The 500 Section Lounge Podcast

 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-500-section-lounge-podcast/id1481244711

Hi, Everybody!

Yesterday, I was a guest on The 500 Section Lounge Podcast.

The 500 Section Lounge is a fun show, fresh and entertaining. The hosts—three dads who've been friends since high school—talk a lot of sports, so you may be thinking one of two things:

1) I want to hear three dads talk about sports and interview lots of cool sports personalities!

If that's you, no worries, settle down. All you have to do is click here, or use your Google machine. There are many ways to listen and subscribe.

2) What's a children's book illustrator doing on a podcast hosted by three dads?

 Well, let me tell you. The 500 Section Lounge podcast isn't just cool, it's super cool. There is something for everyone. Sam, Matt, and Richey talk to all kinds of people. In my favorite episode, they interview a beekeeper! Check it out, and make sure you subscribe.

The guys asked me all about what it's like to write and illustrate books for kids. They were completely gracious, their questions were insightful, and the experience was overwhelmingly positive. The only thing missing was pizza and beer. Or White Castle. (This is an inside joke... gotta listen to get it!)

I forgot to snap a screenshot during the pod, so this illustration will have to do. :o)

Click here to listen on Spotify... or just Google the show. There are tons of ways to hear it!

Hooray for "Babies Around the World"

The Best 100 Children's Books of All Time

Thank you, Reader's Digest, for ranking Babies Around the World fourth in your amazing list! Here is an excerpt, written by Molly Pennington, PhD:

4. Babies Around the World by Puck

Age: Baby to 4 years

Bonjour! Hola, amigos! In this adorable 2017 board book, babies from all around the world offer the simplest of greetings: hello. Toddlers and the littlest humans will not only learn how to greet people in other languages, but they’ll also discover the diverse world they’re living in. Cheerful, inclusive illustrations depict happy kiddos engaged in daily life.

Click here to read the entire article.

Click here to read why Babies Around the World is near and dear to my heart.

And click here to order your copy of Babies Around the World today.

Shred Girls: Lindsay's Joyride

Announcing the release of
Shred Girls: Linday's Joyride

Written by Molly Hurford
Illustrated by Violet Lemay
Rodale Kids
May 8, 2019

Lindsay's Joyride is the first book in this outstanding new Shred Girls series by Molly Hurford. Ride along with Lindsay as she makes new friends and conquers her fears. Quoting the author, "It's not about bikes. It's about confidence."

There are tons of black and white illustrations in this book.

Also: Tons. Of. Bikes. (Illustrator friends, I know you understand everything associated with this particular drawing challenge!) 

Click "Look inside" at amazon.com to see some of the art in the layout, or stroll on over to the "Tweens" section of my website, where I've posted nearly all of the art from the book.

NY Dogs in The BARK!

Thanks to Claudia Kawczynska, Editor in chief of The Bark! Claudia devoted an entire page of her Fall 2016 issue to feature NY Dogs.

Pick up your copy of The Bark today! And click here to order NY Dogs, written and illustrated by Violet Lemay for punchline (2016).

NY DOGS

I am very pleased to announce the release of NY Dogs (punchline/2016), a book which I illustrated and also wrote. 

NY Dogs is a humorous look at the many and varied dogs of NYC, and the valiant humans who traipse after them, picking up their poo.

Outside of a book, a dog is man's best friend.
Inside of a book, it's too dark to read.
~ Groucho Marx

In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Malcolm Gladwell mentioned how difficult it is to make a reader laugh or cry. Mr. Gladwell was more interested in moving people to tears than to laughter, but after having just spent several months trying to write a funny book, the laughing part is what caught my attention. 

Making people laugh is much easier in a personal encounter than on the page because laughter is an emotional response. Gladwell credited his friend Charles for this thought: "People think with their eyes (reading) and feel with their ears (listening)."

Thankfully I had lots of help with the funny business. Click here to read about the team who helped make NY Dogs funny.

And of course, click here to order your copy of NY Dogs today!

blog tour

Meet Liz Zunon

Last fall at the Autumn Leaves Book Fair in Glens Falls New York, I spent the day seated next to Elizabeth Zunon, a lovely young illustrator whose table was strewn with an impressive array of picture books including My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey, A President from Hawai'i, and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (winner of the 2013 Children's Africana Book Award). At the time Liz was looking forward to meeting William Kamkwamba, the actual boy who actually harnessed the wind, at an upcoming event in DC. Impressive.

Liz invited me to participate in a tour of illustrators' blogs, in which featured artists answer a series of interview questions. Despite a crazy summer schedule, of course I said YES, so, here we are! Welcome to the tour.

___________________________________________

Interview: Violet Lemay

*

On what am I currently working?

For legal reasons, I'm not at liberty to say. (Ha! I've always wanted to work that line into a conversation.)

Publishers are very fussy about keeping their upcoming titles a secret. I can tell you this, tho: Two books that I illustrated last winter are just now being released. 

Texas Baby and Brooklyn Baby are part of an on-going series of Local Baby Books I've been illustrating for my favorite publisher, duopress, since we got the ball rolling with New York Baby back in 2012.

