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?