I am enough of an artist that I love working with other artists. I can remember the first time I was invited to attend a two-week laboratory where one of my books was being turned into a film project. The screenwriter was a friend who had talked me into letting her submit this entry, and I rather reluctantly made my way to New Harmony, Indiana where I realized for the first time in my life I was with a whole group of people and we were all speaking the same language (artist-ese).
So some thirty years ago, when Jack Stockman, the artist who illustrated the first two books of the Kingdom Tales trilogy, began scheming and dreaming with me of collaborating on his first fully illustrated book project and my first venture into creative writing, it was pure joy to see how Jack’s mind interpreted my stories. I loved his work and still love it.
Jack’s process, however, is not cost-effective for a tight publishing budget. It takes Jack a week of work to paint one illustration. His work is detailed, imaginative and leans back into the classic children’s illustrated books of another generation. The artists who submitted illustrations for the contest we ran through the 99Designs Web site are using computer technology. Consequently, the winning artist (from Bulgaria) Zhivko Zhelev, can turn out two to three illustrations per week.
However, David and I (and countless other readers) love the Stockman illustrations. (The publishers hired another artist to do the third book, Tales of the Restoration—one of the headaches of being an author is being subject to the whims and fancies of the publishing industry.) If the Kickstarter Campaign exceeds expectations—and many do (many also don’t even reach their goals)—there will be enough money to pay Jack to complete the third book with his gorgeous artwork. This then, will give us the “classic-illustrated set” in addition to the newly-illustrated set with more of a multi-ethnic representation in the art.
Check out this link https://www.kickstarter.com/