The image above—which is one of my all-time favorite creations—is from Brooklyn Baby.

Besides illustrating, I am also the art director at duopress, a job that keeps me extremely busy. Last season I provided art direction not only for Texas Baby and Brooklyn Baby, but for two other books as well:

Baby Loves Sports, A High-Contrast Action Book (duopress/2014), illustrated by Rey David Garcia, designed by Yours Truly; and PARK, A Fold-Out Book in Four Seasons (duopress/2014), illustrated by James Gulliver Hancock, designed by Beatriz Juarez. Both are excellent new concepts and I'm proud to have been a part of them. To read more about PARK, click here.

This spring I was extremely busy on three large projects, none of which have been published yet, so I can't tell you much about them. A hint: two of them involve cats, which I absolutely love to draw.

This little guy is a snippet from my website—he's not a part of the projects I just mentioned, but probably helped me get those jobs!

Currently I am swimming in an ocean of very fun illustration projects, none of which I can tell you about specifically yet (I really can't!), so stay tuned.

How is my work different from others in my genre?

My work is *me*, no matter how hard I try to make it look more like the work of other artists whose portfolios I admire. (I know a lot of illustrators and I think most of us are sensitive and yes, even a little neurotic—always presuming that everyone else is better.) Perhaps my images are a bit edgy when compared to most other picture book artists. I think my pictures have a nostalgic air about them, a quality that I actually enjoy. :-)

When I was young I was a theater designer, then I worked for over a decade as an editorial illustrator (I still make editorial art from time to time), and also did fashion-based work. All of those experiences continue to affect the look of my art. I can't help it, and that's a good thing! If not, all of our art would look the same.
*

Why do I illustrate what I do?

This one is easy to answer: I am so busy that, usually, I illustrate what I'm assigned to illustrate. I'm almost always on a deadline, with little time to spare. When I have free time I create art for my portfolio that features things I'd like to be paid to do—like the cats! (See above.) But that doesn't happen very often because usually, I'm just too pressed for time.

How does my illustration process work?

I start by thinking about the project, both directly and also in a more dreamy, absent-minded way. I think for as long as my schedule will allow—which looks a lot like procrastination, but is a very important part of the process. Then I sketch ideas with a regular old #2 pencil on paper that I grab from my printer's tray. Not very fancy. And at first, everything looks like a big mess.

Then I scan all of my sketches (the Big Mess), open the scans in Photoshop, and spend hours—days—playing with them, moving stuff around, resizing and distorting objects and shapes until I come up with a few compositions that I like.

Here are two initial rough options that I presented to duopress for the Brooklyn Baby image featured at the top of this post.

We chose the second option, which I had to refine quite a bit before moving to final, because we ended up using a similar composition (close-up view of two baby faces) for a different spread in the book.

After sketches are approved, if I'm painting, I use graphite paper to transfer the drawing into an Arches watercolor block (hot pressed), if I'm painting with watercolor. I work in other mediums too—for example, I am currently painting a book project with acrylic paint on canvas paper—so it depends. I also work digitally, a process that's a bit less traditional and is therefore more complicated. For a quick look at my digital process, click here.

This concludes your visit at Violet Lemay Illustration. To keep the tour going...

Meet Alice Feagan

Illustrator Alice Feagan works in cut paper collage, which she assembles traditionally and digitally. Her playful creations can be found in children's books, magazines such as National Geographic Kids, educational products and games. Her newest book School Days Around the World will be released by Kids Can Press in the Spring of 2015. She lives in Eugene, Oregon with her finacé and their two dogs.

Click here to get to Alice's awesome blog.

123 Little Bugs

Over the summer I art-directed my first project for duopress: Puck's 123 Little Bugs, a Cool Counting Book™ for itty-bitty readers. Prolific artist Rey David Rojas made the adorable illustrations, and my long-time friend Grant McMahan designed the book. Grant added patterns to Rey David's art, two of which—including these swirls on the cover—were created by me, just for fun. This art director job has its perks to be sure, not least of which is working with such talented people.

All duopress books are interactive. On the final pages of 123 Little Bugs you'll find helpful conversation starters to give you ideas about how to help your baby interact with the art on each page.

For example:

"Did you know that caterpillars have twelve eyes? How many eyes do you have? Can you close one eye? How about both? Now, open your eyes! There's much more to see in this book!"

Adorable. Where were these books when my son was small?

Get a jump on spring with 123 Little Bugs, available on-line and at your local independent bookstore.

Doodle America

Last winter I was busy making art for a slew of books for duopress, all of which are about to be released in bookstores.

Doodle America was written by the highly prolific Jerome Pohlen, whose Author Profile Page at amazon.com is extremely impressive—click here, and prepare to be awed! Doodle America is fun and educational, with directives to doodle everything from Ben Franklin's kite in a thunderstorm, to kudzu covering a sleepy southern town. The 180-page activity book is divided regionally, and is ideal for rainy days, road trips, and everything in between.

My son Gray (who is almost twelve already!) still loves duporess Doodle Books, and his friends do, too.

