Nina Laden – NinaLaden.com

Shop.NinaLaden.com

Someday My Prints Will Come

by Nina Laden

I have exciting news! Something that I’ve thought about for years has finally happened… or should I say I made it happen? I’ve always wanted to sell my art and prints of my art, but it took a few things to finally kick this into gear. The first thing is a little shocking. I got a cancer diagnosis in late January. If you want to know more about that you can read my CaringBridge journal. The second thing is that after two years of great book sales, possibly due to the pandemic, sales dropped way down. It could be the economy, or the glut of self-published books flooding the market. Whatever it was, it is not the best timing with my huge medical expenses this year. And then the third thing happened:

I received an email from a mom through my website here. (I hope it’s okay that I used her photo.) She told me that her ten month old son was obsessed with the Zoo image in my book, “Peek-a Who?” She asked me if I had any prints of that image available for sale. I replied, “I don’t know why I don’t have any.” And the next day I ordered a really nice printer. I’ve never had a nice printer. I couldn’t swing the top of the line machines that cost thousands, but I’m very happy with the Canon Pixma Pro-200 that I bought. The inks are over $100, but that seems to be what you get these days. And I discovered beautiful acid-free paper from Red River Paper Company in Texas. The test prints- I started with the Zoo image- were gorgeous.

Then I had to figure out how to create an online shop.

First I went online and looked at many online shops that sold prints from children’s book creators. There were many out there, and many people used forums like Etsy. I have resisted Etsy since I heard that they charge you for every piece you post, plus take commission on sales. I called my genius web guy, Jeff. Jeff built this website for me. He built my first website around twenty-five years ago. He is a fine artist and digital designer. (You can visit his shop here.) Jeff immediately made me feel like I was on the right track. He said he would build Shop.NinaLaden.com as a sub-domain of this site. We both worked on it for a month- the month that I was recovering from two months of simultaneous chemo and radiation treatment. This was good work to help me focus on my future, and get stronger for major surgery to come.

It was a lot of work for both of us. Aside from me having to put all of the 34 images available as Art Prints into optimized web form and high resolution form for printing, and I had 54 framed pen and ink drawings to sell that needed to be photographed and then brought into Photoshop to optimize them, plus writing all of the text, I also had to do some “adulting” and set up a business checking account, and get Stripe (to take credit cards), get a business PayPal account, and research the sales tax thresholds. (once I reach the threshold I’ll have to charge tax) PayPal and Stripe do take percentages- but it is not as much as Etsy. But you do have to spend money to hopefully make some down the road.

Jeff definitely had the harder job. He built the shop using Woo Commerce and we needed other Plugins, and he had to write code- but he is a wizard and he figured things out. Shipping was tricky. A Plugin solved that issue. We tested and tested, and finally yesterday Shop.NinaLaden.com went live! There are 34 Art Prints available. They are 8″x10″ and look bold and bright on the acid free Polar Matte paper. They would look so good in children’s rooms, playrooms, in kitchens, as baby shower gifts, the possibilities are endless. I will be adding more Art Prints in the future. I’m thinking about doing some series: fish, mushrooms, cats, dogs, etc…

There are also Original Art (all framed right now) pen and ink and pen and ink with vintage rubber stamp drawings available for sale. These are one-of-a-kind. There were 54 pieces to start- some have already sold since the shop opened. These are pieces I’ve drawn over the past few years. I will be adding more original art (may not be framed) in the future. I am also planning on eventually adding my “Rugged Beauty Jewelry” to the shop.

For years I have made my Rugged Beauty pendants- and sometimes earrings- with semi-precious stones (mostly agates) that I find on our neighborhood beach, and then polish. I add tiny semi-precious faceted stone beads to them with beading wire. They hang on leather cords with mother-of-pearl button closures. You can dress them up or wear casually. They are unique and amazing little treasures from Mother Nature. These Rugged Beauties in the photo are my personal collection. I’ll be photographing the ones that are available soon.

