As part of the content for the expanded Doomed Queens pages, I’ve created a quiz on Facebook. Take it here. (You’ll need to be signed into Facebook to take the quiz.)

BTW, the new Doomed Queens pages will be going up by the end of the month. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying the teaser site.

.M4V format:

Doomed Queens book video (small)

Doomed Queens video (medium)

Doomed Queens video (large)

.MOV format (Quicktime):

Doomed Queens book video (medium)

Doomed Queens video (large)

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If the video won’t download as it should, you can also view it on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnSCiuNqaGc. Please feel free to share it with as many people as you’d like!

I’ve been hard at work on this new issue for the past few days — and I think it’s going to be one of my best yet. Inspired by the spirit of Doomed Queens past, I’ve written a piece about five ways Sarah Palin may yet be a Doomed Queen. There’s also an exclusive-only-for-subscribers raffle to win an autographed archival print ($90 value) of a drawing from the book.

For those of you in the New York area, I’ve included an events schedule for my Brooklyn gallery, Kris Waldherr Art and Words. It includes information about the upcoming Doomed Queens book launch and art exhibition, which (appropriately enough) will be a Hallowe’en celebration. Fun!

1. I finished Doomed Queens.

2. Though I finished Doomed Queens, I’m still dealing with some last production-oriented details. So finished editorially, not finished design-wise.

3. Doomed Queens needs a website.

4. Yes, I’ve designed a teaser page, but it really needs a website.

5. My whole website needs to be redesigned. I know it’s a sad mess since I got hacked into several months ago and had to change ISPs.

6. Guess what I’ve been doing the past two weeks? Yes, I’m knee-deep in html and css and so on. I’m still not finished with the site, but getting close. Tentative launch date: August 7, 2008.

7. But there’s been good news for Doomed Queens.

8. Costco picked it up! “Attention, shoppers….”

9. There will be a point-of-purchase display for participating independent bookstores.

10. I want one for my gallery. I’m an independent bookstore. (Kind of. I do sell books in my studio-gallery.)

11. There will be an exhibition of Doomed Queens‘ art at my studio-gallery this winter.

12. The exhibition will be called “Royally Screwed: Doomed Queens through the Ages.” The opening will probably be Friday, October 29 — in time for Hallowe’en.

13. I’m going to create a window display for it at my studio-gallery. Maybe I’ll even include a faux guillotine to set the mood.

14. Actually, I’m thinking a lot about window display these days.

15. I want my gallery window to look like a Joseph Cornell box.

16. I wish I had more time to dive into it — maybe this autumn.

17. Also, on the gallery front: I’m planning to paint the area above my window cobalt blue with gold ornaments.

18. It will look like a medieval illumination. I hope.

19. I also plan to paint a large art deco-inspired tree on two walls. But in very subtle paint, almost like a paper watermark. (If walls can have watermarks.)

20. My friend Lisa Hunt just started a blog about her upcoming Fairy Tale Tarot. It’s very good!

21. She’s coming up north to visit me later this summer. I can’t wait!

22. Also on the social front: Two friends moved to my neighborhood, one into the apartment above my studio. My life feels like a sitcom.

23. I’m enjoying lots of café society this summer.

24. On the family front: Thea is potty trained. Hip, hip, hooray!

25. Tom is going away for three weeks to curate an exhibition in Germany. Yay for him, boo for us.

26. My father-in-law had a book published.

27. I designed the cover for it.

28. We all went away to Idaho for our vacation, right after my last blog post.

29. It was beautiful, but we lost electricity for three days after a giant tree fell in a windstorm.

30. Thea liked swimming in the lake. I liked reading lots of books.

31. We had a stop over in Colorado. They had lots of great book stores. We had to check an extra bag on our flight home.

32. Since our return to Brooklyn, I’ve been dealing with items # 1-19. I’ve also started opening up my gallery to the public Saturdays from 12 - 4.

And that’s the latest here! How was your July?

I’m about ten days away from finishing up Doomed Queens — actually maybe even less than that, if I keep up this pace. At this stage, I’m aiming to finish up a drawing every two days. This probably sounds like an unrealistic pace, but it helps that all but one of the remaining three drawings are laid out and transferred onto paper. After I finish the drawings, I have a last go ’round on the page proofs. I also have to finalize my acknowledgments and index pages.

And then, the finish line — though I’m sure there will be some last things to attend to. Publishing is just that way.

With so many loose threads waiting to be tucked away, it’s been hard for me to blog here these days. Yet I still have an urge to track my progress. To do so, I’ve started using Twitter and have been microblogging several times a day. (Maybe you’ve already noticed the Twitter sidebar?)

Anyway, if you want to “follow” my progress as I finish up Doomed Queens, click here.

ps: The drawing above is of Blanche of Bourbon, one of the more tragic of my doomed queens. Blanche had the misfortune to be married off to the aptly named Pedro the Cruel - need I write more? The model for Blanche was the lovely Stephanie Bowen, an editorial assistant at Random House.

