{"id":4696,"date":"2018-08-10T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T06:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4696"},"modified":"2018-08-10T09:32:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T15:32:17","slug":"what-im-doing-at-kirkus-this-weekplus-what-i-did-last-weekfeaturing-laura-vaccaro-seeger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4696","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019m Doing at Kirkus<\/em> This Week,
Plus What I Did Last Week,
Featuring Laura Vaccaro Seeger"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nOver at Kirkus<\/em> today, I’ve got some recommended picture books, all new to shelves, for back-to-school. <\/p>\n

That is here<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

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Last week, I wrote here<\/a><\/strong> about Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s<\/a><\/strong> Blue<\/em> (Neal Porter\/Roaring Brook), coming to shelves this September. I’m following up today with a visit from Laura, who talks about her process, while sharing lots of art. I thank her for visiting. <\/p>\n


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Laura<\/font><\/strong>: When I set out to write Blue<\/em>, I knew that I wanted to make a companion book to Green<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, sharing its poem structure, design, connectivity through die-cuts, and trim size. While Green<\/em> explores the many shades of green in the world around us and (hopefully) encourages an appreciation of our environment, I knew that I wanted to approach Blue<\/em> from a new narrative standpoint and explore the color blue in terms of loyalty and sadness.
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\nSo, I wrote a poem somewhat like the text that appears in the book, but at that time the visual narrative was very different. It was about a newborn baby and his toddler brother, growing up together through the years. Finally, the older brother packs up and moves out, and the younger brother is blue.
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\nAfter completing three or four final paintings, something began to nag at me. I called my editor (the oh-so-wonderful Neal Porter) to discuss my concerns. I told him that, sure, the younger brother is sad, but it\u2019s not like he\u2019ll never see his older brother again. When Neal questioned what I really wanted the book to be about, I explained that I was interested in exploring loyalty but also sadness. True sadness. The ultimate sadness. Loss. That\u2019s when I realized that I had to start the painting process all over again and change the narrative to include a baby and a puppy who grow up together. And, eventually, the boy (now a young man) experiences great loss.
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\nIt was challenging to create paintings where the characters are getting older with each page turn. It needed to be clear \u2014 but not distracting.
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\nThe paintings were created one layer at a time \u2014 and often re-painted. Most of my canvases are quite heavy, because they contain so many layers of paint!
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\nAnd, of course, the die-cuts were (as always) quite the (at times) headache-inducing challenge. Like Green<\/em>, each painting is a part of the one before it \u2014 and the one after. In this example, the pom-pom on the boy\u2019s hat is a die-cut in this night-time scene, which on the next spread reveals a rubber ducky atop the dog\u2019s head in a day-time scene. So, the area on the left of this spread needed to be a bright yellow and not at all distracting from the tender action between the boy and his dog. A challenge for this scene, indeed!
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\nI thought I had it solved with these fireflies but, because it\u2019s late autumn (the boy is wearing a cool-weather hat, and the ground is brown \u2014 both necessary because of the die-cuts!), fireflies wouldn\u2019t be out at that time of year.
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\nFinally, a solution: garden lights!
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\nThe scarf that appears in almost every spread is highly symbolic \u2014 it belongs to the boy at first, and then halfway through the book, his dog takes ownership \u2014 and in the end it symbolizes that, though life does go on after loss, the love and the memories remain. Always.
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\nLittle did I know that, by the time I began painting the \u201ctrue blue\u201d spread where the teenage boy is holding his dog in his arms for the last time, my dog Copper (the star of the Dog and Bear<\/strong><\/a><\/em> series), would become unexpectedly ill and pass away. The timing was remarkable, and the last few spreads were painted while my own tears dripped upon the canvas. Writing Blue<\/em>, as it turns out, explored my own loyalty and sadness \u2014 in real time.
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\nHere<\/a><\/strong> is the book trailer for Blue<\/em> \u2014 with original music composed and performed by my son, Dylan. And here\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> the book trailer for Green<\/em>, also with original music composed and performed by Dylan. <\/p>\n

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BLUE. Copyright \u00a9 2018 by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. Published by Neal Porter\/Roaring Brook Press, New York. All images used by permission of Laura Vaccaro Seeger.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Click to enlarge)   Over at Kirkus today, I’ve got some recommended picture books, all new to shelves, for back-to-school. That is here. * * * Last week, I wrote here about Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s Blue (Neal Porter\/Roaring Brook), coming to shelves this September. I’m following up today with a visit from Laura, who talks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-interviews","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4696","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=4696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}