(Inside A Black Apple)

A Tiger & A Peacock

A Peacock    14"x11"

A Tiger   14"x11"

These weren't really created as companions, but I think they're nice together like this.

A Savage Beauty

A Savage Beauty   14"x11"  

This is another favorite for me -- I wanted to do my own version of the classic Odalisque painting.

I'm going to try to preview a new piece every day 'til the show goes up on Friday!

A Lady and A Monkey

A Lady and A Monkey    11"x14"  

This portrait (or double-portrait) is one of my personal favorite paintings in the upcoming show!

I'll be previewing work from Wolves & Wonders up 'til the opening on Oct. 9, although there will be some pieces that will remain under my hat until after it has opened (I like a little element of surprise.)

Show Cards

If you are in Portland, (or close-to-Portland) I hope you'll consider coming to the opening!
I've been working on this all year...and we will have wine & treats to entice you further.

More previews forthcoming!

Kimonos on Paper

I've been painting these small kimonos on paper for my (rapidly approaching) show in October. I love painting these -- it's nice to work on little pieces interspersed with larger, more involved things. I hope that by some magic, I'll conjure all these dream kimonos by painting them & they'll arrive in a trunk on my doorstep. At the very least, I'd like to make my favorites into a set of postcards...they seem just right for notes.

I've been posting them on Instagram as they come along, and I'll keep posting peeks & previews of the show both here & there!

Bird of Paradise

Bird of Paradise    9"x12"

This fancy little bird is part of Wolves & Wonders.
I'm going to try my best to preview more of the show here before it opens Oct. 9th!

The Company of Wolves

The Company of Wolves    16" x 20" 

I think I posted a progress photo of an earlier incarnation of this painting -- it's changed a lot since then! The painting is part of my show, Wolves & Wonders, which opens at Land on October 9.

The show was inspired by Angela Carter, variations on Beauty & the Beast, the East & the West...lots of things. Stay tuned for more lions & tigers & wolves & ladies!

PS: And thank you for your lovely and kind comments on the NY Times list post. So exciting and so unexpected.

 

The New York Times List!

If you get a call on a Wednesday afternoon, telling you that a really unlikely-seeming thing has somehow happened & your book is on the New York Times Bestsellers List you will have to try very hard not to fall down. If you are me, then you hop up and down talking on the phone to various excited people you love for a few hours, being excited together. Then I hopped some more. Then I tried to work, but it was very hard because of all the hopping.

The next day I got this enormous & magnificent delivery from my agent via Fieldwork Flowers. What a gem she is & what a bunch of beauties. Those cosmos!

The Wonderful Things You Will Be debuted on the list (meaning it landed there its first week), and it still seems very surreal. I hoped people would like it! That's my main hope for anything.

So excited, as work carries on...on my next picture book, as I finish an art show, as the beginning of fall drifts in.

Hooray!

The Wonderful Things You Will Be is Out Today

Today's the day!

All these wishes & balloons & babies are finally out in the world. I thought to celebrate its release, I'd post some of my favorite bits of the book. The baby endpapers above are my favorite endpapers ever (or, at least, among my own endpapers.)

The band (The Missing Teeth!) is my personal favorite of all the spreads. If you look closely, there are a few little details that make me very happy!

This tree weirdo in the big, giant, foldout surprise Costume Party spread is my favorite character.

The Play is my other favorite spread.
(The truth is I have a lot of favorites.)

Here are a few favorite places you can find it:

BuyOlympia

A limited number of *signed copies* at Powell's

Barnes & Noble

And, if you're close, the Book Party at Green Bean Books!

I'm so happy it's out. I hope you love it!

Book Party, 8/29!

Hello there!

I wanted to let you know about the upcoming book party at the wonderful Green Bean Books this Saturday, August 29th, at 2:00 pm for The Wonderful Things You Will Be (which is out tomorrow, I can't believe it!)

If you are in or around Portland, come see us! Green Bean is the sweetest bookstore in the known universe & we will have cupcakes, treats, signed books, a reading, and hopefully lots of balloons.

(This photo was taken during a twine/helium tank test to get the lay of the land. Fingers crossed the system works!)

Meanwhile

We've decided that everything will be so diffuse nowadays...little bits here and little bits there, scattered all over the internet. When I'm not here as much, I'm somewhere! These are a few photos from Twitter (@MsEmilyApple) where I check in most days.

