I love getting to know about other authors and illustrators and volunteered for the Tourist Blog Hop with Tanja Bauerle.
Tanja-Bauerle
Tanja Bauerle, an award-winning children’s book illustrator, escaped many years in the corporate arena of design to pursue her love for children’s book illustration. Originally from Germany, Tanja grew up outside Melbourne, Australia, and now lives near Phoenix, Arizona, with her family and her menagerie of dogs, cats, chickens, a horse and two alpacas. To date she has illustrated three picture books and is continuing to illustrate the “Wright on Time” middle grade series. Tanja is currently focusing on writing and illustrating her own picture books. She is an SCBWI member is actively involved in several online writing and illustrating communities.
http://tanjabauerle.com
You can read more about Tanja on another one of the Tourist Blog Hop posts
The questions I was asked and my answers are as follows:
Jan Clifton Watford
1.What are you currently working on?
I have three children’s books I am presently working on both the text and illustration phases. They are in different stages of development. One is Big Ten Little One , a math concept book for young children. I have also been working on illustrations for a ABC book of insects and on the text for a nonfiction book about a squirrel that was raised as a baby inside and then returned to live with other squirrels outside. I also have been working on a revision of a chapter book I wrote two years ago, Roland’s Stupendous Imagination And The Native Americans. Two other books are still in the text stage, and I have a list of over 25 more ideas..
2. How do you process work?
My process of the work is usually to write down the idea for a book as I get them so I won’t forget.. Then I try to make notes about where I want the story to go sort of like a flow of where things will go in the progression of the story.
3. Why do you write/create?
The two biggest reasons is that I love to make up stories and love young children. It is the greatest feeling to be able to see their reaction to something I have created both through text and illustrations. I also feel that I am teaching them by sharing my stories and illustrations. My stories are usually educational which I attribute to my background in teaching.
4.How does your writing/creating process work?
I am trained as an artist and usually I will think of an idea for book and then create the characters because that helps spurn the idea for the story. The creation of the characters is one of the most fun parts of the process for me. Illustration is a much more difficult type of creativity than just painting a canvas because of the challenge of trying to break the story into the different pages and critical moments to depict the progression of the story. Once I create the idea for the book, write some text and the storyline then I try to write the entire book and get some feedback on it through my critique group. I then polish it up some from their feedback and then submit for critique at one of the SCBWI conferences. At this point, I then develop a picture book dummy and draw most of the illustrations. I also try to get feedback on the illustrations too.
Now it is time for me to pass the Tourist Blog Hop on another fellow author and illustrator,
Jo Linsdell. Jo Linsdell was born and raised in the UK but found her real “home” when she came to Rome, Italy in 2001. – She is a multi-genre, award-winning author, artist ,blogger, general social media junky and the proud mother of two young boys. She hosts an annual event,
www.PromoDay.info to help others in the field. We look for ward to seeing Jo’s post next Monday to Tourist Blog Hop.
Jo Linsdell
Manager at JCW Prism LLC
artist, author, illustrator
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