Author: Karen GoatKeeper

Karen GoatKeeper loves to write. Her books include picture books, novels and nonfiction for science activity books and nature books. A recent inclusion are science teaching units.
The coming year has goals for two new novels, a picture book and some books of personal essays. This is ambitious and ignores time constraints.
She lives in the Missouri Ozarks with her small herd of Nubian dairy goats. The Ozarks provides the inspiration and setting for most of her books.

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GKP Writing News

Picture Book Covers

Just as for regular books, picture book covers do more than hold the book together. A good cover attracts interest so a potential reader will stop and look. It showcases the title and author of the book.

eBook and Print differences

An eBook has only the front cover. This is the same size as the interior pages. It needs to be bold, easy to see as many people look at it on their phones.

A print cover has three parts. One is the front with the title, author, illustrator and image on it.

The back of a picture book varies. It can have text to create interest in the book. Or it can be an image that is either new or a continuation of the front image.

Between the front and back is the spine. Picture books are thin. The spine must be a quarter of an inch or bigger before the title and author can be printed on it. Only hardback books have a spine.

Creating Picture Book Covers

Although there are templates and places to purchase a cover, I prefer to create my own. I use paint shop to do this.

The size is important. Whoever is going to print your picture book will tell you the size for the cover plus bleed or small margin around the cover. Sizes for front, back and spine are given too.

The front, back and spine are created separately. Each is saved separately.

back picture book covers
This isn’t the real back cover for “Waiting for Fairies”. It has been cropped on both sides to fit into a good web image. This highlights the need to have wide margins around your front and back covers so they can be cropped as needed to suit different formats.

My Method

I create a blank page 300 dpi – 600 dpi the right size for the front and add a background color. This may or may not show very much, but, unless your cover will have lots of white, you want to make sure the page is not white.

The selected front image is resized, same dpi, to fit on the page. Copy and paste as a new layer. Position it. Save it so the layers are left intact, not merged.

Add the title. Experiment with fonts, size, colors, orientation until it’s what you want. Position and save this.

Add the author’s name. This is much the same as for the title. Save this.

Creating the back cover starts with a new page. Add the images and text and save this so the layers are left intact.

The spine is tricky because it is so narrow. I create a page so the spine is horizontal to work with. Put the title and author on it making sure the text is smaller than the spine. Save.

The Final cover

Create a page the size of the full cover including bleed margin. Add the background color.

Go to the front page and merge the layers. Copy and paste it as a new layer on the final cover. Move it into position. (If you save the merged image, do it as a new image.

Repeat to put the back page on the final cover. Rotate the spine to vertical, copy and paste as a new layer. It must be positioned in the exact center of the cover.

I save the final cover with the layers. Then I merge the layers and save it as a merged version. Printing the picture book is the next step.

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Frustrating Chickens

Although these livestock animals are among the easiest and most useful, these can be frustrating chickens too. Mine certainly are right now.

Why Chickens?

I like chickens. My parents raised chickens in our backyard. We had fresh eggs.

There were problems like the rooster that attacked my father one to many times. They escaped from their yard only to be herded back by our collie/German shepard dog shadow.

Now I have chickens because they provide eggs, meat and manure. The manure is difficult to use as it has so much nitrogen it burns most plants. Asparagus likes it.

Gray Easter Egger chicken no longer a frustrating chicken
Easter Egger chickens seem to live very long lives. Gray One is at least five. She occasionally lays a blue egg in spring. She is retired the rest of the year. I like these hens for the colored eggs. Good homesteading breeds I’ve worked with are Buff Orpingtons, Speckled Sussex, Barred Rocks, New Hampshires and standard Cochins.

Dangers

People aren’t the only ones who like eating chicken and eggs. Foxes, raccoons, opossums and hawks love chicken. Crows attack young ones. Black snakes love eggs.

Every morning and night I count my hens to be sure none are missing. I lock their door at night to keep out unwanted visitors. Black snakes, weasels and minks can get in, if they want to.

So far my chickens have not had many predator problems. Even the grey foxes sometimes living around the house have mostly left the chickens alone. Of course, I bribe the foxes.

Pippi, one of my frustrating chickens
My chicken Pippi is a cross of, I think, Easter Egger or Araucana and Columbian Wyandotte. The hen hatched only this chick and abandoned her. She was forced to survive on her own. the garden is so alluring and a major place she tries to get into.

Frustrating Chickens

After thirty years of use, the chicken yard was barren. During the summer it is really hot and has little shade. So I let the chickens out during the day.

