Jason Sandberg's Blog: Kingdom Comeuppance - Posts Tagged "kidlit"

Picture books ought to be a gateway to a lifelong love of reading, so they should never be a drag for kids, or the adults who act as intermediaries between the child and the book. I view quality as the ability of a book to hold up under multiple reads!

“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” so I have published 99 Cents, an inexpensive eBook that gives parents the opportunity to sample my illustrations and see that I'm attempting to create work that will survive the test of time.

"99 Cents" features the exclusive short story “Walking on Daddy’s Feet,” a celebration of a playful tradition. Gina @ Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers described it best... "Here, father and daughter share time in the sun and the snow, at the beach and at home, through the city and through the neighborhood, as they create memories that'll last their whole lives through. It shows how sharing the simplest of things can be priceless and that the best of times can be had when spent with someone we love."
99 Cents is available at Amazon

The illustrations in my eBooks are created on the computer, the line art is drawn in Adobe Illustrator and then colored in Adobe PhotoShop. The process lends itself to experimentation because missteps can be undone without too much grief (unlike painting). Sometimes during the coloring phase I'll have 2 alternate versions of the page developing side by side, then I'll keep the TIF file that most pleases the eye.

For some time I've been wondering how I could include my paintings in an eBook. I would need an appropriate narrative to tie the various landscapes together. The thought occurred that the "story" could be a poem about the experience of taking in a landscape painting, the process of slowing down and appreciating the details. I chose my favorite paintings and placed them into a variety of illustrated rooms to create the impression of walking through a museum. Under a Blue Sky is a poem for children that celebrates those first youthful glimpses at the complexity and scale of our world.

My summer project was a book trailer for "Doodled Doggy." This was my first attempt at creating a GIF. I took several poses from the original eBook TIFs and built a puppet with heads, legs and arms on various layers in PhotoShop. I spent a weekend creating 140 frames of animation, it was tedious trial and error, but I tinkered away at it while binge watching Season 3 of "Orange is the New Black." I entrusted the final GIF to my cousin Travis, he added sound and polished up the MP4 file. I'm 44 years old now, why do I still find that bongo sound when someone's running in a cartoon hilarious??? You can see the Doodled Doggy Book Trailer on YouTube.

Following a poetry module in school, my daughter compiled a collection of original poems. When she showed me her book I was impressed, between each cute poem she'd created an ongoing interstitial narrative.

I decided that adapting "The Wondrous Kite" would be a unique project. Although flying is a universal aspiration, it's rare that non-animals are the subject of personification in Children's literature. Additionally, Julia successfully captured a carefree tone in a mere eight lines.

Short projects are always an opportunity to experiment because if you fail you fail small. I'll discuss how I built the artwork in a future blog post, but throughout the process Julia gave her input. She had final say on the color scheme for the kite!

You can find the result of my first eBook collaboration with my daughter by clicking here!

This past Christmas the big gifts for our kids were iPads. I've enjoyed looking over their shoulders as they've explored new apps. A huge hit at our house has been the "Lego Movie Maker." The kids have made some cute and hilarious stop-motion films. A favorite of mine depicted a police car chasing a jewel thief in a getaway van... around and around in a circle. My friends and I would've loved this software back in the 1980s, our DIY animation consisted of drawing flip-books. The kids have had such fun that it was a logical leap for my daughter to create a book trailer for Candy and the Cankersaur using the "Lego Movie Maker" app!

Step one was to cast Candy. We gave Lego's Mia character a makeover by cutting her hair, giving her a blue ribbon and adding some yellow paint.

Step two was to cast her co-star. Looking through the toy box, we found several candidates. Is was time to audition dinosaurs...

Zeppo was photogenic, but maybe too short. No one will be impressed by a dinosaur in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

Harpo looked good next to Candy, but kept forgetting his lines and missing his cues. He kept trying to chew the scenery (and I mean literally chew the scenery).

Chico was adorable, but during the interview he seemed to be preoccupied with his singing career. We needed a dinosaur who would commit to the role.

Groucho stomped in with the script memorized. And his bad boy charm might add additional humor to the book trailer.

Who did we cast? Which dinosaur will be featured in my daughter's forthcoming book trailer? You'll need to wait until March 1st when we debut her book trailer for Candy and the Cankersaur

The Wondrous Kite will be free on Amazon Kindle May 25th through May 29th!

The Wondrous Kite was a collaboration with my daughter, based on a poem she wrote. Please take this opportunity to share this special short story with your favorite short person over the Memorial Day weekend!