And now there's Instagram, too. As of last week, so it's brand new. Another place for the usual suspects: painting bits & fat cats & book things & old things & flowers etc!

(The last photo is a peek of the fancy secret red curtained gatefold flaps in Wonderful Things. Only a few weeks left to wait!)

More Wonderful (and ALA, the Caldecott, etc.)

These bright and crisp postcards just came back from the printer, so we've begun sending the little balloon baby out into the world.

And...I got my first bound copy of Wonderful Things (and the Dream Animals board book edition, so chunky & cute, which is out the same day!)

It won't be too long now...only a month & change. I'm so happy holding this new book in my hands...even if I know *exactly* what they look like, I peer at the endpapers at least every other day.

Other bookish news:
At the end of June, I spent the weekend in San Francisco for the ALA conference. I did a signing on the show floor & inscribed books to children with beautiful names & met lots of lovely librarians. Random House also threw an Original Art cocktail party, where they celebrated the art & background story behind several soon-to-be-released picture books (and Wonderful Things was one.) I was too swept up in all the excitement to take pictures (rats!) but there was a whole table full of original art & big blowups of the illustrations. So nice!

I felt lucky to be at my first Caldecott/Newbery dinner & hear (and cry embarrassingly during) Dan Santat's Caldecott acceptance speech. You can read it here. It's so vulnerable and true. All about doing the work and when the work is too much. Every relatable doubt & thought is in there. I couldn't find a place where you can listen, BUT if you want to hear him talk about the making of Beekle and all of the other dozens of books he's made, here's his interview on the Picturebooking podcast.

Whew!

I'm working hard on my next picture book & I'm excited...the next thing is always my favorite thing.

The Flower Channel Continues

 A new bunch of English roses have started to bloom, so even if things are a little fried and already too summery for my liking, there are new roses to go visit every day.

The peachy gold one (never enough peachy roses!) in the next to last photo is my favorite of the new varieties I planted this year, Crown Princess Margareta. What a gem! There is such a spectrum of bloom colors on this girl. There are so many variations in color on all the plants, really, depending on time of year, heat, water, etc (see that pair of dark & pale pink buds above.)

I've really loved watering them, weeding them, pruning, etc. lately. Those are all kind of terrible tasks (especially if it's too hot) but I'm comforted by the meditation of them.

It's a good break from working inside, from thinking and planning and sketching and painting. I've realized that my breaks are often comprised of other kinds of work (gardening, sewing, etc.) and that's just how it shakes out. Maybe it's because my work-work can be done lost in my mind, nestled into a couch, listening to podcasts or watching Netflix, so weeding or ironing or pressing a sewing machine pedal really is its own kind of break. Tasks with beginnings and endings you can see in an hour, in an afternoon.

This is turning into a ramble, when all I really wanted to say is: the flower channel continues!

This Year's Liberty Dress (2015 edition)

I've sewn up this year's Liberty dress (I've actually made a few so far, from fabric I squirreled from the Liberty store...maybe more on those in another post?) So technically, this is one of this year's Liberty dresses.

You can see the last two years here & here if you'd like to (2013 & 2014 respectively.)

The print is called Poppy & Honesty (I think) which is so pretty in all colorways but I was especially liking this nice demure blue & gray colorway. The pattern is my devising, a kind of pared-down version of this beautiful No.6 dress, the Alice dress, with nice long ties that wrap around the back & tie in the front.

It's light as a feather, really comfy and easy to wear (all extremely important as it seems to be getting toastier & toastier in famously gray, chilly Portland.)

And of course, (most importantly) it has nice big pockets!

I found this excellent little tutorial/technique for creating perfectly matched patch pockets and I've been going crazy putting pockets on everything. I've always had a hard time not only matching the pockets, but also pressing the rounded edges under so they lay nicely to stitch them down. But now I've got this little trick!

Pockets. Pockets for everything!

Outside In

Kitchen flowers are one of my favorite things. When I'm digging holes deep enough for rose roots in the March cold, covered in mud, I think of that. Of walking barefoot on May grass, filling a jar with flowers to bring inside.

These are all kitchen flowers from the past month or so. The roses have been so perfect this Spring, all voluptuous ballet-skirts and hopeful buds and magic perfume. The geums and Moroccan daisies and the burgundy ninebark I love are blooming and the foxgloves are about to reach their fairy-garden peak. 

