My friend Alex deserved to have a cumbia made to him. He would dance it, I know. That was how masses of friends from his Zumba class decided to join me and made this video for him. Yes, he is that kind of teacher who would take his shirt off in the middle of the class. Below are the lyrics.



LA CUMBIA PROMETIDA
by Yuyi morales and Kelly O


Ay, sabrocita
Esta cumbia la tengo muy bien pegadita.

Ay, sabrocita
Esta cumbia la tengo muy bien pegadita.

Es la cumbia de la Zumba que un día yo a el prometí.
Es una cuenta concentrada de virtudes y valores,
excedentes, pertinentes, ocurrentes, oponentes
que tan solo son posibles en cholos aquí presentes.

Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.
Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.

El es perfecto. Si
No es creído. No
Un papichulo. Si
Muy pizpireto. Yo?

El es muy guapo. Si
Comprometido. No
Conmigo zumba. Si
Solo conmigo. Hmmm...

Yo era muy bien portadita, niña buena, aerobics girl,
cuando sin ni mas ni menos escuche su regatón.
Ay chiquito, que fue eso? De repente apareció,
como bajado del cielo, llego Alex es Amor.

Los gritos fueron mi alivio, los bochornos acepte,
que el corazón se acelere , y que el sudor a mi me de.
800 calorias, cada dia el prometio,
si le muevo al merengue y le salto al hip -hop

Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.
Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.

Tentaciones―Si
Artimañas―No
Una samba―si
La lambada. Ay Dios.

Se cree muy sexi―Si
No es celoso―No
a mi me quiere.―Si
Zumba!

Ay mamita, santa madre, no me juzgues por favor.

Es cierto que había puesto a san Antonio en un rincón,
lo tenia de cabeza y le ofrecí una oración.
La respuesta fue del cielo. Así fue como paso,
que llegara un Zumba instructor como el que quería yo.

Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.
Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.

Mueve los hombros―Si
Shakea las nalgas.―No
Da vuelta y media.―Si
Ay, que impresión!

Da el warming up―Si
Trae substitutos―No
Tira besitos―Si
La camisa se quito!

Que puedo hacer, mamita linda, si del cielo me bajo,
un Dios tatuado, acelerado, bien peinado, muy bronceado,
acholado, PUA entrenado, zumbeando al ritmo de cumbia,
tantísima perfección.

El lo sabe de antemano, la verdad es su prisión,
que el carece de defectos la mejor de sus virtudes
es que el me quiere un montón.
el me quiere un montón
el me quiere un montón

Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.
Ay, perdí la cuenta, me distrajo su boom boom.

Talking about Ladder to the Moon

It was last September that I began drawing and painting the illustrations of Ladder to the Moon, a picture book written by Maya Soetoro-ng. This fall , as the book is going through the printing process, our publishers, Candlewick, is sharing two video interviews. one with Maya and another one with me, were we talk about the making and the inspiration behind Ladder to the Moon.

I am particularly fond of hearing Maya speak. I love this woman's both strength and tenderness.





For more news and interviews about Ladder to the Moon, you can follow the book's progress in Facebook

Blog Tour and book giveaway: A visit from an Abuelita and her Chocolate

Latina author Mara Price recently shared with me the joy of bringing to the world her new book Grandma's Chocolate/ El Chocolate De Abuelita. To celebrate, I am opening the blog tour for her book about this traveling grandma who carries ancient treasures inside her suit case--amongst them stories of brown princesses and delicious chocolate.

I met Mara a few years ago at the Feria del Libro in LA, a true barrio book celebration, and she and I talked about books, illustrating, and her work in Iguana Magazine. Mara is also one of the founders of Los Bloguitos, a blog in Spanish where Mara and other authors share poetry, drawings, stories, riddles and much more to children.

Now, Mara not only is giving me a chocolate craving (one of my earliest memories of chocolate is the irresistible smell that came from the old Chocolate Locomotora factory a few block away from where my grandmother lived), but Mara is also bringing presents.

First she is sharing for the first time the video trailer for Grandma's Chocolate/El Chocolate De Abuelita. The second present is a book giveaway. One lucky person who leaves a comment to this post will receive a copy of her delicious book. But remember, we will need to receive at least four comments from different people to give the book away. So, are you game?

See below for more information about where to follow the blog tour.

A toast with hot chocolate (and a sprinkle of chile powder on top, the way the Aztecs used to drink it). Salud.



