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I'd like to tell you a bit about my new book.... Like my books AKIAK and TOGO, to create SWIFT I traveled to Alaska to do my research, to draw, and to paint. I stayed in the cabin of my homesteading friend, Larry, near a town called Healy. SWIFT is a hunting story, pure and simple. I make no apologies for that. It is based on my real experience of trying to track down an injured bear while up there. |
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 One morning Larry's son Robert called out, "Someone's coming!" It was a neighbor who came by to tell us that a nearby homesteader had shot a bear. But after it got hit, the animal staggered away. Larry told me, "A hurt bear is the most dangerous kind of bear." |
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Larry decided that he and I should go and help the homesteader track that bear. When we got to the homesteader's cabin, he was glad for our offer of help. He quickly got ready and we three took off to try and find the bear on foot. We were gone for many hours. It was a tense time, too, because that bear could be lying silently behind any brush and suddenly rear up and attack. What would I do if it did? Could I shoot it? What if I shot at it and missed? |
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To make a long story short, the bear was dispatched. The homesteader had winter's meat. And for me the experience led to a story: What if I were a young boy on my first hunt? I began to make sketches right away. Here's a drawing showing how I thought of the boy and his dad leaving home on the hunt. |
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Larry told me about a time he was walking on an icy beaver pond and the ice broke through under his feet. He got wet "through his Carharts and boots." He said his feet "were stinging real bad" as he hiked 12 miles back to the cabin. He said it took a long time before he could get his feet out of his boots. But he had made it to safety. I decided that his would happen to my main character. |
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I began to make sketches of what I wanted the dog Swift to look like. I also began writing down some first story words.
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I am going to answer some questions that I have been asked about SWIFT: IS THE BEAR IN YOUR BOOK SWIFT SCARY? Well, bears can be scary....and dangerous, too. Here are some drawings of the bear in the story and also a drawing of my imaginary model, Joe the Bear. He wants you to know that he's an okay bear. He was just acting- like you'd do in a movie. |
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IN THE BOOK SWIFT WHY IS THE BOY MAKING A FACE WHEN HE FIXES THE DAD'S LEG? Good question. I thought about this a lot when I was designing the page. Of course, I'd like Johnnie to look good at all times in the paintings. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that this incident would not be pretty. I tried to imagine exactly how Johnnie might have felt. Here are some of my sketches next to the page as it appears in the book..... |
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DID YOU EVER DO A PAINTING THAT YOU WANTED TO CHANGE BUT IT WAS TOO LATE? Yes.Here is an example- On the page in which Swift and Johnnie enter the scary woods, I'd originally painted Johnnie much larger. But after I finished the painting, I felt as though his size took away from Swift's importance (after all the book is about Swift). So I went back into the painting and took out Johnnie and then painted him back in, smaller. |
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HOW DID YOU MAKE THE PAINTINGS FOR SWIFT? The first thing I do is to stretch a piece of canvas. The paintings fo SWIFT are fairly large, 22 by 34 inches. I'll show you the steps: 1) First, I paint with brushes. I establish the simple shapes, the overall color, and the dark and light of the scene. 2) Next, I put away my brushes and use palette knives to apply the paint. 3) To keep the background consistent, in this painting I painted right over the boy, Johnnie. 4) Once I was satisfied that the background was working, I went in and painted Johnnie. |
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WHAT WAS THE MOST FUN PAGE TO PAINT IN YOUR NEW BOOK SWIFT? I enjoyed painting this one, in which Johnnie and Swift are leaving the spooky forest. I like it because when they are deep in the woods no snow is getting to the ground. But by the time they reach the edge of the woods it is snowing hard. I had to figure out how to make the transition from warm, Fall-like colors to cold Winter colors. |
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The question of the Day: Sam from Marlboro asks: IN THE BOOK SWIFT, I LIKE THE PART WHEN JOHNNIE GOES INTO THE SPOOKY WOODS. DID YOU MEAN FOR IT TO BE SCARY? I wanted the page to be spooky more than I wanted it to be scary. I thought about the way I felt when I was alone in the Alaskan wilderness and knew there was a bear around. I kept making sketch after sketch until I got my feelings on paper. Then I painted the way I felt. Here is a sketch I did not use, next to the painting that I later made. |
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