Kaye Hall: Paintings from the book Stop and Stay Put
September 30-October 7
Napa Valley College Art Gallery
Artist and author Kaye Hall will give a talk about the process of self publishing her children’s book Stop and Stay Put, the story of a search and rescue dog finding a lost child. She painted the illustrations in art classes, laid out the graphics and text in an NVC desktop publishing class and met her editor through an art classmate. The talk is Wednesday, October 5, at 5 p.m. in the Visual Art Center 3700 lobby.
Kaye Hall began this series of paintings in 2006 in a painting class at Napa Valley College to accompany her story Stop and Stay Put, a narrative of two children lost during a camping trip found by a search dog, weaving through it Kaye’s acronym to help young readers remember safety steps.
She began taking art classes at Napa Valley College soon after moving to Napa in 1963. Her first class was with Frank Altamura.
Retirement from her career as a psychotherapist allowed Kaye to focus her time on art and volunteer activities. She began training her Belgian Sheepdog Julot as a search and rescue dog and taking more classes at Napa Valley College. During a safety demonstration with Julot for school children Kaye got the idea to create a picture book to enable children remember the steps to follow if lost outdoors.
Napa Valley College was involved each step of Kaye’s creative and marketing process. She started the paintings in 2006 and continued the work for a year and a half working with NVC art faculty Shawn Eisenach, Fain Hancock, Erik Shearer and Nancy Willis. Through an art classmate she met her editor Carolynne Gamble and took her NVC non-credit class for owners of small businesses. Kaye organized the book in desktop publishing classes here.
The art series consists of 24 oil paintings on canvas completed 2006-2008.
Kaye self-published the book in 2010. Last year she won the bronze medal for Independent Publisher’s Group for Best Interactive Children’s Book. The book is in the White House library collection of Malia and Sasha Obama.
Stop and Stay Put is available online through amazom.com and www.kayehall.com and locally at Copperfield’s, Jessel Gallery, the Artists of the Valley Gallery, the Carolyn Parr Nature Museum and Napa Library.
Posted: 9/26/2011