The chickens love this. They chase down and devour anything that looks edible. I wish they didn’t like the little snakes and spiders.

Here and there the flock establishes dusting areas and dig holes. Lawn mowing gets very bumpy.

Any gate left open is an invitation for invasion. Gardens, especially with mulch, are favorite places to attack. Any tomato with color and within reach is fair game.

What really makes for frustrating chickens is trying to find hidden nests. It’s amazing how easy it is to look at one and not see it.

Will I give up raising chickens? No. I’m already trying to decide which chicks I want to order next spring.

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GKP Writing News

Formatting Your Picture Book

The illustrations are done. Text is on the illustrations. Everything is ready for formatting your picture book, you hope.

Front Pages

Just like in a regular book, picture books have title pages. There is a copyright page as well.

(Although I am focusing on a printed book, if you are doing an eBook version, you can ignore the page count. An eBook requires a Table of Contents page added right after the copyright page which should be right after the title page in this format. Don’t forget to resize your images to 8” by 11”. Put them on that size pages using the 0.01” margins using In Line with Text.)

Title pages usually have some cute image taken from the book. If your book is about rabbits, the title page should have a rabbit image along with the title and author.

Copyright pages aren’t always in the front of picture books. Sometimes this information is put on the last page. If it is in the front, often the image on the page makes a two page spread with the first page. Other times it is an introductory image for the book.

Back Pages

In some picture books about animals or history, there is a last page or pages giving more information. I did this in “Waiting For Fairies” with a Nature’s Cast about the night creatures appearing in the book. In “Redcoats and Petticoats” the last page is about the spy network in New England during the Revolutionary War.

formatting your picture book starts with the pictures
This is one of two pages at the end of “Waiting for Fairies” telling about the creatures appearing in the story. I did have to crop the edges to get the right fit for the website. That brings up another issue with picture books. The edge of a page descends into the spine on one side. When you create your images, be sure you keep the main images a good half inch from the edges of the page.

Counting Pages

Traditionally printed picture books have a number of pages evenly divisible by four, usually 32. The reason goes back to how the books are printed. Each print page sheet has four book pages on it. You can see how this works if you take a calendar apart.

Count your pages. Is the number a multiple of four? If not, perhaps you can add or delete a page. Or you can add a blank page. Another way is to use a page for cute images related to your book as is done “For Love of Goats” or “Diary of a Spider”.

Remember your title and first page have an odd number to put them on the right side.

Creating the Pages

I work in Word so my pages must have a margin. If you also work in Word, formatting your picture book needs the margins set at 0.01”.

Resize your images to fit the page size you are using using your paint shop. Do not resize or crop them after putting them on the book pages.

Each image is placed on a page using In Line With Text to lock it into position. Even if your title page has lots of blank space on it, create an image of it the same size as your other images. All of these images should be JPEGs so all layers are merged.

Once all the images are on your pages, you have finished formatting your picture book interior. Now you need a cover.

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Falling for Autumn

Picking out a picture book I found “Pete the Cat Falling for Autumn” and cringed a bit. Still, I checked it out as appropriate to the season.

My Opinion of Autumn

Autumn is a prelude to winter. Going out to the barn in the dark and cold is not my idea of fun. Dealing with cold animals is no fun for them or me.

Then there is putting on all those layers of clothes in the attempt to stay warm. When it really gets cold, my layers include long johns, jeans, flannel shirt, vest, hoodie and jacket. It takes almost as long putting everything on as it does to do chores!

In addition, autumn is the end of the summer garden, wildflower hikes and basking in the warmth. It brings killing frost and clearing out the dead plants from the garden.

Such thoughts make autumn one of my least favorite times of year.

falling for autumn colors
Hiking one of the trails at Montauk State Park, we crossed this ravine. It was mid-afternoon with the sun lighting up the colors on the hill above us.

“Pete the Cat Falling for Autumn”

I do enjoy the Pete the Cat picture books. I opened this book. Guess what? Pete wasn’t thrilled with the end of summer, beginning of autumn either.

As I turned the pages to see Pete’s discoveries, I found many of them resonated with me. It wasn’t just the colorful leaves. There were many things to like about autumn.

It made me think of some of the things I do like about autumn. Pumpkin cookies top my list. This is one of the recipes in “The Pumpkin Project”.

There may not be lots of flowers, but nature hikes are still good. I’ve been out admiring the fall colors around home and at Montauk State Park.

Autumn colors glow on the hill
Fall colors are really vivid this fall for some reason. The only real rain in months was when remnants of Hurricane Helene went by. Yet, even the oaks that normally turn a dusky red are glowing reds and oranges. This view was worth the walk up and around the hill above our house.