Right now this is a grand experiment. I’m really hoping that it takes off so I can share my art with folks near and far, and brighten walls and lives with my fun, funny, quirky, off-beat, funky, lively, unique, vibrant work. I am dedicated to getting work that has sold shipped as soon as possible. There will be a short break when I’m in the hospital, but I hope that I’ll be getting orders and sending them out in the foreseeable future.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for checking out Shop.NinaLaden.com – I hope you like what you see!

Books

The Trainbow is here!

by Nina Laden

Rolling in to stores, libraries, places where books are sold starting August 16th, 2022, I am so excited to announce the arrival of The Trainbow! It’s a book… it’s a train… it’s a rainbow… it’s an accordion fold book that you can both read and play with.

I have always wanted to do an accordion fold book and I want to take you on a little journey so you can see how this super fun book came to life.

It’s no accident that I decided to do a train book. Trains have been in my life, literally since I was two years old. We lived in Rego Park, Queens, in New York City and the Long Island Railroad ran through our backyard- just behind the garage. All day and all night, all sorts of trains went by: passenger trains, freight trains, trains that worked on the tracks- and they all shook our house. I had a fish tank in my bedroom and sometimes when the house shook, the water would slosh out of the fish tank and I’d find guppies on the floor when I woke up in the morning. The “X” on this map is where our house was- the first house on Alderton Street after 63rd Drive- LIRR is the railroad.

I even drew trains when I was little. I made this train, which almost IS a rainbow train when I was around six years old. It was done by coloring the paper first with many colored crayons, then covering it all with black crayon and ultimately drawing with a pointy tool like a toothpick.

The book itself started years ago when I came up with the name, “The Trainbow,” and then wrote a little poem about it, with a song. Then I made a black and white dummy (yes, that is what we call a mock-up of a book) out of Bristol Board. I wanted the book to move sort of like a train, so that’s where the accordion fold came in.

This was what I sent to my editor at Chronicle Books, and she liked it enough to bring it to acquisitions, and to my delight, the decision was made to offer me a contract to turn The Trainbow into a book. That was great news, but it didn’t happen smoothly, or quickly. For a while The Trainbow got derailed- by both the pandemic, and by some circumstances beyond my control. Finally a designer, Lydia Ortiz, was brought on board and the book started moving again.

There was mutual agreement that the rainbow part of The Trainbow should stack on top of the book- and fold and unfold to form an actual rainbow. This took quite a few tries… and I had to make sure that the red arch was on top. I also wanted the book to read from right to left as it unfolded, and this had to work on both sides. So I created this little color dummy:

Unfortunately the arches were too thin, and they would never hold up when the book was die-cut, so I went back to the drawing board. I had been pushing for the smoke from the train to create the arches. At first, my editor didn’t think she wanted that because she was concerned it was pollution… but I convinced her that it was steam. It’s a steam train- and it was rainbow steam… and it was fun. So I made another dummy:

This time we were on the right track! (Sorry for all of the train puns, I can’t help it.) Then the real work began. The awesome design team at Chronicle Books worked with the amazing production team and they got me a template of the die-cut. I paint traditionally and I use Holbein Acryla gouache on my board books. I had to paint the front and back sides of The Trainbow as one continuous painting- the front side was almost five feet long.

I also wanted to paint the title so I could bring the rainbow into the letters as well.

As you can see, I paint my paper black to start. Then I paint over the black and leave little marks to give the art texture. I’ve been doing this style for my board books since I did “Peek-a Who?” over twenty-two years ago. I call it my “fake woodcut” look. It gives the art energy.

When all of the art was done I actually drove it from my home on Lummi Island (near the Canadian Border) to Seattle where it was scanned. This was in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic, and I barely left my home at that point, but I bravely wore a mask and started the art on its journey to really becoming a book. Chronicle Books took over from there- and I stood by, at the station, and helped fine tune this little book to be the best it could be.

