Author Illustrator Designer
I am not superstitious by nature, nor do I place any credence in horoscopes and the like.
That doesn’t stop me from reading them EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL.
Imagine my shock at reading this particular horoscope recently:
HOLY COW!
This is dead-on accurate, except for the “be paid incredibly well” part.
In the true spirit of the season-
Get out there and get some candy!!
Did any of you happen to catch the American Masters episode on Charles Schulz last night on PBS?
I had heard that there was some controversy about this documentary because it showed Charles as too much of a downer, and focused too much on the negative aspects of his life.
Well, that may be so, but I found it to be incredibly moving and well done. He was a complex guy; like most artists I know who are truly involved in their art, it’s not always a bed of roses. I applaud the series for “going there”, so to speak.
Charles Schulz had a big impact on my childhood; I remember diligently cutting out comics every day and pasting them into my own scrapbook, so they would stay in order and tell the whole continuing story. There has probably never been another comic that was so driven by one person as Peanuts.
Catch this show if you can…and if you did, what did you think?
Oh, happy day! Lincoln School once again organized and hosted this fabulous one-day event.
Lincoln School seems like a really nice place to learn.
This is pretty much my favorite book fest for many reasons:
1. AWESOME authors and illustrators. Top-notch, every year! This year, Mary Jane Begin, Peter H. Reynolds, David Weisner, Giselle Potter, and Chris Van Allsburg were there, plus plenty more.
Here’s Peter H. Reynolds quick-sketching his character Vashti from The Dot.
2. Small, wonderful presentations by the participants. You actually feel like they are talking to you, and you alone.
Here’s David Weisner, talking to me and me alone, about his Caldecott-winning book, Flotsam.
3. Other fun stuff: crafts for the kids, book characters walking around, and this year, BIG NAZO!
The incomparable Big Nazo Band.
4. You can get your books cheerfully signed!
Peter is one of the cheerful-est guys I’ve ever met- and he stuck it out until every one of us got our books signed. We were last in line, but so help me, he was still cheerful!
Look- a hundred signatures later, and David is still cheerful, too!
5. It’s cheap! Only $3 to get into all the events, or a family rate of $10. For real! That’s always nice for those of us with bigger families.
As much fun as this festival is, this is the second year in a row that it conflicted with Escobar’s Highland Farm’s Harry Potter Day.
So, after a great half-day at Lincoln School, there was a cornfield beckoning us…
Snape took this picture.
Here’s hoping the two events don’t overlap next year…we love them both!
We had a close encounter of the natural kind a couple of weeks ago:
This lovely praying mantis was on top of our grill outside our studio, which gave us all a great view of it. Every time we brought the camera in close, it attacked as if it were trying to eat it!
After gawking at it for a while, we brought it over to a flowering sedum plant, where it proceeded to snag a bee from mid-air about 10 seconds later. And then another. And then another, and so on. That thing was hungry!
We watched it every day in the sedum plant for about a week. Apparently, this turned out to be an excellent hunting ground; then it dissappeared.
Remember the Biggest Spider Ever??
Here’s what she looked like after creating the biggest egg sac ever!
You can see that her body mass was greatly reduced by this effort. After this, she made another web nearby, but I don’t think it saw too much action before she died, right there in the web. It’s sad, just seeing her there now, falling apart.
Truly, it reminds me of Charlotte’s Web, and I am hoping to see Joy, Nellie and Aranea next year!
The above snowflakes were made by me, and are now owned by wonderful people who supported the search for cancer’s cure through Robert’s Snow.
You- that’s right, YOU- could be one of those wonderful people THIS year! Here’s the list of the illustrators who have been inteviewed this week as part of this year’s fundraising blitz. I’ll have more upcoming interviews, too. Go forth and enjoy, and of course, bid when the auctions start on Nov. 19th!
Tuesday, October 16
Wednesday, October 17
Thursday, October 18
Friday, October 19
Saturday, October 20
Sunday, October 21
Our old gnarly trees were ressurected by a severe spring pruning and actually made reasonable apples this year.
This is what happens when apples are left for too long without supervision:
Yes, they get attacked by the Harry Potter cast. Tragic!
I had the good luck to be invited to the annual Highlights Illustrator’s Party this year. Yup – a whole weekend o’ fun, JUST for the illustrators who work on the magazines or on Boyds Mills books. Hot dog!
But first, we had to get to Pennsylvania. Now, I have been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, a dozen places in Europe, and all over Canada, but I have never been to Pennsylvania. Go figure. Well, we ALMOST got there before a tragicomic array of events occured to keep us from arriving at a reasonable time. I won’t go into details, but we arrived too late to properly figure out where we were supposed to be, and ended up sleeping six refreshing hours in the car.
The good news is, bright and early the next morning we figured it out and were back on track for a great weekend! Here’s where we got to stay:
SOOOO much better than the car!
Continue reading “Highlights-Filled Weekend”
Here’s my “juggle” picture, based loosely on my kids’ school experience.
Only this version of school has goofier clothes, no one cares what time it is, and you are encouraged to play with your food.
And I can guarantee you, the only benchmarks the kids hit are with banana-creme pies.
Keene State College in New Hampshire has an excellent Children’s Literature Festival every year. The Festival mascot is an owl, so the college has been collecting illustrated owls (all done by children’s illustrators) for their permanent collection. In particular, they are trying to amass a parliament of 100 owls by the 100th anniversary of the college in 2008. Here’s mine:
Yep, that’s right- it’s the Great Horned Owl.
See you at the Festival!