Spray Bottle and Color Blobs

 Layering original line art with illustrator patterns in an effort to take my mind off of politics

An Interview with the Author of Little Cloud

The children's book Little Cloud is now available in print and as an e-book on Amazon.com  First published as an e-book in 2014, and a print edition on Blurb, it has now been made available as a print edition on Amazon.  Here's more information about the book, in the form of an interview:

Interviewer:  What is the story behind the story of Little Cloud?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I wrote and illustrated Little Cloud in 2014, at the peak of California’s driest period since record-keeping began, between late 2011 and 2014.  I was wishing for more rain so thought a story about a rain cloud might be nice.

Interviewer:  Is there a reason your other main character is a blue jay named Jack?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Since I made the cloud feminine, I thought it would be good to make the bird male.  I have twin grandsons who were four years old at the time, the age target of my story, and by making one of the characters male I hoped to appeal to them.  Neither of the twins is named Jack, but that name seemed to fit. I was also inspired by my backyard blue jays.

Interviewer:  Can you tell the reader a little bit about your illustration process.  It looks like your illustrations were drawn using vector software, is that correct?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Yes.  I wanted to make both a digital and a print book.  The requirements for an e-book meant getting the file size as small as possible.  I needed to create the art using vector software, instead of raster images.   A raster image is artwork created in a non digital medium, then scanned in to the computer becoming a digital file made up of pixels.  When these raster images are enlarged, the image quality diminishes significantly and the file sizes are much bigger.  Vector artwork, on the other hand, is composed of mathematical lines and curves.  Not only does vector art take up a lot less digital space, it can be scaled to any size without losing quality. 

Interviewer:  How did you come up with your book title?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  The title Little Cloud just fit the story.  After I first published the e-book in 2014, I realized it was the same title as a book by Eric Carle, one of my favorite children’s book author/illustrators.  That was certainly not intentional.

Interviewer:  What source material did you use for your illustrations?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I am a photographer and am always looking for new ways to use the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken over the years.  At the time I wrote Little Cloud, I was also travelling up to Seattle a couple times a year to visit my daughter’s family, including the aforementioned twins.  So the photo reference in the beginning of Little Cloud was shot in Washington State.  Where Little Cloud travels south to, is Marin County, California, where I live.

The tall mountains in my story are based on the Olympic mountains, as seen from the top of Mount Walker, in Washington State.  The tallest of the Olympic mountains is Mount Olympus at 7,965 ft.

The body of water Little Cloud and Jack fly over is Puget Sound, as seen from Seattle.

Small Mountain is based on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County.  Although the biggest mountain around where I live, its peak is 2,572 ft.  much shorter than the Olympic mountains.

The various flower drawings are based on photographs taken at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg, California in 2013.

Interviewer:  What do you hope your readers take away from the book?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  First and foremost, I hope the reader is entertained.  Secondly, I hope the message of friendship, and the benefits of helping others, resonates.  And finally, I hope there is a little more awareness of the beautiful world we live in and a desire to help combat climate change to keep it that way.

More Portraits, Christmas Card Art and some Amber Art

More discoveries, cleaning out E.A. Autrey's condo.  The fact my father kept every sketch I did of him, and every self portrait I did of myself and sent him as a Christmas card, is quite wonderful.  Discovered art includes the following top to bottom:
1.  Pastel portrait of E.A. I did in 1985
2.  Old ink and pastel sketch done in 1995, including some heads drawn by Jean L. Autrey.  Although this is not a new discovery, as the image was previously published, I now have the original!
3.  Conte crayon sketch of E.A. I did in 2003
4.  Self portrait sent as a Christmas card in 1981
5.  Self portrait sent as a Christmas card in 1987
6.  Bad self portrait as "The Camellia Queen" send as a Christmas card in 1985
7.  Fabulous self portrait of Amber as "The Dahlia Queen," done by Amber on the back of "The Camellia Queen"
8.  Close up of a terrific drawing done by Amber in 1985.  What a talent!  I wish she'd do more art.

Creating Great Art With Grandsons Cole and Wilson Taylor

Art projects done this past weekend in Seattle with twins Cole and Wilson, age 4 years and 5 months
Top to Bottom:
First:  Wilson's original drawing of his stuffed bunny.  After making a few pictures, he folded them up and put them in his backpack.  "I can take them out and look at them later and they will make me happy,"  Wilson explained.  And, at the farmer's market, he did just that!
Second:  A pencil drawing I did of the stuffed bunny for Cole to color.  This version was rejected when the colored pencil made a slight hole in the paper.  Another, completed version, stayed in Seattle.
Third:  A picture Cole drew of himself with his Grandma Lucy.
Fourth:  A sketch I drew of Cole
Fifth:  A sketch I drew of Cole's blue eye
Sixth:  A sketch I drew of Wilson eating his cereal.  He might look like this in another 6 years.