Blog Tour schedule and information:

Tuesday, November 16
On Beyond Words & Pictures
Chocolate recipe and the importance of chocolate in Mesoamerica
by Megan Frances
http://www.onbeyondwordsandpictures.com

Wednesday, November 17
La Bloga
The Story Behind the Story
by Rene Colato Lainez
http://labloga.blogspot.com

Thursday, November 18
Out of the Paintbox
Mara Price interview
by Diane Browning
http://www.dianebrowningillustrations.com

Friday, November 19
Latin Baby Book Club
Book giveaway
By Monica Olivera Hazelton
http://www.latinbabybookclub.com

*Monday, November 22
VOCES
Writing a History-based Fiction Story for Children
By Adriana Dominguez
http://adrianadominguez.blogspot.com

YOU CAN MEET MARA IN PERSON AT:
http://www.maraprice.com/presentations.html

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MARA PRICE, PLEASE VISIT HER WEBSITE.
http://www.maraprice.com

My friend Jim Averbeck and I have been in the look out for evidence in the existence of ghost; more specifically of the famous Mexican ghost of La Llorona).

I became interested since lots of children have reported to me (apparently school visits are a great way to collect testimonials) how THEY or someone in their family have seen or hear La Llorona crying. Have you?

Well, Jim and I have finally collected some terrifying footage, and in honor of my abuelita, who used to scared us children telling us stories, and in honor of all of the children who have told me their terrible tales, here is the video Jim and I put togehter. Watch it with caution:

Ay, Llorona from Yuyi Morales on Vimeo.

Originally post source: my blog Corazonadas

Nick Glass came visit last spring and we had a day of talking, filming, and working (and some eating of tortas de queso fresco too), and the result of his visit is now my author program available at Teaching Books Net.

If you are not familiar with Nick's work yet, let me tell you that Teaching Books Net is an amazing resource for exploring children's and young adult books and their authors. The program that Nick created about me and my work includes two mini-documentary movies (one of them in Spanish), a written interview, movie transcripts, Bibliography, and many other resources like name pronunciation for children to learn how to pronounce the names of authors like me that have weird names. You can find it all here.

Yeah, there are lots of other authors too, like my beloved Ashley Brian, the incredible Peter Sis, and many more--so worth cheking it out.

Six years, three years—oh dear, some times it takes a lot of time (and a big camera) to illustrate a book

I have been so absorbed in projects that I haven’t had a chance to celebrate that my newest book, My Abuelita, written by Tony Johnston, has hit the shelves this fall. There are many reasons for me to be excited about this book, but the most important one is that it was a challenge to illustrate it, and that I did it.
And so, in the spirit of a little release celebration, I though I would show how My Abuelita was made.
Care to find out?

Making My Abuelita from Yuyi Morales on Vimeo.

Six years. In 2003, when I signed the contract to create the illustrations for My Abuelita, written by Tony Johnston, I didn’t anticipate that it would take me this long to see the work completed. But at the time I had other books to finish before I could begin any new project, and so time began to pass.

Time passing is a good opportunity for daydreaming. Daydreaming is an opportunity for imagining. And imagining is how my illustrations start.

During the years I needed to complete other books, I imagined how the illustrations for My Abuelita would look someday. When it comes to my work, I don’t really imagine things like a character’s features or the colors of skin and clothes. Instead, I imagine possibilities. And so I began imagining the possibility of making the illustrations for My Abuelita not with paintings, as I had done with all of my previous books, but utilizing something I had long adored: dolls and puppets.

When I had just arrived in the USA from Mexico, I fell in love with making puppets. I learned about it from books I borrowed from the library. It was through making puppets that I began exploring the creation of my own stories and characters, which eventually led me to create my own books. Yet I have never stopped loving the wonder of inanimate objects moving, posing, and coming alive to enact stories.

The more imagining I did, the crazier the idea of using puppets became. This seemed like a project that would require many different kinds of techniques: sculpting, sewing, painting, photography, digital work. Could I really do this all by myself? How was I going to make rigid puppets have facial expression? What would happen to the curved lines I like to use in my work? Could I still keep a sense of movement flooding my illustrations if I had to build them rather than paint them? Would I need to hire a photographer, and would he or she be in tune with the vision I had of my work? And more important, what would my publisher think about it? (They scratched their chins. “Let us see,” they said. “Try it.”)

