Swerve

On Friday March 11, the Calgary Herald's Swerve magazine ran an article about children's book writers and illustrators who live and work in Calgary. I'm one of the five artists featured. Thanks to writer Marcello DiCintio for a fun interview and a good talk about the ins and outs of the publishing world.

The illustrations in the article are done by my friend, the lovely and talented Renata Liwska.

Read the article on Swerve's blog here.

Snow Day

Woke up to six inches of new snow on the ground this morning. (Sound familiar, North America?) While you're waiting for the sun to come out, see if you can help the snow crystal find its way from the clouds to the ground.

Sunset Cliffs

Oh, how I love the Chinook wind. It blew into Calgary yesterday and raised the temperature twenty degrees! I can ALMOST remember what the warm air felt like on my skin in San Diego, where I drew this picture of Sunset Cliffs in my sketchbook.

Second Coldest Place on Earth?

A month or so ago, Calgary was reported to be the

second-coldest place on Earth, at -33 degrees Celsius (-27F). Brrrrr!

The only place colder IN THE WHOLE WORLD was the

South Pole. Today, it's -22C (-8C.) What better weather

could you ask for to curl up with a good book about snow?

In my picture book The Snow Show, celebrity chef - and snowman - Kelvin hosts a TV cooking show where he investigates evaporation, condensation, and precipitation—all while cooking up the crispiest, lightest, fluffiest batch of snow ever to fall from the sky!

Reviewers had this to say about The Snow Show:

“...one of the most gloriously exuberant, inventive displays of computer- created art that I have seen in a picture book.”

--Caldecott award winning artist Paul Zelinsky, The New York Times Book Review, December 8, 2008.

“…As the studio audience oohs and aahs, playful visuals mix the cooking-show motif with science to great effect…Complete with a commercial break and outtakes, this show’s as packed with information as a good hard snowball.”

–Kirkus, September 15, 2008

“Hoopla, bloopers and the rantings of temperamental talent turn a lesson in the science of snow into a boisterous blast of behind-the-scenes TV-making lunacy — who knew deposition, sublimation, sectored plates and radiating dendrites could be so much fun?”

-JustOneMoreBook.com, podcast, November 15, 2008

Read The Snow Show, then download a free kids’ activity kit pdf from http://www3.telus.net/public/carolynf/snowshow.html for more arctic antics!

Creative Spaces Interview

Jennifer Bertman interviewed me for her Creative Spaces blog.

http://www.writerjenn.blogspot.com/

Scroll down to December 27, 2010 for a peek into my studio. Thanks, Jenn!

Good Night, World

The revisions are done.
The revisions to the revisions are done.
The revisions to the revisions to the revisions are done.
The revisions to the revisions to the revisions to the revisions are...well, you get the idea.

YIPPEE!

(Dancing around the studio.)

Good Night, World is a bedtime story written by Willa Perlman with art by me, to be released by Beach Lane Books in summer 2011. I've been working frantically on it for many days...and nights. To celebrate, I'm going to take a nap.

But first - can somebody read me a bedtime story??

Good News!

My book TWO OLD POTATOES AND ME (written by John Coy) will be used in an ESL anthology. I wonder if the grade three students who read the book will notice that there's a potato with the face of Abraham Lincoln in the illustration above? Can you find it?

Reptiliacs

I'm a published poet! chickaDEE magazine asked me to write and illustrate poems about reptiles for their April issue. Thanks, chickaDEE!

Box Turtles

When box turtles box,
They bob
They duck
They crouch
They weave
They jab
They feint.
But still,
Prizefighters they ain't.

Pea Soup

Schools and libraries often ask me to give presentations about writing and illustrating children's books. When I flew to Edmonton for a school visit, fog made my flight two and a half hours late! Still, I had fun talking to the students and teachers. Victoria School of the Arts looks like an amazing place to go to school. Thanks to Karen J. for setting it up!

Mo' Potamus

An experiment with my new open acrylics: they stay wet longer so you can blend them like oil paints.

The Snow Show

Edmonton writer and bookseller Lindsey Carmichael blogged about THE SNOW SHOW

here

Lindsey interviewed me about writing and illustrating children's books here

Thanks, Lindsey!

Boulder Hot Springs

At a writing conference in September, I soaked in the geothermal hot springs here in Montana: the veranda sits fifty rocking chairs overlooking the Peace Valley.

Another One

One

My baby boy, Kieran, turned one year old on August 30. One is a good number for starting things: Kieran's starting to walk. I'm starting to post news and sketches on this blog.