On the art end, I’ve six more full page drawings to go, out of fifteen. Most of the spot drawings are finished or can be filled out with old drawings and woodcuts. (Did I mention that I’ve included period art in Doomed Queens? These pieces range from medieval manuscript paintings to Victorian etchings. I think they give the book a rich playfulness.) Of these last six drawings, five of them are started (ie: sketched and transferred onto watercolor paper); one awaits a last piece of photo reference before I can start on it.

On the text end, my editor just sent me second page proofs. These mainly consist of moving a comma here, a sentence break there. In other words, we’re very close to the end and are just burnishing the manuscript to a sheen.

And what of the open studio for Kris Waldherr Art and Words, my little storefront studio-gallery? Well, it’s apparently engendered a lot of buzz in the ‘hood. Those who attended the open studio seemed stunned by what they discovered here and lingered a while to drink in the atmosphere. I guess Arts and Crafts-style ataliers aren’t run of the mill, even here in hipster Brooklyn. A typical comment: “I would have never expected to find this here. But then I would have never expected to find this anywhere. It’s so beautiful.” Based on others’ recommendations, people have been knocking on my door to view art, to buy books, ask questions about my work, solicit advice about publishing, and more.

This has forced me to consider what I intend for my studio-gallery. Do I want to be in retail? Not in the traditional sense — I don’t want to be a storekeeper or gallerina. But I do love the idea of creating an environment to share my work with the public, where the art and books on display just happen to be for sale. I also love the idea of hosting events where I can create experiences that offer beauty, wit and wisdom, especially if they inspire others to go forth and do good in the world.

In a much smaller, rudimentary way, Kris Waldherr Art and Words (the storefront) is my Red House. I intended it as a physical place where I could explore ideas about beauty and environment. The reason I chose to rent a storefront, instead of a private studio, was because it offered more opportunities for sharing with the community.

So toward that end, Kris Waldherr Art and Words will be officially open to the public Saturdays 12 to 4pm. In the autumn, we’ll start presenting events such as readings, a film series, even a tarot night or two. Click here for more information and a small preview of what we’re planning.

Right now, I’m about halfway through the art for Doomed Queens — and I’ve just over six weeks to go until my final deadline. As an amuse bouche, here is my drawing of Catherine of Aragon, which was gamely posed for by my friend Diane Saarinen. Yes, I’m designing each drawing as sort of a royal danse macabre through queenly history.

Quick trivia question: Can you name the other wives of Henry VIII surrounding her? To jog your memory, here’s that old rhyme:

Divorced, beheaded, died;
Divorced, beheaded, survived.

Our local NBC news affiliate recently featured Publish Yourself! in a short piece. It’s an interesting take on  how easy it is to get a book in print, though the piece offers little regarding the realities of book distribution. As my literary agent would say, publishing is more than just printing up books.

Click here to view the Publish Yourself! video

The Doomed Queens website is semi-live. By semi-live, I mean that though the whole site isn’t up yet, I’ve posted a temporary home page. Eventually the content on DoomedQueens.com will expand to include a quiz to accertain your risk of marching to the scaffold, a Youtube video (produced by Random House, natch), and a host of other darkly fun yet oddly empowering content.

For now, the home page will grant you a royal taste of what’s to come. It also features a Doomed Queens cautionary moral of the day (which are sprinkled throughout the book). My personal favorite is for Princess Diana: “Beware of men bearing Camillas and cameras.” Useful advice indeed!

Some of you might be wondering what is going on with Doomed Queens, the book I’ve been working on for the past year. Short answer: Lots. Long answer: Aside from (1) copyediting the manuscript, (2) designing the Doomed Queens website, and (3) trying up lots of loose threads, I’ve been working on the art.

Part of that process is working with models, as you can probably tell from the above photo. Right now, I’ve had about half a dozen models come and pose over the past week. This week, another four will generously spend some time in front of my camera.

Yes, camera. I take reference photos for a number of reasons. The primary one is that I can’t bear to have people hold poses for hours as I draw — it’s too much to ask. From a practical standpoint, it’s also much easier to capture a moment from a quick photo than it is from a sustained drawing. What if I wanted to draw someone twirling? Or jumping? (That written, I might feel differently if I was a more skilled draftsperson….)

The process of working with models is somewhat alchemical — meaning that each of us bring something to the table. The end result is sometimes unpredictable, though I generally have a clear vision before we begin. I know I’ve mentioned before that my models are usually people I know, rather than hired professionals. That’s because it’s easier for me to feel a sense of connection with the character I’m illustrating if the model is someone I know. It also reflects my belief that these stories are something universal, that we carry them within ourselves in some mythic way.

For the most part, I’ve chosen my models well. Occasionally, I’ll ask someone to pose who might be more uncomfortable than expected with the process; this discomfort is passed down to me and shows in the art. Fortunately, this is a very rare occurence. Generally speaking, any discomfort has fled by the time I’ve dressed up my model. (Yes, dress — I have a variety of costumes and props that can propel someone from the twenty-first century back to ye olde medieval times and beyond.)

But the photos aren’t the end result, as inspiring as they may be. After that, I still need to work out the composition before I even begin to draw. Plus photographs need to be adjusted, their perspective corrected and so on.

Nonetheless, these model photographs are the first step in my creating an illustration - and perhaps the most important step. They offer me a place from which inspiration can flow.