A New Opinion?

Autumn will still not be a favorite season. However, after thinking about the nice things in autumn, it isn’t so bad. The problem wasn’t with autumn. It was with winter cold and dark.

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First Frost

This Ozark fall has been flirting with frost for a few weeks. The frost date isn’t until the end of October. Weather doesn’t read calendars so the first frost hit with twenty-five degrees.

There was warning in the weather forecast. Balmy days seemed to laugh at it.

Feeling Foolish

One by one I stripped and pulled the pepper plants. All tomatoes of any size came off the vines. Pumpkins and squash moved in on my pantry floor.

The weather was warm. Skies were blue. The only thought keeping me going was: Can I afford to be wrong?

If our first frost didn’t come, my summer garden would still be gone. If it did arrive, my last produce would be safely in the house. Frost would ruin this produce. I couldn’t afford to be wrong.

After first frost surprise
Reptiles disappear all winter. This young northern fence lizard hasn’t gotten the message yet. It’s basking on the old blanket I’m presently using to cover the raised bed.

Watch the Wind

All weekend the wind stayed from the southeast. This means warm or relatively warm temperatures.

Tuesday morning the weather vane began to move to the east. The wind picked up. That cold front was moving in.

Afterwards

Two mornings were in the mid twenties. All leftover squash and tomato vines hung limp, frozen.

There are some cold tender plants still growing because I took out the blankets and covered them. I keep a big stash of old blankets in the barn along with old towels and sweatshirts to use in the garden and on the goats.

Chinese celery won’t take a frost. Using old towels and blankets I’ve kept the plants growing slowly up into January.

Each morning I finish milking and go out into the garden to remove the coverings. It’s nice to see the Napa cabbage, bok choi and Chinese celery looking green and fresh.

banishing first frost cold
Nubian doe High Reaches Pamela is basking in the sun just now lighting up the barn lot after a night of freezing temperatures. Her black fur gets hot. Even the brown and gray fur on various goats gets really warm.

Goats and First Frost

I arrived to start milking and found an empty barn. Nubians love warmth. The herd had moved out in front of the barn to bask in the sun. Their warm fur helps warm up cold hands.

Now the forecast calls for some warmer temperatures. The goats, fall garden and I will be glad to enjoy them.

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GKP Writing News

Adding Picture Book Text

Adding picture book text is part of the illustrating. The text must fit into the illustrations, be a part of them, yet be separate.

How much text will be included depends on the book. Those for older readers often have lots of text telling a story. Examples include “Redcoats and Petticoats” and “The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship”.

Those for younger readers have none to only a few lines. An example would be “Wolf in the Snow” where the text is only names of sounds like howl. “Waiting For Fairies” has a couple of lines of text on each page.

cover for "Waiting For Fairies" by Karen GoatKeeper
In this picture book the text usually fit in two lines along the bottom of the page. When doing the illustrations, I left enough room to fit in the text.

Choosing a Font

There are lots of fonts to choose from. In picture books the aim is to be simple and easy to read.

My preference is Georgia as I find it easy to read and pretty with the serifs. Since I use it on my website and for writing, it was a natural choice for my picture books.

Another aspect is the color of the font. Black is the most common.

Picture book text doesn’t have to be in straight lines. It can be curved or in a column. In this book it is tiered up and down.

Placing the Text

Adding picture book text is part of doing the illustrations. The illustration must leave space for the text. It is often placed at the bottom of the pages.

When I did “The Little Spider” the text became part of the illustrations. This spider is trying to get to a high perch. When the spider goes up, the text goes up. When the spider goes down, so does the text.

Making Text Readable

Black is popular as it shows up well against most backgrounds. There are times when black does not show up well.

On a few pages of “The Little Spider”, this was the case. The text was against brown and disappeared into the background. I created a light yellow oblong and used brown text preserving the ground effect, but making the text readable.

Adding picture book text takes time and thought. The font must reflect the purpose of the book and be readable. The text must fit into the illustrations. Then the picture book becomes a picture book.

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Drawing Ozark Birds

Looking out the kitchen window, I saw a titmouse raiding the bird feeder. The local paper had an article about David Plank, a local watercolor artist who is known for drawing Ozark birds like that titmouse.

Years ago I had an opportunity to meet this famous artist and get some tips on using watercolors. This was when I dreamed of doing my own watercolor illustrating, but was too scared to try.

drawing Ozark birds studio
I had pictured some fancy room as David Plank’s studio. It wasn’t. All an artist’s studio really needs is working space with good lighting.

