Some projects... new & old

Sneaking my cat into a picture book... it's not easy!

 I always like sneaking my cat into a picture book when I can.

You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get my cat to pose for her book picture debut! lol! 

Hint: Tuna is part of the deal.

But the reaction is usually the same… feline indifference.

Cats and books seem to go together well.

Boating Day UW Boating House... a Step Back in Time

 

Boating Day on the University of Washington Boating House... a step back in history... the best way to spend a day. The Shellhouse was built by the Navy in 1918 as a seaplane hangar during WWI. 

But two years later it was turned over to the UW. It was made most famous by the movie 'The Boys in the Boat' about the 1938 Olympics where the US team defeated the Nazi German team.

Anyhow this building just oozes charisma and history. Plans are underway to repurpose it for events and a makeover - with multimillion dollar grants.

Lost in the Paint - painting islands in the sound

 I thought this painting was done 6 weeks ago… but it kept nagging at me to change something.

After all the time spent waiting, I finally figured out how to finish this painting I’d been living with. For me it was fascinating to have to wait - to figure it out - as I lived with the half-done painting… waiting to try to discover what it needed.

And I’m happy with how it came out. So now I’ve got a half dozen of these Puget Sound Islands in the Woods paintings… time for a show or something! Lol!

My summer hobby - boatwatching

My summer pastime has been ‘boat watching’. This unique hobby is easily done at my summer hangout… the Montlake Cut, where boats from Lake Union pass through to Lake Washington. Rarely a boring moment as every sort of boaty vehicle passes through…

Motorized surfboards (that ride above the water so fast they have to wear helmets)

Floating boat airplanes that glide through the cut while floating

Kayaks

Canoes

Giant yachts

Paddle wheelers

Small yachts

Sailboats (which get to have the Montlake Bridge open up for them)

And college beer boats - where summer sport is for boaters with beer to toss the cans into the water for swimmers on shore to collect.

The Cat's Hat Mystery!

It's a Cat's Hat Mystery! 

Lookout for Pea Soup!

 Here's a new bit of fun... lookout for the Pea Soup!

Summertime Fun... at last!

 This was a fun summer project - with illustrations of lots of summer activities.

Black Schools Matter!

Black lives matter! And so do black schools.

The way to begin healing America begins with sharing in school. As a book maker I try to do my part by making books that make life better.

Books that show up out of nowhere... what joy!

Don’t I just love it when a story shows up out of nowhere, and it appears without hardly trying... and you like it more even after it’s all done.

That’s the ideal when that happens, because at that point it all rings true and it’s like it was written for me by someone else and was meant to be.

Happens so rarely...

And of course then there’s the illustrations - but that’s always the easy part for me compared to finding a story that might work - thousands of pictures might appear too.

The tools I use in making a book ...

I have a tendency to zip through picture-book making software the way raccoons go through a picnic table in summertime.

The magic of rewriting a PB story is that for me adding pictures makes me rethink everything. It’s like the first bare words are only a beginning, just there to be rewritten.

My list of all the tools I use in making a book would be:

Imagination
Pencil
Paper
Evernote
MacPro
Cintiq
Word
Indesign
Photoshop
Acrobat
PDFs
Mail
Frustration
Persistence

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

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