In 2006 I finally started working on My Abuelita, a story of a grandmother and her grandchild living together and bonding through imagination and storytelling. By then I had closed my eyes to my own doubts. I had decided to use puppets and props to make scenes, buy my husband, Tim, the camera he’d always wanted, and finish the illustrations using digital media. There were still plenty of things I didn’t know how I would do, but I trusted that I would find a way of learning—I would study or ask people to teach me, and one way or another I would figure it all out.

The work began with bad drawings, as usual. My first attempts always produce the simplest and roughest drawings. They are stick people without features or details—pure shape and energy. Later, based on the text, I began refining my drawings to conjure this grandmother shaped like a pumpkin, her loving grandchild, and their cat, Frida Kahlo.
As I was establishing the look of my characters in sketches, I began working on thumbnails, small drawings where I concentrate on the compositional and storytelling elements of the 32 pages of the book. While in the past I have used my thumbnails as the road map for drawing refined sketches and ultimately paintings, this time my thumbnails were the reference for creating three-dimensional scenes. In these thumbnails, all of the characters, places, situations, attitudes, and objects in every scene were established.

With my general plan for the book visually laid down, it was time to begin building the characters and elements that would appear in the illustrations. I wrote down a list so that I would not forget anyone.

I have made puppets before; papier-mâché pulp is my favorite construction material. But I knew that My Abuelita needed puppets that would withstand extensive maneuvering. I would need to position them in diverse poses and attitudes, and they would need to stay. So I began studying stop-motion animation techniques.

On a wire structure I built by twisting wire and wrapping silk thread, I sculpted my characters. I used polymer clay, which stays soft and malleable while working, but hardens when baked in a kitchen oven. Because I needed my characters to move, I left bare wire joints for the neck, knees, wrist, fingers, waists, and more. Later I would cover the joints digitally. Once baked and hardened, I primed the figures and began to paint them. I decided then to give my puppets features but not expressions (including no eyes), so that later I could create expressions digitally for the different moments in the story.

For Frida the cat, I mulled over how to make her fuzzy. I found my answer in felting. Using a special needle with an indentation on the tip, I learned to clump felt fibers over my wire cat skeleton and sculpt them into the shape I wanted. The hair of Abuelita and her grandchild were also made with this technique.

Next I sewed their little dresses, pants, and shirts. The boy’s shirt is my favorite because I put it together with fabric printed with motifs based on a Mexican Loteria game. El corazón card became the front; el pájaro card is on the back. For many of the linens and clothes, I bought fabrics and laces in Mexico; many are common fabrics that have been used for generations.

Everything from little bedroom slippers to little toys, beds, spoons, a feathered crown, and more had to be created. I painted the image of the artist Frida Kahlo with my computer, printed it on fabric, then sewed it into a lace pillow for Abuelita. Some objects, like Abuelita’s iron bed, I designed while I was in Mexico visiting my family. There I found a metal worker who, following my drawing, cut and soldered the bed for me. Other elements, like the clay dishes Abuelita and her grandchild use at breakfast, are toy crafts played with by children in Mexico. I bought mine in el mercado, my hometown’s market. To create the metal mirror in Abuelita’s house, I embossed a sheet of aluminum foil in the style of traditional Mexican silver works.

My Abuelita is a story that honors both everyday life and imagination. These two worlds come together in the story, and they needed to come together in the illustrations as well, while still being distinguishable from each other. But how? I decided to depict the real world of Abuelita’s family with my three-dimensional creations; their imaginary world would be portrayed in my paintings.

And so the images began developing through an amalgam of different techniques. In my husband’s photography studio, we propped up the walls of Abuelita’s house, which were boards that I textured and painted. Using my early thumbnails as storyboards, we furnished every scene with the props I had made, and we positioned the puppets as they enacted the story in front of the camera. Depending on their complexity, setting up the scenes to be photographed took from one to three days each.

Lighting played a big role. From illuminating the general scene to adding glow and shadows to each puppet, the process was handled by Tim. He listened to and interpreted my lighting wishes, experimented with different approaches, positioned photographic lamps, and even constructed miniature reflectors and small light boxes in order to concentrate light on the smallest of characters.

Eighteen high-resolution photographs were taken to create the book. One by one I uploaded them to my computer so that I could digitally finish in Photoshop. The list of work to do was long:

Abuelita, her grandchild, and Frida Khalo the cat had to be given eyes and expression. Sometimes whole eyelids, mouths, and cheeks were digitally destructed and reconstructed in order to give their faces a more realistic expression.

