JFK Middle School in Northampton, MA

*Come celebrate Earth day with What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe?. I will give a presentation about how the book was made, read and sign books, and run a recycled art activity for kids!

April 22nd at 3 pm
Wellesley Booksmith in Wellesley, MA

*Celebrate What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? at the Wenham Museum in coordination with the exhibit Soul of the Shoe. Artists interpret how shoes are shaped by our culture; from Boston Celtics star Larry Bird's famous Converse high tops to fancy dance shoes that graced the stages of Broadway in productions such as Cats, The Wizard of Oz, and others. I will read Red Shoe and do a presentation about how it was made, followed by a craft activity.

April 23rd at 10:30 am presentation
Wenham Museum in Wenham, MA
Craft activity and booksigning 11:00 to 1:00 pm

*I will be selling my new books and prints at the RISD Spring Alumni Sale with Grace! Free Abigail Spells coloring sheets and spelling activities! Come by for an autographed book or just to chat.

May 2nd from 10-4:00 pm
Benefit Street in Providence, RI

Abigail Spells is finished!

As I mentioned under the question of the week, a week ago today I handed in the art for Abigail, yippee! This was a really fun project to work on, and really satisfying to see all the art finished. Laying out all the paintings for a book gives you such a nice sense of completion... there are so many points in the middle of painting when it feels like things just might not resolve and my anxiety kicks in, like I can coast in a painting til its about 75% done, then that last 25% comes from some kind of miraculous leap of faith.

Anyways, here are some of the finals that haven't appeared on the blog yet, stay tuned for updates as the book goes through production- fun and exciting promo to come!

Two weeks to go

The art for my book Abigail Spells (see paintings from it here and here) is due two weeks from today, so I am feverishly going back over my paintings and finishing everything up. I don't know why I bother trying to finish paintings in the beginning, I always go back at the end and change things. Towards the end of a project like this I do each painting half way and then finish them all off at once.

Anyways, my world is kind of small right now, so not a lot to post about. I am obsessed with color and pattern. Yesterday I went to the bakery next to my apartment to get some bread and the lady behind the counter was dressed just like Abigail! She had a red handkerchief on her head and a blue polka dot shirt (Abigail's favorite pattern). So went home and changed Abigail's shirt once again to look like the bakery lady's... I just can't make up my mind!

Here are some other patterns/color combos I've been using for inspiration:





I just love the color combination in this picture, I try to incorporate it into paintings wherever it seems like it could work:

Abigail close-up part two

Continued from this post last week, here are the final stages of Abigail's spelling bee close-up.... does she look frozen in fear?

Another Abigail painting in progress

Still painting away on the illustrations for Abigail Spells, here is another preview of one of the paintings coming together...

This is the initial sketch, Abigail is on stage at a greatly anticipated spelling bee:



First I put down some washes to establish the color palette:



Next I started layering the color on her face and in the background:



Then I spent some time building up her *blush*:



Continued next week!

New painting

No time for a long post today as I'm busy painting Abigail Spells. Here is a recent finish:

Abigail jacket post finished- finally!

After two lovely weeks in Hawaii (see below- you can tell I'm thinking hard about painting, right?), I am at last finishing this post (you are so patient). It is actually really good to be back to work. Good to get away, but good to be back- I can never really get a project off my mind until it is finished...



When last we left off the jacket painting for Abigail Spells looked like this. Next I filled in the letters some more and started on their clothing:



Started on Abigail's face, and still working on the clothes:



Face finished, clothes coming along:




Then finally, voila! A few more finishing touches and all finished.

Abigail Spells jacket continued

As some of you might remember from this post, I've been working on the jacket image for my new book Abigail Spells. After some consideration, the designer had the good idea to make the cover more poster-like. She sent me this layout idea, incorporating my previous sketches into a new design:



I like the simple, pared down design... so I made another sketch, blowing up the characters a little and hand lettering the title:



Once we agreed that this design worked for both of us, I went about tracing the image once more to transfer it onto my paper. I separated the image of the characters and the type, so that they can be used separately if need be:



Next I flipped over the tracing and penciled in the underside of the drawing:



Then I flipped it over again and traced the image a third time, onto my paper. I started laying down the under painting:



As I slowly layered color ideas, I started to get a sense for the palette and patterns I wanted to use:



Again, slowly layering color in place:



Stay tuned for the final steps next week!

Abigail paintings

A short post today- I am busy working on the paintings for my new book Abigail Spells. Here is a sample:

Abigail Spells jacket sketches

Sorry for the short post today, somehow I managed to schedule three outings in one day- this morning I had a school visit in Arlington, in a few minutes a college student is interviewing me for her research about kids books, and tonight I'll be signing books at the Wellesley book fair. After weeks of sitting quietly in my studio this is a lot of talking for me. Heres hoping I don't lose my voice!

In the meantime, here are some jacket sketches I've been working on for my new book. I think my favorite is the first one, what do you think?

Spelling Bee fun

As some of you may remember from this post, I've been working on a picture book about a bird named Abigail who enters a spelling bee. For the sake of research, this weekend I attended my first ever spelling bee and I must say, it was totally riveting. The bee began with a stage full of expectant spellers.



One by one they each stood up and took a turn. Some were so excited they couldn't sit still in their seats. Others held their shoulders up by their ears with nerves. All of them took the rules of the bee very seriously, repeating their assigned word before and after they spelled it, and waiting on the edge of their seats to hear if one of the judges would proclaim it correct. I too was on the edge of my seat, I wanted them all to win!



Finally a small group of kids was left on stage. The words got harder and harder. I was really amazed at the difficulty of the words- some I couldn't spell myself!



At last it came down to these two contestants. The one standing up was very serious and commanding as she spelled each word. The one on the right was giddy, when a word was announced that she knew a smile burst onto her face and she bounced a little. The last word was hers, 'conqueror'. The word was apropos because she took first place.



I thoroughly enjoyed myself and it really seemed like the kids did too. It was refreshing to see what good sports they were- cheering each other on and having fun up there. It wasn't the kind of cut-throat competition I had worried it might be, and there were no soccer moms brawling in the isles. The whole experience made me all the more excited to start the paintings for my new book. Its nice to be inspired by reality.