Today a new Peepsqueak came in the mail. I have to decide which one I like the best. The one on the right is the new one. He is chubby and the pile is short. The one on the left is more shaggy and his body is softer and squishy. Which one do YOU like best? Do you have any comments?
WELCOME to the WORLD of BOOKS Peepsqueak! Today is your day! Today your book has been released for kids of all ages to see!
Harper Collins has been a wonderful partner in the production of Peepsqueak’s first book. I am including links to Peepsqueak’s page at Harper Collins in this blog post. There are fun activities for the kids, and an awesome trailer! I hope you all enjoy the new “Peepsqueak” book. I must say, he inspires me to always keep MOVING!!!
http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/books/Peepsqueak-Leslie-Ann-Clark/?isbn13=9780062078018&tctid=100
http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/books/Peepsqueak-Leslie-Ann-Clark/?isbn13=9780062078018&tctid=100
Yes friends, as most of you know, Peepsqueak has been off and running overseas before his book debut in NY City on Tuesday! He is so excited! So far he has been to China, Paris, Holland, England, Egypt and now Italy. We will see where he ends up tomorrow. He is ON THE MOVE!!!
Stay posted!
Leslie
My nose is running! I have been sitting on the couch all day!! Sometimes it is okay to be lazy. The body needs a little TCL. I am not used to being in slow motion.
“Ik kom!”
“Je viens!”
If Peepsqueak is coming in 7 days, where is he NOW?
Nine more days! He is COMING!!!
Left side: Brand new Peepsqueak. Right side: Well loved Peepsqueak belonging to grandson.
Just a few minutes ago my little dog Violet started barking! I opened the front door and found a brown box. The return address? NY, NY!
“It’s Peepsqueak!” I yelled!
I pulled at the sticky packing tape and ripped open the box! Oh my goodness! Peepsqueak was all packaged up with his own tag. Next I had to cut him out of a plastic bag! I will have to talk to Beth at Harper Collins about giving him breathing holes next time. He was no worse for wear and now is sitting comfortably on a chair in my family room.
Merry Makers is the toy company that made Peepsqueak They have made other fun characters like Olivia, Splat the Cat, Lama Lama, Junie B. Jones and more. Peepsqueak has not stopped talking about them since he came.
Merry Makers has decided to license Peepsqueak for all the world to buy! How exciting! Keep an eye out for him come late January.
http://www.merrymakersinc.com/index.html
Peepsqueak’s second book is well on the way to meeting the deadline of November 15th. My next step in the process is the fun part! Adding COLOR!
What you are looking at in the picture (above) are all my pages laid out. There are scans, sketches, finished ink drawings and notes from the editor for each page. Here is an example of an unfinished page. I started coloring the deer and the fox! Stay posted! I will show you the finished page later!
“Peepsqueak and the Furry Friend” is well underway! I found out yesterday that the deadline for this 2nd book is November 15th!
YIKES! With the word DEADLINE, I find myself wanting to go into hermit mode. Hermit mode is shutting myself up in the studio from early until late. Life revolves around ART each day. It is hectic and intense. Many times hermit mode chases all creativity right out of the studio!
NO!! Not this time! .
Life is not all about work. It’s about many different activities and people working themselves into a beautiful tapestry called “Life“. I want My Life Tapestry to be colorful, fun and alive! I want to enjoy each part and every person! I don’t want to look back on my life and remember faithless frustrating broken threads or the dark worrisome knotted areas with holes in them. This is not to say that life does not have it’s dark moments. I believe that even in hard times some of our richest and deepest colors in our life tapestry are made. Through faith, God himself weaves in the most amazing threads of all. Many times we cannot even see it until the times are past and we stand back and look.
My new book has woven itself into My Life Tapestry today. The sketches are finished, correction notes are in front of me. The characters are coming alive. In the days to come there will be crisp fall morning walks woven in and grandsons in their halloween costumes. There will be music playing and doggies sitting at my feet. My husband will be starting up the wood stove, there will be soups cooking on the stove, books to read before bed, a house to clean, a wedding to go to, friends to visit.
This book deadline will come and go. Before I know it, the book will be on its way to the printer and I will tie off that final color on My Life Tapestry and get ready to start a new colorful thread.
That's one big painting!
What a beautiful fall morning! I met with my sisters for coffee today. What a slice of heaven sisters are! We talked and laughed most of the morning. They truly inspire me! On our walk after coffee we came upon this beautiful scene. Sometimes you just gotta “Get Outta Dodge”! It gives you new perspective. You cannot put a price on it! JUST DO IT!
