Paintings and Contact Sheets from my new book which will be launched next year.
Thank you so much to everyone who sent me messages following my blog post on completing the last chapter of my new book. I was so surprised and taken aback by the kindness of everyone who had not only read my blog post but obviously understood how emotional I felt at the time knowing I had written the last words of the last chapter, which were forwarded to my publisher.
Last week became even more emotional as I have now also sent all of my paintings from my new book to my publisher to be professionally photographed to go with the written text.
I write my books as if I was in a room full of artists and imagine I am either demonstrating or explaining why I make the decisions on my colour choices or techniques. I also imagine sitting in the room and listening to myself. I ask myself what I would like to learn most from a book on watercolour and how each new chapter could help my own growth as an artist. I am quite tough on myself in that unless each page is fascinating it isn't worthy of being printed! And I have loved writing this new book so very much that I am genuinely sad this part of the books' journey is over. The creative side of putting it together and compiling all the information that I wished to share.
So having read and re-read each new page of my next publication I then went through each painting, no matter how small and checked if it had instructional or inspirational value. The emotional time came when I knew there would be no room for any more illustrations and my book was 100% complete.
As I was really busy last week I arranged for a courier to collect all the art work from my studio and deliver it to my publishers head office. Here it will be photographed then placed with the text lay out for printing to be organised. I will now be waiting eagerly for the first proof to arrive. This will not be in a book form. It will simply be loose paper in the sequence of the chapters so I can see how it will look before the final printing procedure gets under way.
This will be my very last chance to make any changes.
It is a time of anticipation and dare I say, nerves!
In my mind I think I know what my new book will look like but from my computer screen to the holding real thing is a massive leap!
I will keep updating my blog with news of this process as so many readers have let me know they are enjoying this side of my book, watching it come from the birth of an idea to the finished article.
And I will confess, it is wonderful to know I am not alone while waiting!
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1 comment:
Can't wait to get it. It's so nice to be able to get 'taught' by you, even when we can't come to a workshop.
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