Adventures at Wilder Farm

I  just returned from a fantastic Moran-related trip to Yellowstone! I instructed a painting workshop (called Painting Moran’s Yellowstone) through the Yellowstone Association Institute — it was an amazingly fun experience! The Yellowstone Association puts on some incredible classes, teaching about the wildlife, botany, and the land. I was honored to be a part of it this year.

We stayed at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch which is the place where they regenerated the existing Buffalo herd from just a few survivors back in the 1920s. It’s a rustic place with a couple of classrooms and a kitchen in the main Bunkhouse, and small cabins for the students, instructors, and volunteers. Each night the Buffalo herd migrated from lower in the valley, through the camp, to higher ground. In the morning, we painted as the sun rose and sand hill cranes called from nearby. Coyotes howled and yipped at night and we saw nine bears!

We felt so lucky to stay in this enchanted place within Yellowstone, and so immersed in the land and surrounding wildlife. Dave and I have already decided to return next year, to teach and spend more time in a place that we love.

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This entry was posted on the Mackids Blog last week, but I wanted to re-post it here so I could include larger images–click on any of the images below to see the larger versions.

One of the challenges I enjoyed about this book was capturing the immense difference in size between baby dinosaurs and their parents. I started the illustration process by sketching loose thumbnail sketches, exploring different compositions to convey the scale of dinosaurs.

Then I began refining these ideas into detailed drawings and final art.

Throughout the sketch process, I try to keep ideas fluid. In this case, I thought an aerial view of a parent next to 5 school buses would show the immense size of a mother Argentinosaurus. But I thought there might be even a better to way to show her scale. Then I calculated that a parent weighed as much as 17 elephants. I love drawing elephants, and thought the idea was better than the first.

Originally I sketched backgrounds around the dinosaurs. But the thing I wanted to emphasize the most with each illustration was life-like gestures of the dinosaurs. My editor, Deirdre, and my art director, Danica, suggested I try a white background around the art. I loved it!

The negative space also helped tie the layout of the book together. The book has a pattern of 2-page spreads. The first offers clues (or facts) that scientists have discovered. The second is a full spread conveying educated guesses about how baby dinosaurs and their parents behaved. Combining all these details worked with this layout.

I loved creating illustrations that demonstrated how dinosaurs must have behaved like animals alive today. The challenge was to tie illustrations of living animals with dinosaurs and show their similarities.

I chose poses that were reminiscent of things we’ve seen in the animal world. For example, a dinosaur nest seen from above, as if you were looking down into a bird’s nest.

The cover – that’s always the most fun! Here are just a few of the thumbnail sketches I drew to explore how to create it.

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I was speechless after receiving this lovely letter from South Elementary in Jackson, Missouri. With the librarian’s permission I’d like to share it:

Dear Lita,

I am a school librarian at South Elementary in Jackson, Missouri. After the recent earthquake in Haiti, I used your book One Thousand Tracings for a text-to-world connection. The students were asked for ways they can help the people of Haiti just as the children after WWII helped the Germans. The students then cut out their footprints and signed each with their own way of helping the earthquake victims. Many brought money for the American Red Cross. This morning over $1200 was turned in to the Red Cross. Attached is the picture of the presentation.

Thanks for sharing and know others have benefited from this story.

WOW!! I’m still speechless. Congratulations to South Elementary for such an amazing effort!!

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I don’t think I’ve mentioned it to a lot of people, but I have another book lined up with Roaring Brook/Flash Point for 2011! The book is called BIRD TALK and it’s a 48 page non-fiction picture book about the different ways that birds communicate, and why. I’ve been working on a finished dummy and thought it’d be fun to share a few images (click on any image to see it larger).

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My next book will be released three months from now! Born to be Giants is a 48 page non-fiction picture book with Roaring Brook/Flashpoint Press.

This book fills a lifelong dream to investigate paleontologists’ understanding of baby dinosaurs and their parents. It was an exciting book because scientists have made many great new discoveries of fossilized baby dinosaurs, nests, and eggs in recent years. I wrote and illustrated the book in a format with hypotheses about dinosaur behavior following clues to engage young readers in the scientific method.

Here’s an example of the format of the book. First we see some clues. These are things that are known about dinosaurs based on fossil evidence along with observations about animals, like crocodiles, that are alive today. (Click on any of the following images to see them larger.)

Then we see a hypothesis of possible dinosaur behavior.

Born to be Giants is a Junior Library Guild Selection and will also be available at Scholastic Book Fairs! The release data is April 27th.

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Last May Dave and I traveled to England to research the book I’m currently working on, titled Strange Creatures: The Story of Walter Rothschild and his Museum (2011, Disney-Hyperion).

Walter Rothschild was the son of Lord Rothschild, banker to Queen Victoria. He was incredibly rich and seemed like a kid who would have had everything, but he struggled with being horribly shy. His father demanded a lot of him — yet Walter was so nervous, he could barely speak. He seems like an unlikely hero, but a hero is just what he was to me. When he was 7 years old he declared to his parents he would build a museum. He set out to collect bugs, butterflies, birds, fish, reptiles, mammals and even plants. By the time he was a late teenager, he was funding expeditions all over the world to collect animals. This was in the late 1800′s when scientists still had not discovered many of the world’s plants and animals. Walter’s father discouraged his dreams and insisted he begin work at the family banking firm, but Walter persevered and opened his museum to the public when he was 24 years old. With the help of two curators and many explorers, Walter created the largest natural history collection ever gathered by one person and furthered our understanding of the world’s animals in immense ways. I’m really enjoying bringing his story to life!

You can see how the visit to the actual museum helped in creating some of the sketches:

I’m getting pretty close to finishing the final art for the illustrations so I wanted to post a sneak peek at a couple of the paintings:

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