To print!

All week I've been editing the book.  You would think forming the story would be the toughest part when really it's getting the words to appear on the page the right way.  Every time I read through the PDF preview I found something else that was wrong and had to go back to the editor to fix it.  What appeared in the editing window was not matching up with the final PDF and I finally had to delete the whole text box and retype it.  Anyway, I just clicked the button to buy the book so it should be here in 7-10 business days and God help me if there are any typos because who knows how often I'll have to read it.  Here's a link to the book!  Seriously, don't tell me if you find mistakes.
Rowena Rabbit

Today is the day

A week from today I am back at work full time and so this week it's time to buckle down, narrow the lists and accomplish whichever projects are the most important to me.  Yesterday, for example, I took the girls' photograph for the Christmas cards.  Tomorrow I hope to finish off the first of Maria's pink, knit, cabled leg warmers.  Today was the day for the book, the only day.  If it's a present for Maria I can't work on it when she's around on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Wednesday I will be running around to appointments and that leaves Thursday which I'm holding in reserve for trouble shooting.  I woke up this morning knowing what I wanted all the shots to look like so creative process did not get in the way.  However it's cloudy today and without the sun shining in the windows I would need to use a flash on all of the pictures.  I hate the look of flash photography so I moved all the pictures outside.  I hauled out the contents of Maria's closet, art supplies, stacks of books, stuffed animals, blankets and the fitted sheet from our bed which did a nice job doubling as the wall color of Maria's bedroom.  The sun did peek out around noon time long enough for me to get a couple of indoor shots that I needed since the cat, the living room chair and Estella's bed are not going outdoors.

As I started to upload the pictures onto the website I ran into one more snafu, the pictures are importing in the wrong direction, they need to be turned 90 degrees to the right no matter the original orientation of the picture.  I queried their customer service and hopefully they get back to me soon because time is running out to assure holiday delivery.

Meet my muse

Are we really about to turn the calendar again? My deadline of Christmas looms in the not so distant future alone with the start of a new month. Because of the time consuming nature of my current (now previous) book project I am scrapping it and starting over. Tomorrow I am going to take all the pictures for my new book idea. I just finished the rough draft, it took an hour and a chai latte. Meet Rowena, my muse (name subject to change).

Turning the calendar

It's amazing how flipping the page of a calendar can motivate you.  It's already November, time is a ticking and I haven't been making much forward progress.  Now comes the point in the project where the newness has worn off, the likelihood of achieving the goal seems slim, a bad cold derails you and other things take precedence.  However, flipping the calendar a couple days ago and a project Maria initiated renewed my drive.  A few days ago Maria asked if we could make a book.  She wanted to staple the pages together and then give it to her friend Hayden for her birthday (in July).  Maria loves to draw and do art projects and a lot of times when she says "Let's draw!", we're at a loss for inspiration.  Paul started to draw pictures with her that tell a story to keep the activity going.  "Here's Mama outside in the yard.  What is she doing?"  "Mowing the lawn."  Soon the water color includes the lawn mower, compost pile, long and short grass and me carrying cut grass to the compost.

So we started our story in a similar way.  We marked off some white paper to have space for words and for pictures and the story of the fairies began.

Creating a story with her made me think maybe I should make the book of that story.  But this project is partly for me too so I'm sticking to the plan.  We can always do it again.
For the scene of the squirrels near a stream I used one photo that I took awhile back in Pawtuckaway and added three squirrels, much simpler than the first illustration I was trying to piece together to create.  These squirrel photos are not mine however if when my film is developed mine look good I might swap them out.  In the meantime this website has provided me with great photos.  National Geographic Squirrel Pictures

This past week I haven't had much of a chance to move forward with the book but I carved out a little time today to piece together some of the pictures that I've taken so far.  Last week Stella and I went out a couple of times in the beautiful weather to take pictures of the quickly advancing season.  Although I don't have the first scene, of the woods done, I wanted to find a place to represent the next setting of the story, the stream.  On the Nottingham side of Pawtuckaway State Park is a boat launch area and the water runs underneath a small wooden bridge and becomes a stream further down.  With Stella strapped into her Bjorn I wandered around taking pictures of the pond, trees, rocks, water, dirt and the stream itself.  It was just one of the beautiful afternoons that we've had lately, absolutely picture perfect weather, colors, air, temperature, scenery.  The kind of moment you wish you could store and come back to later to take a hike, eat an apple, go on a hayride, hunt with your bird dog-whatever your version of fall perfection is, I was there.  Here are a couple scenic pictures I took that day.

The tree in my illustration is one of the things that I've been trying to work out.  I thought it would be cool to use a picture of the bark of an oak tree to create the tree trunk but found that when the texture is blown up that much it's too busy.  I remembered that on the way to Maria's school there is a large tree close to the road that looks like it has a hollow from a distance even though I think it's where a large branch was cut off and healed.

It actually helps a lot to look at a picture of the picture because you can eliminate the unfinished edges and tunnel your vision.  I'm not sure about the forest floor, again I think too busy.  The blue of the sky is a picture of the sky and for the green I zoomed in on an oak leaf.  Still working on the squirrels!  They have been frequenting the feeding station I set up and I've been snapping photos although I don't know how they're coming out since they're on film.  I think I need to finish up that film next week and develop it in case I decide it's not working I can try something else.