In Blue Skye Studio, creativity seems to happen somewhere between MESSY and CLEAN! If my studio is too messy I cannot work. If my studio is too clean, I sit there frozen, unable to become inspired. Soon the sketchbook comes out, the pencil is poised and the wonderful creative process begins! Before long, ideas begin to flow…. and then, suddenly…..everything is MESS again! haha!
Yesterday my husband and I drove into the mountains to hike with some old college friends. With plummeting temperatures and wind, the fall colors in Colorado don’t hang around very long. I am told that the day before we went on our hike, they were fantastic. Alas, there is beauty in everything if you look for it, even on the cold gray days like this one. We saw just a few brave aspen trees with tiny bits of color.
Don’t you think these trees look like they have been dusted with powdered sugar?
This is where we turned off the highway. This road looks like something out of a story book. It’s the road to “somewhere!” In fact, it is part of someone’s every day life. There were a lot of mountain homes on both sides of the road. My thoughts always go to what is inside of each home and what life must be like living in the mountains.
The snow is always deeper off the main road. There weren’t many cars on this cold weekend. I think everyone must have been tucked away in their homes drinking cocoa!
I LOVED this fun “FORK in the road” … and yes, we took a wrong turn anyway! Not to worry, wrong turns happen a lot. Its all a part of the adventure!
Our friends have a lovely home and the crackling wood stove was calling us inside!! After a short visit we headed out to the trail head. Thankful for warm boots and just the right amount of layers, we wandered through the trees for a couple of hours. Our friend’s dog, Oscar, ran through the snow with ease! After our hike we drove to the Sundance Cafe for some yummy red chili! The day was wonderful! Getting “Outta Dodge” is always a good idea!
Draw every day!
Many have asked me what my process is for creating my characters. Here is the low down with my “Peepsqueak” chick.
1. First I sketch him with a simple pencil. 
2. Once Peepsqueak is sketched, I lay a piece of tracing paper over the sketch and draw him with an ink line. (I use a #3 Micron pen) This inked-in image is then scanned. 
3. There are always specks and lines in the scan that I might not like. At this point I open this inked-in image in Photoshop and clean it up. You can see in the image below how I cleaned up Peepsqueak. 
4. The next step is to bring the cleaned up jpg into Illustrator. I open the image in Illustrator. I select it and then go under Object in the menu, select Live Trace, then Make and Expand. After that process I save Peepsqueak as a pdf. Look how nice and clean and smooth the line is now!!
The last step is to color him in Photoshop! Voila!!!
So, as you can clearly see, the Pencil came first!! Do you think God sketched us all out on paper before he made us? Ha! fun thought!
It was a good day today… it was an “end” tying day. I had many projects in the house that needed finishing. I found myself floating from one room to the next. Fall is a good time for this. I feel like I am getting ready for winter! I am ready to hunker down for when the first snowflakes fly. My mother always had some sort of project going in the winter months. She did a lot of needlework when she was a young mother.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the fairgrounds for the annual Quilt A Fair. It was so much fun. There were fabric shops from all over who came to sell their goods. For an artist, it was a feast!! Pattern and color and ideas were everywhere! I stopped abruptly when I came to a corner booth displaying needlework. There on the wall was the cutest little picture of a rabbit holding a cookie! I had to have it!! Only…. in order to HAVE it, I had to make it! I could almost hear my mother’s voice saying, “go ahead Leslie! This looks like a fun one”. So, I bought it! It is ready to stitch as soon as I get the thread.
I have other indoor projects for the winter months. I just have to get them ready to go! These are projects I can do “after drawing all day” in the studio. It’s almost like a “story book” way to spend the evening….. with a needle and thread.
As a children’s book illustrator and author, I find myself in the studio drawing, scanning and coloring each day. I think of characters, line width, color options, page sizes, stories to try out… and more. Much of the process taps the “adult” in me. I sometimes fight that! I think it is more important to keep the “child” in me front and center during the process. How better to connect with my “little” audience than to get on their level. The results? Watching them laugh when I read them my books.
Yesterday three little birds came to my house for try outs. What great fun to open the package! Three baby chicks popped out! Who will be Peepsqueak? #1, #2 or #3 ? Do I like the eyes? How about the beak? Not sure I like the feet … Color is good… but is he smiling? He HAS to look happy! … Love the red PS shirt…the shirt might need a little horizontal seam under the arm to make it fit better? All in all it is great fun to learn the process of making a TOY! I LOVE TOYS! When I was little all my toys talked. … and yes … mostly… they still do! ha ha ha ! … and yes, I still have TOYS!