Meeting David Plank

At the time I was writing articles for a local free ad paper called the Kaleidoscope. This gave me several opportunities. One was working with an editor who moved my writing from a schoolwork level to a semiprofessional one. The other was getting to go places and meet people around my area.

Visual Manna held an Art Camp each summer. David Plank was a guest teacher there. I got to attend both to write about the event and to participate. He invited me to his studio.

kingbirds and white crowned sparrow
My photographs don’t do justice to David Plank’s paintings. The kingbirds (top) are his favorite birds. The white crowned sparrow (bottom) is a winter visitor and getting ready to leave in this spring picture.

Drawing Ozark Birds

David Plank has drawn birds since he was very young. It’s his passion, one he followed as a hobby for years before his art drew notice. After that, he could spend all his time sketching and painting.

The studio was crowded with pencil sketches, finished paintings and prints of birds. These took up almost the entire room. His work space took up the rest dominated by a slanted board next to a window.

Carolina wren on gourd nest
Wrens are opportunists when siting their nests. They have nested in my barn, in the workshop on top of band saws or tool shelves. Come too close and they hop around scolding.

Watercolor Methods

There are two approaches to painting with watercolors. One uses lots of water to create washes. This is often used to do sea or sky backgrounds, wide expanses of color.

The other uses an almost dry brush to apply the paint more thickly and precisely. David Plank uses this method to create his birds. This is my preferred method.

Whichever method is used, white is not used as a color. That makes it imperative to know beforehand what your drawing will be. Any area you want to be white, must be blocked off so the white of the paper is left to supply the color. You must see your drawing differently, seeing how the color goes around and augments these white areas.

The paper’s article was a retrospective as David Plank turns 90. Drawing Ozark birds is still his passion. I admire his work, done with a skill I don’t have now and probably never will. But, when he started, neither did he. That skill comes with having a passion for drawing and persistence to keep working at it.

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GKP Writing News

Formatting Picture Book Illustrations

Formatting picture book illustrations is the last step. The illustrations must be finished first.

“For Love of Goats” taught me a lot about doing illustrations. Watercolor may be beautiful, but mistakes are forever. Or are they?

Creating the Pictures

Each drawing takes hours. The sketch is drawn, redrawn, corrected. Watercolor is put on after that.

Pencil lines show through watercolor, so they must be very light. If they are too light, you can’t see them.

formatting picture book illustrations example
This picture book image from “For Love of Goats” was created using watercolor and the computer. The kidding pen with the straw was one watercolor picture. Each of the three goats was done separately in watercolor. The goats were placed in the pen using a computer.

Computer ‘Magic’

Formatting picture book illustrations requires scanning them into a computer as JPEG images. My paint shop creates and works with these images. It let me trim down lines that were too thick with paint.

In “For Love of Goats” I have a series of short fiction much of which is set in a stall created with bales of hay. Painting identical stalls for each picture was beyond my skill. I painted one stall.

Then I drew and painted the goats to go into the stall. Duplicating the stall, I had it for all of my drawings. Using my paint shop, I placed the goats into the stall. This worked so well, I used the same method for several of the illustrations.

Doing these things does mean using multiple layers. The first time or two, using layers can be intimidating. Practice helps.

One important practice is to save all of your original drawings in their original form. When I work on one, I save this one as a duplicate in case I have to start over. This is a good habit to have for any illustration work: drawings, paintings, photographs. It is also a good idea with the text for a picture book or a novel.

Final Images

Many picture books are done in letter size. That is the size I create my drawings in.

However, eBooks are usually sized for 6” by 9” ratios. That distorts the letter size image. When formatting picture book illustrations for a digital version, it’s important to crop and resize them for this so they look right in digital format. That is 8” by 11” instead of 8 ½” by 11”.

image from Waiting for Fairies
All of the illustrations for “Waiting For Fairies” were done a complete pictures. There is the infamous bush that appears in many of the illustrations. It is hard to redo the same bush or fence or mushrooms over and over so they look the same each time. Formatting these images was mostly doing some cleaning of sloppy lines and fitting the images together for the two page spreads.

“Waiting For Fairies”

Although I created many of the images using layers for some picture books, this picture book was done with all complete pictures. That bush was a challenge and, if each image is looked over carefully, it isn’t exactly the same in all of them.

As I look over different picture books, my painting and computer method is not the norm. However, each book is different and each illustrator uses a method they are comfortable with.

