angels sing
I want angels to make the world white. And peaceful. Now that Christmas has come and gone in a flurry of activity, another snow day would suit me fine. I drew the angel above many years ago, while living in San Francisco, where snow was just not gonna happen. I sent this angel out for another season of warm wishes and gold leaf prayers. This angel bears a heavenly resemblance to my daughter, what a surprise. I spent an afternoon last week gallery sitting at the Gem Gallery, where all manner of angels abound, like these paper ones by Diane Wiencke. This one was crafted by Suzanne Parrott, who...
Read Morecity of belief
I met the author of City of Belief, Nicole d’Entremont at the potluck conclusion of my second course in Sudden Fiction. Taught by Eleanor Morse, an island neighbor and award-winning author, the class was an epiphany of sorts. I’d already taken a correspondence Writing for Children course with the Institute for Children’s Literature. A pretty substantial course, too, in which every assignment involved research and revisions and word counts and age targets. Sudden Fiction was like vacation in comparison. Just putting pen to paper and letting your ideas wander for an hour. The...
Read Moresnow day
Hello winter! I love being snug as a bug in my creaky house (with 6 fireplaces) watching a storm blow sideways outside. Today a snow day was called for Portland schools before a single flake had fallen at 5 AM. Now, though, the world is white and there is nowhere to go. Ahhhhh. I grew up in the White Mountains, so school cancellations are an oddity. In NH, snow means business: ski industry. I pretty much don’t remember snow days. But now they are quite the gift; to hibernate a bit. Gives me time to think about all the snowflakes I’ve sprinkled over illustrations, such as the one...
Read Moretis the season
With the pies gone and the turkey slept off, the holiday drill must begin. I had the delicious opportunity to bring my illustration class to a tech rehearsal of Santaland Diaries at Portland Stage Company, which proved to be a perfect segue for the season. It was challenging, to say the least, but put us all in a properly satiric mood. Dustin Tucker plays Crumpet, a disenchanted Macy’s elf. Here is my quick sketch of the stage setting. I told my students beforehand that it would be hard, very hard, to capture a moving target, but this was a chance to strengthen their recall and eye for...
Read Moresongs and stories for a soggy saturday
Rainy days are the perfect opportunity to curl up with a good book. Instead, I braved vast puddles and stormy seas to admire what’s up with stories and the folks who create them. First I went to the community center on Peaks Island to see Shana Barry, a former islander and creator of Fofers. She awed a crowd of all ages with her sweet vocals and guitar, singing about pink whales and peaceballs, creatures who inhabit the colorful world of Fof, a secret island off the coast of Maine. “Fofers are very shy,” she told us, yet each of her characters has a certain furry something...
Read Morehere a show
there a show, everywhere a show show….. I finally finished my Alice for the upcoming Maine Illustrators Collective show at the Freeport Library. The group dreamed up this idea in visibility back in August: re-imagining the classics. I knew immediately that I wanted to do my own Alice version. Coming on the heels of another project involving cards, I managed to work them in again, along with a huge mushroom, perhaps because another classic, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron, is in the house. Even though our daughter is 12, reading plenty on her own, we...
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