Laurie Maves, the artist revealing the Crescendo cover

Laurie Maves, the awesome artist behind the chalk drawing of the Crescendo cover, was gracious enough to answer a few questions about the reveal. Please visit Laurie's site here to learn more about her and her work and take a minute to show your support and visit her new Facebook page to become a fan. Let's show Laurie the Hush, Hush (and soon to be Crescendo) love!

Here's a little background information about Laurie taken from her site.

Laurie Maves has been an artist her entire life, but she has only recently acted on that truth. Even after completing her bachelors and masters in the arts, she only recently has taken herself seriously as an artist, and is now pursuing her gift and craft full time. After growing up in a rural town in Illinois she moved to Chicago only to find that was too much city for her. Laurie found an oasis of sorts in Denver, CO, where she has lived for the past 12 years. Even though Denver is often still considered by many to be a "cow town" Laurie is on the cutting edge of emerging artists in the city and helping to establish it as one of the up and coming art meccas in the nation.

Laurie is first and foremost a painter. She paints poppies, lollipop heads, faces, musicians, energy and color. She paints privately in her studio, but often times video records her creative process which she shares, in order for her audience to not only further understand her process but to be entertained as well. She also paints publicly as a live painter and has recently become one of Denver’s premier live painters and is booked regularly by musicians and event coordinators to capture performances, special events, as well as private parties.

As an artist and a painter, Laurie realizes she has a gift and has a deep appreciation for that gift. Her ultimate goal is to share that gift and its brilliance with the world, with the hopes that she will inspire others to follow their own passions and to live their lives with purpose.


1. Creating a chalk drawing to reveal a book cover is a pretty unique project. How did you connect with Simon & Schuster on this? Actually, S&S reached out to me about 2 months ago, i think they found me through Denver's Larimer Arts Association. I have been a chalk artist for 5 years with their street festival once named, La Piazza, soon to be called, "Denver's Chalk Festival" (i think). I was truly truly honored to hear from such a national powerhouse. I am one of those "emerging artists" and am beginning to be known in Denver, but trying my hardest to break out as a national live painter and was so grateful S&S wanted to hire me for this job. SO grateful!!! The more people i can get in front of, the better...so honored, i could go on and on about that.

2. I have a hard time drawing a smiley face in sidewalk chalk in the driveway with my son. How the heck do you prepare to draw something as detailed as a book cover with chalk on cement? What kind of materials do you use?
Well it can be quite an intense process, for sure! My greatest challenge here is our brief timeline. To recreate the level of detail on the cover would seriously take 2 full days of work, so i will do my best to crank something out in 6 hours.... I prepare by graphing out a copy of the book cover...and then maybe there are some secrets involved....? The layering of chalk will be most important. I will be using a variety of pastel chalks, water to set the chalk on the cement and some blending tools like sponges, brushes, cardboard. etc.

3. Without giving too much away (even though we'd all love if you could spill all the details) can you give us a hint about what this highly anticipated cover looks like? What i feel i can say here is it's a similar theme to "hush hush" - a similar "feel" - maybe a feather will appear? But i don't think i can say much more..have your viewers and fans tune into the process on Saturday :) I'm sure Becca is excited about showing the world as well!!!
4. You paint on location often. Do you ever get crazy questions or onlookers that just don't want to stop talking? Yes, I am what is called a "live painter." So, I often paint portraits of bands live during their performances, which makes me a performance artist by default...and i get all kinds of questions, like "What are you painting?" and for me that is often obvious..."hmm, I'm painting the band..." and then people get it. But when i paint live i paint in my style of "LolliPop Heads" which is definitely very stylized. But I focus on the head of the person I'm painting (the singer, the bassist, the guitarist) and their heart. Their heart, to me, is the most important component of my live paintings. People will ask about what is my media, is it for sale (most times "yes") and etc. When people keep talking to me- i am so grateful they are interested, but i usually as kindly as i possibly can, ask them to come back at the end of the set, because my challenge is to start and finish a complete painting during a set and that always isn't a great deal of time :)

5. Can you tell us a little about what we should expect from the final drawing? Will it be the entire image?
My plan as of now is to reproduce the entire image of the cover. We will see what time and space allows for :) and weather! Let's all keep our fingers crossed for good Denver weather!

A big thank you to Laurie for doing this Q&A and for bringing the Crescendo cover to life for the first time. We're all dying to see what it looks like!