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Planning Ahead

So much is said about living in the now, appreciating what you see, feel, smell around you in the moment. That’s great up to a point. However, if you raise livestock or crops, planning ahead is essential.

goat coats keeping kids warm
If I want March kids, the does get to visit with Augustus in October. Part of planning ahead is to have the kids born when the weather is better. It doesn’t always work well as the goat coats on these kids of my Nubian doe High Reaches Drucilla say this March was a bit cold. Part of planning ahead is having the goat coats clean and ready just in case.

Livestock Planning

For a few years I ran a commercial rabbitry. There were around 120 does in my barn. These were roughly divided into eight sections. Why?

Gestation for a rabbit is four weeks. Weaning of baby rabbits is four weeks. The only income for a commercial rabbitry is from the sale of those baby rabbits, you guessed it, four weeks later.

Every week I bred some does, put nest boxes in for as many others, weaned babies for that many. If I didn’t keep a schedule, my rabbits went hungry.

It’s the same for other livestock. My goats have a gestation of five months. If I don’t breed in October, I have no kids to sell in the spring for money to put hay in the barn.

Planning ahead for Chinese cabbage
Napa cabbage is surprisingly cold hardy. However, cabbage worms love it. I was a bit late, but mine is wrapped with voile. The garden tubs work well for greens like this one, bok choi, peppers, eggplant and green onions among others. These seeds went in during August, so the cabbage will be ready to eat in November.

Raising Crops

Although I am only a homesteader, the same rules apply for farmers. The summer may be winding down and the summer crops with it, but spring will come again. The garden must be ready to plant then.

As a homesteader, I plant spring, summer and fall crops. January is the month to start cabbage and leeks. The end of February is time for peppers and tomatoes. August is time to plant turnips, spinach and greens along with broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

Without planning ahead for these deadlines, my garden won’t put food on my table and in my freezer. The full freezer is sure comforting in the fall.

a section of my Ozark creek
One of the joys of living out on this property is going walking up on the hills, into the ravines or along the creek. The same walks are never boring as the places change as the weather and seasons change.

Enjoying the Now?

Standing in the barn door as my goats eat their grain, I look out over the pasture to the far hill. A breeze ruffles my hair. Birds flit by or stop on a branch to scold the cat.

Even though I spend a lot of time planning ahead, enjoying the now is important. It’s what makes homesteading special.

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GKP Writing News

Picture Book Illustrations

Traditional publishing companies often control picture book illustrations assigning the text to an artist. Indie picture book authors have two choices: 1) Find and hire an illustrator; or 2) Do their own illustrations.

I am an indie author. That leaves me with the two choices.

cover of "For Love of Goats" by Karen GoatKeeper
What I found out doing this book was to start with illustrating something you are familiar with and enjoy drawing. After that, other projects aren’t so intimidating.

Hiring an Illustrator

For years I did try to find an illustrator. Good ones are expensive. The amount of work that must be put into the illustrations makes them worth their cost.

My first illustrated book was “For Love of Goats” which presented several problems. Goats are not easy to draw. The book includes several breeds of goats and each one is different.

Additionally, goats have attitudes and behaviors. Someone unfamiliar with goats, working only from photographs, will miss these. And these were reflected in the text.

Goats have been an important part of my life for fifty years. I’ve watched them. That didn’t mean I could draw them. I wanted to finish this book I’d worked so hard on, so I learned.

Picture Book Illustrations

If you’ve been looking at picture books, you know illustrations are done in many mediums. They are done in many styles.

Once the decision is made to illustrate a book, the medium is chosen. It must be one the illustrator is comfortable with.

My medium is watercolor. Why? Because I like the way it looks, the way it is done and the challenge of it. Watercolor is a most unforgiving medium as mistakes never go away.

cover for "Waiting For Fairies" by Karen GoatKeeper
People are hard to draw for me. The mushrooms and creatures were done using photographs of the real ones as models. One of the difficult parts was drawing the same mushroom ring for each of may pages.

Waiting for Fairies

After completing “For Love of Goats”, I had the confidence to illustrate the two picture books I had written text for. The next one I tackled was “Waiting for Fairies”.

People are incredibly hard for me to draw. Even now, I look at my illustrations and wish I had done better.

The fun part of doing these illustrations was the opportunity it gave me to add an additional layer to the story told in the text. Since the child was waiting for fairies, there should be fairies somewhere.

Doing picture book illustrations isn’t for every author. I’ve found it is for me.

“Waiting for Fairies” eBook version is free through Smashwords for the month of November. The coupon code is LXLLT.