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What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week,
Plus What I Did Last Week, Featuring Evan Turk

h1 September 29th, 2017 by jules



Early sketch and final art: “‘Last I checked, you can’t eat the blues for breakfast,’
said Grandma Della. ‘No child of mine is gonna waste his time with music.’
But Muddy was never good at doing what he was told.”
(Click each to enlarge)


 

Today at Kirkus, we’re saying hi to some old friends.

That is here.

* * *

If you like Michael Mahin’s Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters (Atheneum, September 2017), illustrated by Evan Turk, as much as I do (I wrote about it here last week), you may enjoy today’s post. Evan shares some of his process paintings, and your eyes will be happy. There are even more images in this post at Evan’s site, where he also talks about the reasons behind the newspaper collages in the book’s illustrations. Oh, and Evan mentioned this book in my 2016 interview with him and shared some images there as well.

Enjoy!

 

Preliminary Images
(Click Each to Enlarge):


 


























 

Some Final Spreads:


 


“… And he had music. Muddy loved the ‘SAY IT WITH ME!’ voice of the preacher,
and the ‘GLORY! GLORY!’ singing of the choir.
But the music Muddy really loved, they didn’t play on Sundays.”
(Click to enlarge spread)


 


“What Muddy really loved was fish-fry music. It was the shake off the dust and
wring out your worries and laugh and cry and feel alive music.
It was the blues, and Muddy couldn’t get enough of it. …”
(Click to enlarge spread)


 


“… The guitar howled like a wolf: powerful, lonely, and proud. That was the sound
of the Mississippi Delta. That was the sound Muddy heard in his heart.”
(Click to enlarge spread)


 



 

* * * * * * *

MUDDY: THE STORY OF BLUES LEGEND MUDDY WATERS. Copyright © 2017 by Michael Mahin. Illustrations © 2017 by Evan Turk. Final illustrations here used by permission of the publisher, Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, New York. All other images used by permission of Evan Turk.





2 comments to “What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week,
Plus What I Did Last Week, Featuring Evan Turk”

  1. Fantastic! Thank you for sharing this process–inspired and inspiring!

         by Lauren September 29th, 2017 at 7:12 am

  2. […] Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters, written by Michael Mahin and illustrated by Evan Turk (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum) […]

         by The New York Times Best Illustrated List — The Horn Book November 3rd, 2017 at 11:07 am

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