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It’s Mother’s Day, the day we celebrate all the mamas and mama-like people in our lives. <\/p>\n
I thought the best way I could celebrate today here at 7-Imp would be to highlight the latest picture book from Gianna Marino<\/a><\/strong>, Meet Me at the Moon<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, released by Viking in late March. And Gianna is visiting today to share a collection of early dummies, early sketches, work-in-progress images, and final spreads from the book. <\/p>\n She also has the loveliest true tale about her own mother and the creation of this book. <\/p>\n In their starred review, Kirkus<\/em> writes: “The textured mixed-media art paired with the flowing text elevates this title above most missing-mama fare. The full-bleed double-page spreads evoke the vastness of the plains and the night sky, while the finely detailed striping of the zebras and the intricate branches of the trees produce a striking contrast with the huge circles of the sun or moon that dominate most scenes. Radiating warmth and comfort, this distinguished title strikes home.”<\/p>\n This one also made it in the New York Times<\/em> just the other day<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n Here’s Gianna, and I thank her for visiting and sharing. <\/p>\n Gianna<\/font><\/strong>: I have always been fascinated by the sources of our ideas for stories, especially stories for children — written by adults, sometimes for children and sometimes, in my case, for more personal reasons.<\/p>\n While thinking about this, I came across a telling word: <\/p>\n Underbelly<\/em> – \u201cA vulnerable or unprotected part, aspect, or region.\u201d<\/p>\n This led me to revisit the most powerful, meaningful, and touching stories from my childhood — the ones that made me laugh outloud or the ones that scared me or those that reminded me of a sweet, long-forgotten childhood memory. How, I thought, could I do that in my stories? How could I touch that underbelly for my readers and be vulnerable in my writing? Where do those first ideas come from and how does our personal life affect and inspire our direction? How could I step out of my comfort zone and write about the things that scared me? <\/p>\n I also realized that, as adults, we have a harder time facing the things that scare us. One of my favorite quotes from John Steinbeck’s<\/a><\/strong> The Log from the Sea of Cortez<\/a><\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n “Far from learning, adults simply become set in a maze of prejudices and dreams and sets of rules whose origins they do not know, and would not dare inspect for fear the whole structure might topple over on them.” — Ed Ricketts<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Little did I know my own structure was about to be toppled over. My underbelly was about to be left vulnerable.<\/p>\n A few years ago, just seven years after my father had passed, I received a call from my mother that she was ill. We had a long conversation on the phone and, while we did not know yet what her illness was, I knew it was serious. <\/p>\n I took a nap after her call and, when I woke, wrote down the story from my dream.<\/p>\n In the dream, a baby elephant is separated from its mother by poachers, who put the little elephant to work clearing timber from the forest. Before this kidnapping, the mama and baby had a promise to each other — that they would always meet at the moon. But the baby couldn\u2019t see the moon through the forest and spent his time wondering how he could find it and his mother. But his job, clearing the trees, soon revealed the moon above. The baby, now a big elephant himself, escapes and finds his mother waiting for him at the moon. I called this story Meet Me at the Moon<\/em> and learned later that week my mother had terminal cancer. <\/p>\n Every event in our life influences our work. Everything we do inspires us — or scares us into creating. When we face what we are afraid of, we follow a path that is unknown and challenging, and we get to the heart of the emotion. My fear was not only in losing my second parent, but in facing someone, again, day after day, who knows their life is coming to an end. I became determined to transform my mama and baby dream into something tangible that would keep my mother and I connected forever. <\/p>\n Writing and sketching became a way for me to stay connected to my mother, while she became weaker and weaker. During this time, many friends and family came to say their goodbyes. While my mother\u2019s life had been filled with literature, philosophy, poetry, and art, she now wanted nothing more than to hold her dear friends’ hands and look into their eyes. What mattered most at the end was connection. Those tender visits were the biggest inspiration for my story. I was not creating a story about death, but rather a story of comfort, capturing the eternal connection between a mother and child. <\/p>\n And so the early and scary kidnapping of the poachers was removed and, over many revisions, I came to the heart of the story — the connection. The mother promises that while she is gone, the baby will be safe and they will stay connected by the wind, the stars, and the moon. When the baby asks, \u201cMama, what if I can\u2019t hear you while you are gone?\u201d Mama answers, \u201cListen to the wind. I will sing to you.\u201d And when the baby asks, \u201cWhat if I can\u2019t see you?\u201d Mama teaches baby to find the brightest star. \u201cIf we both look at the same bright star,\u201d she says, \u201cit will be like we are looking at each other.