Skin was built wherever bare wire joints showed. Fingers and toes were repositioned so that they would be in visual tune with what the characters were doing and feeling.

Some scenes required that new glows and shadows be manually redrawn.

Real food was cooked, photographed, and digitally served in the photographed dishes.

A model car that was smaller than we needed had to be seamlessly adapted to the driving scene.

The alligator clamps, clay, pins, strings, and any other tools that kept the puppets, floors, walls, and props in place had to be erased.

And the list continued.

One of the last steps was the blending of the imaginary world with the real one: my paintings had to be integrated into the photographs. Using my computer, I layered every photograph with a painting, one on top of the other, and blended them together as one. I erased some parts and redrew others. I extracted or copied pieces of the images, grabbing colors and textures, and then moved them where I needed them. In a way this felt as if I were sculpting the illustrations—not much different than my adding, extracting, and moving clay when I sculpted my puppets over the wire armature.

Then, after about three years, I was done!

Illustrating is a series of choices. I give voice to my work by choosing ideas, possibilities, and ways of using art (and not my ability to draw, my painting skills, or how good or bad I am at anything). I hope that the way I chose to tell the story of My Abuelita comes out with a voice “as round as dimes and as wild as blossoms blooming” and that even Abuelita would be proud.

Now that My Abuelita is long finished and is already a completed book, what I keep closest to me is that fantastic feeling of being at the studio, setting the puppets in the scenes. No matter how tired I was or how many times we reset the puppets (which often moved or fell, crashing the whole scene), it always made me squirm with pure delight to have Abuelita, her grandchild, and Frida the cat bring to life a scene I had only imagined. How I had dreamed of this perfect moment, ever since I was a child playing with my dolls.

Ok now, Ok now...Nevada was great, but I suck as a mentor

After six months of working at the SCBWI Nevada Mentorship Program, I have decided I make a terrible mentor. Here are the reasons:

One. What do I know about how other people should write their stories, or make their illustrations? All I know is how I do it. But nobody wants to be me; everybody wants to be themselves, right?

Two. My English is terrible, my words are endless, which means that anybody who is working with me will hear more words from me than he or she can actually understand.

Three. I work even in my sleep. There is not time for anything else. People who work with me in their projects have to put up with me not having time for nothing.

Four. I have a very capricious personal taste for stories and art. My opinions are tinted.

Five. I am the emotional type, I can't do anything without feeling heart pains.

Six. I can't make you published, really.

Seven. I am afraid of sleeping in that hotel in Virginia City infested with ghost--where the mentorship program and conference took place.

Eight. People know better what is best for them. If you are smart, you don't want me as a mentor.

Nine. I am vegetarian.

Ten. People invite me to be a mentor to aspiring authors and illustrators, and then I make videos about it (sight).

If you don't believe me, here is the evidence.
but I recommend you see first David After Dentist, which was our video muse.





And so, here is Art Director After Conference, filmed and produced by Jim Averbeck, Laurent Linn (art director at Simon & Schuster), and Truly Yours.
You are warned now.

So you want to be a children’s book writer or illustrator?...

How does one become a children’s book writer and illustrator? A marvelous question! And so, have I ever told you that the answers to your questions and desired exist in one place called the SCBWI?
It is true!
When I first began learning how to find my way towards the children’s book world, I stumbled upon the SCBWI and have never let go. In 2000, when I was just an aspiring illustrator, I won the Don Freeman SCBWI Grant, which gave me not only some cash to further fund my learning, but also gave me the confidence I needed to see my work as valuable and valid, and keep doing it more and more. In the years I have attended conferences, gone to retreats, joined groups, made strong friendships, given workshops, been a speaker, and won awards given by the organization.
This morning, when my friend Laurent Linn sent me the link for this tribute video to SCBWI, I …how do you put it mildly? OK, I almost fainted from laughing:

SCBWI Tribute from Kimberly C. Baker on Vimeo.

Just a Minute video

Just a Minute has been produced in video, and my first copies arrived on time for the celebrations.
The story is narrated by su servidora, yours truly. The producers at Nutmeg Media asked me earlier this year to do the recording where I read Just a Minute, counted from one to ten in English and Spanish, and also talked about creating the book.
So there I am narrating in English the story of Señor Calavera and Grandma Beetle in all my glorious Mexican accent. I would say I better get used to it because my English intonations are here to last me for the rest of my life.