 And I watch them outside, and bring them inside, and try not to blink.

The Wonderful Things You Will Be

I was wondering about when to spill the beans about this newest book. It's out at the end of August, which is still a little while away, but reviews are already coming in so...I feel like it's time to introduce The Wonderful Things You Will Be !

My tribute to possibilities (whether playing in a band or sewing pants for squirrels, just to name a few) just received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. Such nice news.

Here's a snippet from the publisher's description: From brave and bold to creative and clever, the rhythmic rhyme expresses all the loving things that parents think of when they look at their children. With beautiful, and sometimes humorous, illustrations, this is a book grown-ups will love reading over and over to kids—both young and old.

This book makes a nice trio with Dream Animals & Day Dreamers, but it's quite different. More grounded in the real, actual world (although plenty of surreal and weird little bits got in there, of course.) It's brighter & more airy, and a bit more modern. Well, more mid-century than 19th century.  ; )

I'm so excited for this book to be out there!

In the meantime, you can pre-order via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's -- all the usual suspects. 

Wrapped Up in Books Etc.

I feel like I'm forever getting the hang of juggling all these behind-the-scenes things and not vanishing from the face of the earth (the internet-earth) completely.

I've grown used to the waiting, to the long lead times for everything -- all this work that is done in semi-secret and then it's a year or two or more before anything real comes from it. This is just the way of books, and that's where a lot of my mind is right now, but the strangest thing is that it's even become the way for my personal art/projects. I guess I've adapted to these long incubation times so much that now I'm working on large amounts of my own things in semi-secret. There's a big stack of paintings growing in my matchbox studio, and I'm starting them, stopping them, changing them, watching them to see how they evolve and if they all belong together.

So thank you, always, for visiting me here or on Twitter or wherever I'm posting bits & pieces.

As I'm working away, I'm also watching my flowers grow & trying to do some warm-weather sewing before the real warm weather is here. At least I can post dispatches of those things! Things like flowers don't need to wait.

It Won't Be Too Long...

before the book these bebes belong to is out! This Summer.

I can't wait! In the meantime, we'll just have to hang out with this little crowd.

Back to the Sea

I've gone back to the sea for a project I'm working on and my mermaid heart is very happy about it.

I can't wait to share more as I'm able to!

In Progress

It has become clear to me that my next art show is basically going to be Angela Carter fan art.

Here is a glimpse of the elusive & very fancy paper palettes that I use! It's grey, which, I suppose, is some kind of help for color-mixing according to the palette manufacturers.

I just wanted to stop in & say hello & post this...I hardly ever take photos of things in-progress.

And now I'm vanishing again, back to The Company of Wolves!

The Smartest Person I Know

Even when I'm happily lost in working away on things, the siren song of books & bed & cat is always there.

Thank you for the nice words and excitement in the last post re: this longer book. I am busily working on a few projects right now that I love. I can't wait to see how they turn out when they really take shape & become what they're going to become!

Editing Still Life

Thank you for the nice words & excitement re: the next picture book in the last post. More on that front soon!

While I've been proofing cute bebe feets, I've also been in the midst of editing another book...a longer book. It's a story I'd wanted to write & make real for years and years. I finally wrote it down last Spring, and my editor (who has been an important and dear and close collaborator on all my books) wanted to publish it and now I find myself at the end of a big round of revisions, and so pleased to be there.

It's my first proper novel. Though it is still short by grown up standards, it's quite a bit longer than Oddfellow's, which is really more a series of vignettes.

This one is a fairy tale.
And I will give you one hint: it's an expanded version of my favorite fairy tale. Some of you might know what that is, or might be able to hazard a guess.

It is scheduled for publication next year, 2016, and I will share dispatches and other bits as it gets closer!

PS: It will be illustrated! Mostly words, but there will be pictures too

Proofing Cute Feet

I spent a little bit of my birthday (last Friday - the 13th, and it wasn't filled with bad luck & bad omens, but instead with brunch & cake) looking over the first batch of proofs for my next picture book.

It comes out late this summer...more on that front (and more peeks) soon, soon!

The Eleanor Postcard Set

The Eleanor postcard set is back from the printer & now available in the shop !

Valentines for your Valentines

In case you need some cards for your pals & beloveds, you can find the (free!) download link in this post from last year. I probably need to get my own Valentine-y mail out if it's going to get there in time!