Build it and they will come

I've been playing with pieces for my first illustration and thinking about the squirrel and bird pictures.  They move with lightning speed and I don't-especially with a three month old in tow.  The window feeder is a convenient place to shoot birds while the baby sleeps but the birds are too quick for the delay of the digital camera and the squirrels are completely out of reach at the edge of the woods.  This morning I set up a feeding station behind the house within shooting distance of the bedroom window.  I'm hoping to be able to crack the window open and stick the lens out.  I'm also reverting back to film since the film camera is fast and the lens allows for more zoom.  It's supposed to rain later today and then the weekend begins so hopefully next Tuesday the squirrels will be out and hungry!

This is my very patient partner in crime Estella in the Bjorn this morning while I set up the squirrel station.

Three squirrels and a bird

Three squirrels and a bird is not the title but the topic of the story that I'm going to make the book about.  There are a couple of reasons I chose this story.  1)  It's one that Maria asks for frequently 2) There are no humans in the story to illustrate 3)  It takes place in the fall, right now, so I can gather materials for the illustrations.  So a little bit about illustrations.  I'm not good at realistic drawing, painting, etc. and so creating illustrations to satisfy me I know will be the biggest challenge.  I've decided to try and create collages of photographs to make the picture look interesting and complex and true to life.  I have a couple sources of inspiration already.  My Dad gave Maria a "FotoFable" titled Tedric the House Mouse by Peter Johannes which is a story set to photographs of a real mouse and his surroundings.  Here's a picture of one page of the book and also the website of the book.
Tedric the House Mouse

The first couple of years I taught science I became interested in nature journaling as a way to incorporate observation, inference, writing and illustration into my classroom.  Through a  workshop I was introduced to a book called The Private Eye:  "5X" Looking/Thinking by Analogy-A Guide to Developing the Interdisciplinary Mind by Kerry Ruef.  I know the title sounds long and complicated but it has great activities for observing nature using a 5X jeweler's loupe and talks about how drawing something as you analyze it can make you see things on a whole different level or see things you've never noticed before.  I haven't been able to use it in my classroom as much as I'd like but I have personally enjoyed nature journaling myself and would like to incorporate some aspects of it into the illustrations.  Here's a link to that book The Private Eye

Over the beautiful Columbus Day weekend I was out with my camera taking pictures of everything and anything I thought I might want to use in the book.  Mostly I worked around the yard but also got some pictures on our yearly Columbus Day hike.  Of course Maria loves a project and was very busy picking up things for me to photograph or taking the camera herself to snap shots of things she found interesting. The scenery is beautiful and easy to capture, pictures of squirrels and birds will be a challenge.

Another thing I did this weekend was to write out the story so that it's not just floating around in my head.  I like the physical act of writing with a pen and paper and if I'm going to edit something for grammar or move ideas around I like to be able to draw circles and arrows and other editing marks.  My mind can follow all of those marks and process the changes whereas if it's on a computer screen I can't see what I started with and how I changed things.

My next task is to get an idea of where page breaks will fall within the story and what I want to depict in the illustrations.

Tikatok

It doesn't take long to find a website that can help you get started in producing a book.  I didn't do any research into which one would be better or carry out a side by side comparison of features and prices, storage space allowed to individual accounts or customer recommendations.  My husband Paul would have, that's how considerate he is in almost everything.  I stumbled across www.tikatok.com which is geared towards kids publishing their stories and seems to be a popular tool for teachers to use in their classrooms-at least that's how it's marketed.  I bet a lot of you would be making books if you went and checked out the website.  Think of all of the photos you already have that you, or your kids, could make up a story about.  Their turn around time averages six days from the time you submit your finished product and the cost is around $20.  As the idea of this book as a gift takes shape it reminds me of another blog post that I was reading.  Check out the link to the right titled "The Pomegranate Chronicles" and click on the box titled "Handmade Holiday 2010".  This doesn't fit with that blog's definition of handmade but I think it's within the same spirit of "from the heart".  And if nothing else you'll get some great crafting ideas.

Just do it!

There are certain moments when having children makes your life more hectic than you could possibly imagine.  Then there are some quiet moments too when sleep is upon them and surprisingly you're left sitting at the kitchen table enjoying some chocolate and just thinking.  My thought process today brought me back just moments, to when I had been rearranging my knitting bag and watching an episode of Oprah. She was talking to J.K. Rowling about the adventure of writing the Harry Potter series.  Watching that show brought my own desire to write a book to the surface.  I don't want to be a billionaire author or even go on world wide book tours but since I was young my love for reading and the magic of words has always inspired me to want to create a book that people love.  Recently that desire has collided with my daughter Maria's love of storytelling, specifically me making up stories to tell her in bed, on the potty, in the car.  She loves to hear them over and over and she remembers every story I make up where as sometimes they drift out of my memory after I've told them.  So I thought, the world doesn't have to love my book.  If my children treasured the book I had written and it inspired them in some way I would feel fulfilled.  So I'm going to just do it!  There are a lot of websites where you can publish your own book and they're as easy as creating this blog.  Everyone starts somewhere, J.K. Rowling started on napkins in the coffee shop right?  So here I state my goal because if it's out there for everyone to read I will be compelled to meet it.  One of Maria's Christmas presents this year will be a bound copy of one of my original stories in print with original artwork completely created by me.
Did you know there's 78 days left until Christmas?