Here?s an illustration from artist Edward Hemingway?s forthcoming illustrated title, Tiny Pie, written by Mark Bailey and Michael Oatman and coming in May from Running Press Kids.
Edward, who paints with oils on canvas and wood, also saw the release this year of Bad Apple: A Tale of Friendship (G. P. Putnam?s Sons, August 2012), all about an apple and a worm who become good friends ? and weather hard times, given the funny looks and mean comments they get for being friends in the first place. (Let us not forget the enduring wisdom of the popular mid-?90s bumper sticker.)
Edward is here today to talk a bit about his books, his paintings, and I also couldn?t resist briefly asking him about his heritage. Yes, he?s Ernest?s grandson.
Let?s get right to it, since Edward shares so many images today. And for that I thank him.
P.S. If you read below, you?ll see that this is a very special day for Edward ?
Jules: Can you talk about your choice to use oils for Bad Apple?
Edward: My desire to work in oils has always been a selfish one, and I?m terribly selfish. I love the medium, the texture, the smells, and ultimately the surface of the finished product. My first two books were painted in acrylics, and I found myself missing the oil-painting process, which I have been doing sporadically since my teens. Bad Apple seemed like the perfect book with which to reopen my box of oils, as its compositions are filled with lush outdoor scenes of trees and water and hills and red, red apples.
(I work on most of them all at once for drying purposes.)?
I continued the oil painting trend with Tiny Pie and had fun tackling interiors. For that book, the publisher only wanted digital files, so?instead of painting on canvas (rolling scanners require images with a flexible surface)?I was able to paint on hard wood board and then scan the images myself. There is something about the flatness of painting on board that I love. And in the end, you are left with this great object.
Which, of course, I keep for myself, being terribly selfish.
But I haven?t become a complete slave to oils just yet. My friend and former graduate program adviser, Maira Kalman (yes, the divinely talented sometimes walk among us) has done such wonders with gouache, and I think I may try to tackle that medium next. Lately, I have been playing around with exaggerated areas of flatness in my compositions, and it seems to me that gouache could lend itself nicely to this.
Jules: Is there something in particular that spawned the story of Bad Apple?
He couldn?t remember a better day.?
Edward: I can tell you exactly how the seed (sorry) of the idea for Bad Apple came about. I was on the phone with a pal of mine, who does these nonfiction children?s books about machines and vehicles and the likes, trying to convince him to join myself and my friend Sara Varon for a day at an apple orchard. Sara does books and graphic novels with animals and robots, among other things.
My friend wasn?t biting; he told me he had too much work to do, was on deadline, etc. (all things I should have been saying to myself as well, but I?m crackerjack about letting deadlines slide).
So, I gave him this pitch:
?Think of it as research. We could all do books about the orchard. You could write one about the on-site tractor; Sara could do a book about the orchard goats; and I could make a book about ? a ? um ? a ? bad apple??
It had just come to me. And suddenly I couldn?t get the idea out of my head. What was a ?bad apple? exactly, and what would a book about one entail? Maybe it would be about an apple and a worm, and they would be friends. Voil?.
My busy friend didn?t join us at the orchard that day, but Sara and I had a great time and got to feed some very charming goats. They left her happy but uninspired, and she ended up doing a couple of awesome books about ducks and cupcakes instead. I wrote Bad Apple and it?s sequel, Bad Apple?s Perfect Day.
(Click to enlarge)
My hard-working friend stayed in, met his deadline, and won the first of several national awards.
Is there a moral to this story? If there is, it?s lost on me.
Jules: The Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that your spreads ?recall old campground postcards of the 1950s.? Do you/did you set out to be retro, or did it just end up that way?
Edward: I like to think of my work as being a bit retro ? but with a modern sensibility.
One of my favorite teachers once told me that our limitations create our style, and I believe this. I am always trying to be a better painter, but I have also learned to embrace and exaggerate my flaws, which ultimately make my work unique, make it mine. My warped sense of perspective, my crude brush strokes, my flat compositions, my love of aping cartoons of the 1940s and 50s.
(Click second image to see spread in its entirety)
(Click second image to see spread in its entirety)
I used to find a lot of inspiration in other artists with romantic and often retro styles, but I?m trying to let go of that a little. No one will ever make a better William Joyce book than William Joyce, so why try?
The best you can hope for is to make your best work in your own voice.