 It's a good thing, since most of them have unwrapped books from the Doodle series at their birthday parties. 
♥

pjn photography + duopress = adorable

My friends Courtney and Pete Nettleton, owners of PJN Photography in Glens Falls, NY, are using duopress books as props in their sessions with babies. On behalf of the babies of New York and the tri-state area, Sadie (above) finds My Foodie ABC "delicious."

 Click here to read more about this unexpected and wonderful collaboration.

A.D. for Duopress

Okay, folks. You'd better sit down—this is a biggie. Have I got your attention? Are you settled? Good. (Clears throat, smooths skirt.)

It is with a great deal of pleasure that I make the following announcement:

I am the brand new ART DIRECTOR at DUOPRESS! (Big smile, bigger blush.)

Yes, it's true. After illustrating twelve books for duporess, my friend Mauricio Velázquez de León (who owns the joint) made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I will continue illustrating books for duo, and henceforth will also oversee the design of all duopress titles, which means working with a team of highly talented and super cool people. So. Much. Fun.

Isn't that great news? It made my day. Hope it brightened yours as well.

best always,

v

Autumn Leaves Book Fair

Yesterday was The Chronicle's Autumn Leaves Book Fair at the Queensbury Hotel in lovely Glens Falls, New York.

It was a big event—4 or 5 ballrooms full of authors and publishers selling books—and there was a steady stream of shoppers perusing the tables, all day long. The spread of duopress books at my table was a big hit. The bowl of Dove chocolates? Also, popular.

I wouldn't have known about the this book fair if not for a flier given to me by the community events coordinator who organized the last signing event I attended, at my local Barnes and Noble. One thing leads to another.

__________

Thanks to author Jean Akin who shared this table and the day with me, and who graciously snapped this photo.

Girl Pumpkin, Home from the Salon

During a bout of insomnia the other night, I made a second jack-o-lantern for Anna Goodson's pumpkin carving competition. Got the inspiration from a display of mums outside a shop here in Savannah. I bought the mums and a melon to be on the safe side, in case my first idea (see below) wouldn't work out. The melon is a beautiful bright, clear yellow—a canary melon—but for some reason looks rather 'road-cone' orange in this particular shot. Go figure. The melon was much easier to carve than a pumpkin (easier to eat, too!), which was a nice surprise.

To participate, carve something up and post the photos on flickr or facebook:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/agm-pumpkin-2009/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=137395738070

October 16th is the deadline!

Mail Me Art

I painted this cardboard box for Darren Di Lieto's Mail Me Art project. In this view, you see the back of the box (left) containing most of the art, which wraps around the spine and onto the front (right). The addresses are cropped off.

Anyone can submit to Mail Me Art:

http://mailmeart.com/going-postal/

My inspiration for this image was Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, a painting by Edouard Manet. I have a clear memory of the painting from a set of fine art books that my mom bought for me decades ago. Schnucks, the grocery store near my childhood home, ran a promotion during which, every week, you could buy another book from the collection. I loved all of them, but my clearest memories are of Sargant (Madame X), van Gogh (Starry Night), and Manet.

So at first, I decided to simply use Manet's work as a springboard, just for fun. While researching the piece I read that apparently it caused quite a stir when Manet originally exhibited it in 1865 in a Parisian gallery. I hadn't thought about it before, but I guess it is quite odd, arranging a scene of three people (four, if you count the girl in the water), one of whom is completely nude. Some art historians theorize Manet's motive was to pull focus from his rival Monet, by exhibiting such a scandalous scene. I'm sure that was probably part of it. But, I'll bet it started innocently enough: like most artists, he appreciated the nude female form, and just didn't want to muck it up with clothing. Maybe he didn't feel like painting all of that drapey fabric. For whatever reason, there she sits, naked as a jaybird, with two fully clothed gentlemen, and they all seem absolutely and completely comfortable with the arrangement. I never wondered about it before; just thought it was a beautiful painting.

Reading about the scandal, I thought, 'Perfect! Manet was pushing the envelope!' Get it? Mail Me Art... Pushing the Envelope? I know, conceptually it's thin at best, corny at worst. But in it's thin, corny way, it made me happy. To make the whole thing even more deeply perfect, I had used my collection of envelope interiors to make the collage. This, before concocting the 'Pushing the Envelope' theme. Suddenly the whole project seemed to have been divinely inspired; it was all coming together so well. Bliss!

Until... my husband popped in. Fred liked what I'd done well enough, but frankly thought the scene was weird. I explained the whole thing about Manet, showed him the original art and went into great detail about my genius concept, all to no avail. "It's bizarre for a naked chick to be sitting in the park with two guys," said he. Which gave me doubts. I started to wonder what the ladies at the posts office would say, and the customs officials, and Darren, the world at large, etc. I'm a Sunday school teacher, for Pete's sake! What was I thinking? In the end, I was happy to paint some clothes on her; gave me a chance to use my machining stamps with white gouache, which was fun. I like to use them whenever I can (which doesn't happen much at all in my professional illustration work). Crisis averted.

I love your art, Eduoard Manet, and I admire your pluck. As for me, modesty prevails.

All's well that ends well. Hopefully my box has arrived safely in London; I haven't heard yet.

By the way, the ladies at my post office LOVED it. Ah, sweet relief.