I hope you will let The Trainbow into your home and into your heart and imagination, whether you love trains, or rainbows, or unique books that bring a sense of joy and play into reading!

Books

Dear Little One: My new book

by Nina Laden

Even after twenty-seven years of being published it is still a nerve-wracking thrill to have a new book come out. As I type this, tomorrow, November 2nd, 2021, my next book, “Dear Little One” will make its way into the world, and hopefully into the hands of many, many readers. It has already gotten a much-coveted Starred Review in School Library Journal, which makes me so happy, and a lovely review from Publisher’s Weekly, as well as being chosen as one of the Best Books of the Month for November from Amazon.

“Dear Little One” is framed as a love letter that encourages and inspires readers to explore nature and to protect this world we love. Spoiler Alert: close your eyes right now if you don’t want to know who this letter is from…

My original title for this book is the answer: Love, Mother Nature. This is the actual page in my journal where inspiration hit and I started writing what eventually became “Dear Little One.”

All of my books begin in my journals, but after that I type them into my laptop and then the revising begins. Some books take dozens of revisions. I had a pretty clear vision for “Dear Little One,” and it went through four revisions before it went off to the amazing Melissa Castrillon for her to begin creating the illustrations.

“Dear Little One” the the third collaboration with me as author and Melissa as illustrator. My book, “If I Had A Little Dream” was the very first picture book she illustrated. Then we did “Yellow Kayak” together. (and we are doing a fourth book together – which hasn’t officially been announced in the trades, but I think I can say the title… it is “Love is My Favorite Color.”) Yes, I am also an illustrator. I have a degree in Illustration from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, and my parents were both artists. My career has been a journey and life has taken many twists and turns as I became a caregiver to my father, who has now passed away, my husband, who still has some health issues, and my brother, who also has been battling health issues. I am grateful that I’ve been able to write through this period of time and I know there is art in writing- and nature has grounded me.

I have always been a Nature Girl. This is me at age 8 in summer camp in Cooperstown, New York. I was that little girl who collected pine cones and leaves. I had funerals for spiders, and I rescued bugs. I also started foraging as a child in summer camp and loved to shock my friends by eating the petals on day lilies. It is no surprise that I live on a rural island and I forage for a lot of the food that we eat.

In this day of Climate Change and during the pandemic I especially think that the message of “Dear Little One” is so important for children of all ages- to care for this world and help keep it from danger. I feel so deeply for this book on so many levels and absolutely love how Melissa has brought it to life, and designer Lizzy Bromley has done a magnificent job, as usual. Please look at the case of the book- under the jacket- and you will see this:

Paula Wiseman Books and Simon & Schuster have done a beautiful job with this book. And I am ever grateful to my incredible agent, Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary Agency– a powerhouse of women agents!

I thank you for reading this, and I thank you in advance for reading “Dear Little One” to your little ones. I hope you will make it part of your library and part of your heart.

Books

A Beautiful Beginning

by Nina Laden

Welcome to my website! My old website was over twenty years old, and it is now resting in pieces as an archive. (You can still find it, like a pentimento- a trace of a previous painting that was painted over in a link on my new site.) I am grateful to my friend- fine artist and digital designer, Jeff Mihalyo for developing and implementing both of these sites. You can see his work here.

This past year has been an especially difficult year for everyone. Even though I’ve always worked from home I’ve felt the isolation and loss of so many things that are dear to me. Writing, art, books, and the ability to reach out to friends online are the things that have carried me through. Virtual life has been a way to share real life, real love, real pain, and real emotions.

My latest book, “You Are A Beautiful Beginning,” written by me and illustrated by amazing Kelsey Garrity-Riley came out in August and expresses my deep feelings that it’s not the destination; it’s the journey. It’s not creating a masterpiece; it’s having the courage to start. This new website is a beginning and it will evolve over time. I hope you will join me on the journey.

Author: <span>Nina Laden</span>

Someday My Prints Will Come

The Trainbow is here!

Dear Little One: My new book

A Beautiful Beginning