Petit Lot at LM Opticien

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:November 13, 2017
Post category:Paris and Environs Petit Lot

“Where can I get the book?”
“At LM Opticien, of course!”

I’ve said before that we never know what’s going to happen on an adventure. On a quest for glasses, we stumble upon a book…

Laëtitia has been my optician for the last 15 years. One day she said to me, “I’d like to sell your book in the shop.”

I asked how she got the idea to sell books in an eyeglass boutique.

“I like virtuous circles,” Laëtitia said. “Each one of us has to add our link to the chain, to bring everyone together.

Until Christmas
at lm opticien

“Selling a book alongside a pair of glasses allows me to offer my clients another experience, to surprise them. It’s an opportunity to create an encounter. And an encounter can change everything.”

If, like the simpleton looking for his soul in the depths of colors, you see things upside down, you don’t need the loupe and the ring — a simple pair of glasses will do! Laëtitia and her team will be happy to welcome you into the boutique for your new glasses.

At the same time, you can flip through a book and read a few pages to test your vision.

Thanks to the glasses I got from Laëtitia, I see things right-side up!

Until Christmas, you’ll discover Petit Lot et le Grand Cor de la licorne on sale at LM Opticien: 18 avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, Paris 8è.

Don’t need glasses but looking for a good book to read in French? Continue your quest here: Petit Lot et le Grand Cor de la licorne.

Download Littlelot and Petit Lot Free

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:November 10, 2017
Post category:Littlelot News Petit Lot

To celebrate last week’s paperback release of Petit Lot et le Grand Cor de la licorne, I’m giving away ebook editions of Littlelot and Petit Lot.

Right now you can download The First Story of Littlelot, Littlelot and the Real Monster, as well as Petit Lot et le Grand Cor de la licorne, for free to your Kindle or Kindle app.

Download

Littlelot celebrates the discovery of the Great Horn

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:October 25, 2017
Post category:Authors & Other Artists Littlelot Petit Lot Previews

I am thrilled to present the final rendition of the illustration for the cover of Petit Lot et le Grand Cor de la licorne.

Petit Lot fête la découverte du Grand Cor

Littlelot celebrates the discovery of the Great Horn

11.5” x 15.5”
Watercolor, gouache, colored pencil
David Jones

During our biweekly progress meetings I had occasion to talk with David about his art. He quoted an early twentieth-century painter by whose work he’s inspired:

“I have inherited that strange love for things remote.”
—N. C. Wyeth

“I imagine a more romantic time before the Internet,” David said, “before television and the telephone—even before photographs. Characters in this environment are less distracted. They interact with the world in a more tangible way, and the interaction creates stories that transcend the setting.”

David prefers to illustrate for narrative works, including book cover and interior illustrations, comics, and graphic novels, as well as articles, poems, and book excerpts. He tends to use traditional, old-school media: gouache, watercolor, acrylic, and pen and ink.

In the painting above, as in much of David’s work, there is no digital rendering.

See the illustration at previous developmental stages in the category Couverture on the book’s website. Tomorrow on that site I’ll show the book cover for the electronic edition.

For more of David’s art, browse his website.

David Jones

Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, David Jones crossed the country to study art on the West Coast. He graduated from the Academy of Art University in 2016 and makes his home now in San Francisco. David’s art is influenced by John Bauer, N. C. Wyeth, and Arthur Rackham, painters from a more romantic time.

Stephen Wendell is the author of the Littlelot series of books for children and the grown-ups who read to them. The English translation of his latest title, Petit Lot et le Grand Cor de la licorne, will be the next book in the series: Littlelot and the Great Horn of the Unicorn.

Petit Lot
et le Grand Cor de la licorne
Stephen Wendell

Electronic edition, October 27
Paperback edition, November 3

Peregrine Publishing

The Hammond Sketch

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:September 6, 2017
Post category:Authors & Other Artists Petit Lot Previews

“The hero is a boy magician,” I said. “The object of the quest is a musical instrument that grew from a unicorn horn. And there’s a dragon.”

I recited the legend of the Great Horn of the Unicorn and went on to describe the image I had in mind. I knew exactly what I wanted for the book cover. The difficulty lay in putting the image into another mind—one attached to an artist’s hand.

The target of this latest attempt was the mind of Cris Hammond, who now pulled a graphite point across rough grain paper. As a kind gesture, he agreed to make a sketch I could show to potential illustrators.

Sketchpad on knee, Cris began to draw. He guided the pencil, held between thumb and two fingers, in smooth broad curves and quick strokes. The wrist remained fixed, the elbow supple. The artist directed the work from the shoulder. I listened to the scratching of pencil on paper and resisted the urge to peek.

Twenty minutes later, Cris held up the pad. “What do you think?”

“That’s it. That’s the image in my head!”

The Hammond Sketch

This sketch by Cris Hammond is being further developed by another artist to become the cover illustration for

Petit Lot
et le Grand Cor de la licorne

November 2017
Peregrine Publishing

Cris also gave me the name of an artist he thought capable of realizing the illustration. In October, we’ll see the finished drawing by David Jones.

Friday, we’ll have a sneak preview of the Prologue (French). Meanwhile, you can read la légende du Grand Cor de la licorne (French).

San Francisco Bay area artist and writer Cris Hammond earned fame as a nationally syndicated cartoonist with “Speed Walker, Private Eye” in the 1980s. After one career in special effects design at Industrial Light and Magic and another as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, he navigated the rivers and canals in southern France aboard a barge with his wife, Linda, mooring for a few years at the Port de l’Arsenal in Paris. There he painted landscapes of the French countryside and wrote a memoir of the journey, From Here to Paris. Cris is also the author of Short Pours: The Stan Chronicles, a short fiction collection set on the U.S. west coast.

Returned to the homeland last year, Cris and Linda are planning their next adventure from Sausalito, California.