\u201d <\/p>\n And when the baby asks Mama how they will find each other again, Mama says, \u201cmeet me at the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n I worked on Meet Me at the Moon<\/em>, determined to finish it so I could show my mother I was trying to capture what she was feeling, show her that I got it. I understood a small part of what she was going through. I worked on revision after revision and brought them to her in the hospital. She saw the early drawings and notes. She smiled and nodded, but I wondered, at the time, if she was too full of pain-killers to understand the story. <\/p>\n My mother never saw the finished version, but she left me something behind to complete the final question. After my mother passed and Meet Me at the Moon<\/em> was being developed, my editor asked me what the \u201ccalling song\u201d was. I had no clue. The \u201ccalling song\u201d had just been an idea in early drafts. Then I saw the post-it taped on my computer \u2013 one of the notes my mother wrote and left hidden in her house, knowing I would find it after she passed. <\/p>\n It read, \u201cYou are in my most secret heart.\u201d<\/p>\n A song left by my mother and the perfect ending to Meet Me at the Moon<\/em>. <\/p>\n I see now, even after she is gone, my mother is still in my life.<\/p>\n Notes on the art<\/font><\/strong>:<\/p>\n I started painting animals from my trips abroad (Africa, Australia, Asia, etc.) with the intention of finding emotion in each one. I didn\u2019t want to draw them as a photo might portray them, but wanted to make each one unique. As I painted, I would think of someone I knew and mimic their facial expression in my paintings. I had a mirror in front of my drawing table and made faces at myself as I painted, happy or grumpy or quiet, and transferred the feeling into the animals. While home from these trips abroad, I planted a garden and painted the plants that grew. I found it calming to stare at an onion for hours and find the curl in dried skin or the weight a flower might put on its stem. <\/p>\n But over time this wasn\u2019t enough. I was technically good at mimicking what I saw, but there was no emotion left in what I was doing. I needed more. I needed something to shake me enough to inspire new work. For the first time in my \u201ccreative\u201d career, I made myself experiment with the process of art. <\/p>\n The rules for my experiment were this: <\/p>\n I came up with awful samples, but I eventually arrived at mixed media paintings — the illustrations for Meet Me at the Moon<\/em>. These are done with layers of rice or mulberry papers soaked onto a 140-lb (or more) cold-pressed watercolor paper. The sketch is drawn lightly over the papers, then translucent layers of gouache are applied to build up the color. I sometimes use contrasting colors over one another, such as blue over yellow, or red over green, to get more depth. I use gum arabic — between colors so they don\u2019t blend or as a final layer to bring out the richness of the color.<\/p>\n For Meet Me at the Moon<\/em>, I did a variety of color studies for each illustration, as the color itself had to tell a story of going from hot and dry — yellows, oranges, reds to more bland and washed-out and, finally after the rains arrive, to cooler blues and greens. <\/p>\n I found reference plants from Africa and did sketches of the ones that grew on the plains -\u2013 this, too, ties back to my botanical studies of those onions in the garden. I added these plants into the foreground of the illustrations, going from warm flowers at the beginning of the story, then weeds and thistles when it is bone dry in the middle of the story, then pink and purple flowers after the rains at the end.<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Thanks to Gianna for sharing. Below are some more early sketches and more images of the artwork as a work-in-progress. You can enlarge each image by clicking on it — to see up-close and in more detail.<\/p>\n MEET ME AT THE MOON. Copyright \u00a9 2012 by Gianna Marino. Published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin, New York. All images reproduced here with permission of the illustrator.<\/em><\/p>\n Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome. <\/p>\n I’m going to keep it simple this week, for my part. I feel sort of hushed by Gianna’s beautiful words and images. Also, honestly, I’m still feeling sad and shocked (I thought he’d be with us about, I dunno, ten or fifteen more years) over the news of Sendak’s death. At least the tributes we’ve all seen this week—in words<\/a><\/strong> and images<\/a><\/strong>—have been really nice. <\/p>\n Since it’s Mother’s Day, my two hugely ginormous kicks—not surprisingly—are below. They are kicks every<\/em> day. <\/p>\n Oh, and one more quick Gianna-related note: See this cover below? It’s an upcoming Fall release from her (Viking). I’m looking forward to seeing that…<\/p>\n What about you? What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Work-in-progress illustration from Gianna Marino’s Meet Me at the Moon(Click to enlarge) It’s Mother’s Day, the day we celebrate all the mamas and mama-like people in our lives. I thought the best way I could celebrate today here at 7-Imp would be to highlight the latest picture book from Gianna Marino, Meet Me at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The book, which Booklist<\/em> describes as “[h]eartfelt and sincere, yet never cloying,” tells the story of a young elephant and his mother. Little One is worried, because his mother must leave to “climb the highest mountain to ask the skies for rain.” Telling Little One to listen for her song on the wind, know that the warmth of the sun means she loves him, and find the brightest star to see her, she leaves. “When the night sky is bright, Little One,” she adds, “meet me at the moon, where the sky touches the earth.” <\/p>\n
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‘I know, Little One. But you will feel my love in everything around you.'”<\/em>
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‘Listen for my sound on the wind, Little One. I will sing to you.'”<\/em>
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‘When the night sky is bright, Little One,
meet me at the moon, where the sky touches the earth.'”<\/em>
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The dry earth crumbled in the heat, and still Mama did not return.”<\/em>
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But now there was no song on the wind. No bright star to see.
No sun to make Little One feel warm and loved.”<\/em>
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