backstory on my book

Yesterday, I received the first copies of my book! It was a unique project with my part completed in record time.

One morning in mid August of last year, I made a new folder for my computer desktop labeled "My Book." I had been thinking for some time about self-publishing a book of my work with a few step-by-step demonstrations. In the folder, I filed links, ideas, and images of my work. Within 30 minutes, I received an email from Quantum Publishers in the UK asking if I would be interested in authoring a pastel book for them! I just sat in awe, looking at that email. I wasn't familiar with Quantum and I still don't know why they contacted ME. But, I was happy that they did.

It sounded like an interesting project: Quantum has published pastel books in the past and they wanted someone to compile text and images from existing books into a new book for their series called Art Answers. I needed to come up with 200 questions about pastel in 30 days. I could do that!

Very quickly, I learned that not only did I have to submit the questions BUT ALSO THE ANSWERS in that short time period. Quantum air-mailed the existing books to me and I began to work on this huge puzzle: first, start with one of my questions, then read through four existing books and answer the question by combining existing text and images for artists in both the UK and the US. I also wrote new text illustrated with my images for many of the questions.

I love this little book! From the four existing books, I had the opportunity to include previously published images of artists whom I admire - Sally Strand, Kitty Wallis, Doug Dawson, Jackie Simmonds, Carole Katchen and others.

I was also able to give a shout-out to Artist's Air and Paula Ann Ford on page 45 for the question, "Are there health concerns when using pastel?" and to introduce Terry Ludwig Pastels to UK artists.

While typing this post, I have gone through the book page by page. I must point out that this is a book of information, not a book of beautifully reproduced images. The color of my paintings in this book motivates me to return to the "My Book" folder to self-publish a book!

Many thanks to the folks at Quantum and Barrons for this opportunity. Purchase Information.