How To Draw A Coloring Book

One of the upcoming fall books we are most excited about here at HQ is Chronicle Books' entry in the hottest trend of 2015: coloring books! Here's a blog post from the always-illuminating Chronicle blog by illustrator Steve McDonald, creator of FANTASTIC CITIES!

His method involves photographs and sketches, a digital projector, and originals up to six feet square:

I’ve always loved drawing buildings. When I was young, I even had aspirations of becoming an architect, but ended up as an illustrator instead. When creating a piece of art, the most appealing part for me has always been the line work. Even when I’m working on a painting, the part I enjoy most is always the initial drawing. I really love lines, and I think that shows in the finished work.

I have my daughters to thank for how Fantastic Cities came together as a coloring book. After creating artwork focusing on individual and small groups of buildings, I started to veer toward larger groups and then aerial views of cities. My daughters saw this work and told me that they thought it would be fun to color in the lines themselves (whereas I might normally keep going past the line-work stage to color it myself).

Fantastic Cities: A Coloring Book Of Amazing Places Real And Imagined
Steve McDonald
9781452149578 | $14.95 | Paper
Chronicle Books

Chelsea Green announces a crash drop-in title on presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders!

Coming in (hopefully) early September!

Chelsea Green's early announcement on the book describes it this way:

"Meet the essential Bernie Sanders—an authentic and uncompromising champion of the people.

Independent United States Senator Bernie Sanders—with a thirty-five-year career in public service, first as Burlington, Vermont’s mayor, then as Vermont’s sole representative to Congress, and currently as a United States senator—is now campaigning to become president of the United States. His goal is to build a movement to take back our country from the rich and powerful, and return it to its rightful owners—we, the American people.
Sanders’ common sense, populist message is resonating with Democrats, Republicans, independents, as well as ordinary working- and middle-class Americans from all walks of life, including millennials, seniors, veterans, immigrants, environmentalists, union workers, and more.

In this short, accessible book, author Jonathan Tasini draws heavily from Sanders’ ample public record of speeches, statements, and interviews, and couples his working-class spirit with specific legislation he has championed on a number of core proposals that comprise a broader people’s agenda for America, including:
A national, single-payer health care system; 
Free public higher education;
Taking on wealth and income inequality; 
Preserving Social Security;
Caring for our veterans;
Ensuring civil rights for all; 
Combatting climate change;
Reforming Wall Street, and much more."

 

Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America
by Jonathan Tasini
Chelsea Green | 9781603586672 | $14 | Paper
pub date (as of now): 9/30/15

Accusing Amazon of Antitrust Violations, Authors and Booksellers Demand Inquiry: NY Times

"Five years after Amazon secretly asked regulators to investigate leading publishers — a case that ended up reinforcing the e-commerce company’s clout — groups representing thousands of authors, agents and independent booksellers are asking the United States Department of Justice to examine Amazon for antitrust violations.

... 

"The Authors Guild, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of Authors’ Representatives and Authors United said in letters and statementsbeing sent this week to the Justice Department that “Amazon has used its dominance in ways that we believe harm the interests of America’s readers, impoverish the book industry as a whole, damage the careers of (and generate fear among) many authors, and impede the free flow of ideas in our society.”