Support local bookstores by using Indiebound.org to find a store near you where you can pre-order Coral Reefs.

I’ve just finished work on Coral Reefs, which is slated for publication in Fall 2011.  The book is similar to Redwoods (not a sequel, but more of a companion) and I’m really excited about it.  Did you know that coral reefs are the largest structures on earth created by living things?  Far bigger than the pyramids, the largest sky scrapers, or the great wall, corals literally create mountains of limestone under water.

While I was working on Coral Reefs, I learned many, many exciting facts — far too many to fit into the book.  So I’m going to write about them on my blog over the next few months.  Hopefully, it will get everyone excited to learn about coral reefs!

Jason Chin at the Ottauquechee School

On February 23rd, I had the pleasure of visiting the Ottauquechee Elementary School in Quechee, VT.  I read Redwoods to the full school, then I visited with several student groups in the library.  I showed slides of my trip to Redwood National Park and we did some fun drawing projects.  The visit was especially great, because the school’s principle was my 7th grade teacher.  Special thanks goes out to the school librarian, Marcia Peterson for organizing the day.  You can view more photos that she took on the Ottaquechee School website.

The awards event was a luncheon at the excellent Border Grill, in Downtown LA.  Prior to the event, students participated in essay contests, the winners received a personalized copy of Redwoods.  I also sat with them at the luncheon and we talked about writing, illustrating and our favorite books.  Following lunch, I gave a short presentation and accepted the award — a beautiful puppet of the main character from Redwoods!  There are two copies of the puppet — one for me and another that will reside permanently in the LA Public Library; how cool is that?   It was an honor to receive the award and I am especially thankful to FOCAL for arranging for my trip, and each of the school visits.

In this picture you can see the masked areas, and my first layers of paint.  I start with light washes and block in major areas of color.  From there, it’s a process of slowly building up color until I reach the right value and hue that I want.  I constantly refer back to my original sketch to check how dark or light I intended to make an area.  I don’t finish one area, then move to the next, but instead do a little here a little there so that the all areas of the scene progress evenly.  The exception, of course is the masked areas, which I generally leave until near the end to paint.  Stay tuned, I’ll discuss more of that in the next post.

After I’m finished with my preliminary drawing my next step is to transfer that drawing to a nice piece of watercolor paper.  I use a 300 pound hot-press paper, made by Fabriano.  It’s a very thick paper with a flat surface.  The flat surface is much easier to draw on than the rougher cold-press papers and the thickness allows it to absorb a lot of water and paint without buckling.

I use a lightbox to help me trace the drawing onto the watercolor paper with a hard (H or 2H) pencil.  I like the harder pencil in this case because leaves a light line which I can easily erase.  When I’m tracing, I try to do it quickly and accurately, but I try not to get to hung up in details, because with the light shining from behind the image I can’t really see the paper very well.  After I’m done tracing, and I take the paper off the lightbox, then I very carefully add details, and adjust the drawing.  This is the final step before I start applying paint, and I want to be sure everything is just the way I want it.

When the drawing is done, I soak it in water for 5 minutes and then staple it(while  it’s still wet) to my painting board.  The board is 1/2″ plywood.  After the paper dries, it will be ready for painting.  Because it’s been presoaked, the paper the surface will remain flat as I paint on it.

This preliminary drawing is the last thing I do before I start painting and I try my best to work out as many details as possible in this drawing.  Since I work in watercolors, it’s very hard to go back and change things after I start to paint.  When the drawing is finished, I use a lightbox to transfer it to a nice piece of watercolor paper…but that’s step two, and I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

“…this book [is] one that you will want to read over and over again. The adventure is beautifully depicted by illustrations that will leave readers in awe…”

and

“The book’s content, graphics, and unique presentation earned it a place as one of the NSTA/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Books for 2010″

It’s great to get such a strong endorsement from the experts!  You can read the full review on the NSTA website:

http://www.nsta.org/recommends/ViewProduct.aspx?ProductID=19803