1. Denise Fleming An Author Study

2. Who Is She? • Denise was born in Toledo, Ohio. • She checked out three books each week from the library to read. • She spent weekends with her grandparents where she learned about flowers and the animals that lived in her grandmother’s garden. • Denise is married to David and has one daughter. • She wrote her first book when she was 41 years old.

3. What Does She Do? • Denise is an author and an illustrator. • At first she illustrated other writer’s books. • Now she makes her own paper and creates her illustrations from that paper and uses them in the books she writes.

4. How Does She Create Her Work? • When Denise gets an idea to write about, she jots it down quickly so she won’t forget it. She doesn’t worry about spelling or punctuation in her first draft. • She scribbles drawings in the margins to go with the writing. • Denise starts with many, many words and rewrites until she finds just the right ones, to use in her book. • Most of her books are about nature.

5. How She Creates Her Illustrations? • Denise uses something called pulp painting to create her pictures. It’s a way to make paper. • She mixes water with cotton fibers. • Denise adds layer on top of layer to make her pictures. • She draws on the paper using colored pulp in a squeeze bottle.

6. What Tools Does She Use? • Denise uses squeeze bottles, and stencils she cuts from a type of foam. • View the video to learn more: http://teacher.scholastic.com/clubs/meettheauthor/oct2008/fleming.htm • Read the following letter from Denise: http://teacher.scholastic.com/clubs/meettheauthor/letters/letter_fleming.pdf

7. Her Work http://www.denisefleming.com/pages/booklist.html