Tales of Tutu Nene and Nele (written by Gale Bates, illustrated by Yuko Green. (c) 2011 Island Heritage Publishing ISBN: 1-61710-087-0)
My new book came out yesterday:) This is an Island Heritage classic that has been updated with my illustration for 2011 edition. To enhance and deliver the feelings of the soft-feathery touch of Hawaiian nene goose, I used paper collage technique for this revised edition. In spite of my concern about expressing the neutral colors of this bird, I believe it came out all well and printed beautifully (thanks to the effort of product development department of the publisher). It is always a surprise to some degree how the colors change in printing from my original artwork, especially using various types of textual papers from around the world combined with my watercolor backgrounds, but this book came out very close to my original colors, and I am so happy about this.
This was my fifth book done in this style, and I continually enjoy this method to illustrate picture book. I think interesting dimensions created by textual papers is somewhat 3-d image and fun to look at for children. A first child whom I showed this book kept trying to touch the paper textures (which is actually flat in printed paper, of course). I am also thankful for talented author, Gale Bates who wrote this story to bring awareness to preservation of the nene goose. Can be purchased from www.welcometotheislands.com.