And then, time passed anyway

A few things have been in the works over here. Let's see... basically I clicked "publish" on the previous post. Then I got kidney stones and was sick for two awful weeks. Then I was offered a wonderful job opportunity in Atlanta, which was fine except that we lived in Texas. So? We moved. It was an enormous effort, the packing, the planning, the driving, the landing somewhere and deciding to make it our home. All with a toddler and a four year old. You know, moving.

So we moved, and as soon as we were somewhat settled, I picked back up working on the book.

I think we've settled on a title: She was a Super Princess. We bounced around a dozen different titles... we wanted something that was fairly direct without being too awfully sad. I think this works, but we're totally open to feedback at this stage.

The illustrations are almost finished. I used watercolor and india ink on bristol board. Then I scanned all of the images and used my beloved Waccom tablet and pen to scratch swirls and little drawings into the designs. They aren't 100% there yet, but it's been rewarding to watch it develop into so much more than what the sketches conveyed.


If you're curious, you can view a PDF of the entire first draft by clicking here. But I've edited it quite a bit since then, and last week I received feedback from Sheye that I think will make it a thousand times better. She is an incredible soul and a great writer, and I hope someday when things aren't so raw she write a book.

Second revision will be up soon. Comments and feedback are welcome in the meantime!

Where the book came from

This blog will help keep everyone interested up to date on the progress as we work towards publishing and marketing Ava's book.

First some background... Ava Rosemeyer was a super princess. She loved pink, she loved to dance, she loved wearing dresses and flowers and birds and butterflies.

Ava died last month after she crawled into her parents' car to look for some candy, and once in she couldn't find her way out. The heat of the Australian summer overtook her while her family frantically looked for her. It was a terrible accident that will reverberate through the Rosemeyer family forever.

Ava's mother, Sheye, belongs to an online group of professional photographers called Grow. The people at Grow surrounded Sheye with love and compassion and did everything they could to help her through this dark time. They put together a car safety awareness campaign. All around the world, they released pink balloons in a tribute to little Ava. Somewhere in their brainstorming, someone suggested writing a book. A memorial, a celebration, something to capture the essence of Ava.

I'm an illustrator, and I do a lot of custom work for photographers. I'd done all of the original graphics for the Grow website and so the leader of Grow, Barb Uil, contacted me about commissioning me for artwork on this project. She invited me into Grow to see what I thought.

Once I got there, I was blown away by the group and by the grace and beauty of Sheye and her little girl. Through the words and photos of her mother, Ava came to life for me. Here I'd never met her and I felt completely rocked by her death. I told them I couldn't take payment for this project... it just needed to be done.

My baby and I were sick, in bed for days. Together we watched a slideshow that was played at Ava's funeral, and at the end of it Graham shrugged his hands up in a question and said "Baby?"
Where'd she go? Oh what a question.

Then I wrote this story. In bed, hugging a feverish toddler to my side, I wrote and sketched out the concept for the book.



And away we go...

And yet here we are

It's all wrong. None of us should be here reading this, this blog shouldn't exist. I never ever should have gotten the wonderful experience of getting to know the talented photographers over at Grow, or had the chance to hear Sheye Rosemeyer's beautiful Australian accent over the phone while we talked about a book that would be a tribute to her daughter. I shouldn't have the opportunity to work on this project, and no one should ever need to find comfort or joy from the book that will result.

The human spirit just isn't designed to process something so terrible as losing a child. No matter how it happens, no matter how sudden or how drawn-out, how rich, how poor, how many or how few were left behind. We're never ready, it is never okay. Children should never die.

And yet, it happens. I can't get my head around that fact -- it sends my system into a panic if I think about it -- but it does. It happens. It's wrong, but through some terrible mistake these incredible little creatures that we make are mortal. Fragile, even. So, as much as we shouldn't be here writing a blog about a book about a girl named Ava, my God... here we are.