Maybe one day I?ll make a better Edward Hemingway book than Edward Hemingway (who, I heard, really isn?t all that selfish). It?s a goal.
(Click to enlarge)
Jules: You will be teaching at the School of Visual Arts next year, yes? Will this be your first time teaching?
Edward: I will be teaching Creative Writing in an amazing new graduate program at SVA next year, called MFA Visual Narrative.
I have substitute-taught Creative Writing at the graduate level on and off for several years, but I am really looking forward to working with artists and helping them tell their stories on a larger scale. Plus, I like an audience I can tell what to do.
(Click to see entire spread from which this illustration comes)
Jules: I gotta ask: How does your grandfather?s work inform your writing, if at all?
Edward: I?m very proud of my heritage and the success of?and beauty present in?my grandfather?s writing, but he?s had no true influence on my work as an artist or writer.
My physique, however, is another matter. Thanks for the gut, Grandpa!
(Click to enlarge)
Jules: What are you working on now?
Edward: I am currently working on the second book about Mac the apple and Will the worm, entitled, Bad Apple?s Perfect Day. It?s all about making the most of a disappointing situation, something I think we all have had experience trying to do. I?m also in the beginning stages of another picture book and trying to get Bad Apple adapted to the small screen.
(Click to enlarge)
Jules: I?m posting this on your birthday. Big plans?
Edward: It?s my birthday today! I probably won?t do anything too exciting, but I will buy all the local newspapers (remember those?) and read my horoscopes. It?s the one day a year I like to do this, mainly because I hate reading horoscopes, seeing the line, ?If your birthday is today?? and being jealous and wishing it was my birthday and it?s not. Ah, the little things.
I will also be reading Bad Apple and answering questions about it at Books of Wonder in Manhattan.
It?s the first promotion for Bad Apple that I will be doing and kicks off the informal cross-country book tour I?m making in October.
BAD APPLE. Copyright ? 2012 by Edward Hemingway. Published by G. P. Putnam?s Sons, New York. All images here reproduced by permission of Edward Hemingway.
Note for any new readers: 7-Imp?s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.
I guess most of these are music kicks, but when I?ve had too much writing at my computer, which is how most of my days go, I gotta get up and hear music and/or dance around to it. For writing breaks. It?s just necessary.
1) When I found out Fionn Regan had a new CD, I ordered it to show up on my doorstep next-day. (I think I was slow in finding this out, so by ?new,? I mean 2012 ? and I think it even saw a 2011 release in Ireland, where he lives. Generally, I?m confused?and I usually am?but it?s new to me.) It?s good stuff. Wanna hear a tune?
He?s a great songwriter: ?Keep climbing into my head without knockin? / and you fix yourself there like a map pin / on this ghost of this street where I?m livin? / I?m in a chrysalis and I?m snowed in.?
2) This is peppier. MUCH peppier:
This band, The Kingston Springs, is all new to me, but all I know is that I liked that when I heard it this week. And I turned it up very loudly.
3) Ditto for this CD from riverwolves:
4) And then one morning this week?because Rufus Wainwright?s voice makes my day better and because I think this song is flawless, what with THAT piano and THAT bass and, again, THAT VOICE!?I listened to this. And it started my day off right, even if it?s not exactly a happy song. I just had to sit with my eyes closed and soak it in before I could work. Surely, that?s more information than you need to know, but all that?s to say: It?s sublime.
On account of that piano, I could listen to that song about seven hundred and seventy-seven times in a row.
5) You all remember how on a monthly basis The Bluegrass Special would include 7-Imp content? Well, now it has a new name: Deep Roots. It has a new focus (?roots music & meaningful matters?) and a new look. I am still flattered that they include 7-Imp content every month?their new issue includes my interview with illustrator Christian Robinson?because the guys who do this publication are very talented. (Here?s an example of the goodness you?ll see there re music). Many thanks to David McGee for including 7-Imp in this wonderful publication.
6) I love seeing the people my daughters are becoming.
7) As you?re maybe reading this on Sunday morning, I?m in Nashville, speaking at SCBWI Midsouth?s 2012 Fall Conference. I?m giving a presentation about picture books. The Friday-night me, who is typing this, is really hoping that the Sunday-me is doing well at this presentation right now. (Go, Sunday-me! You can do it! You will make sense. You will!)
What are YOUR kicks this week?
Source: http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2426
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