THE BLOG
A Christmas Miracle
Twas the first night of December and all through the town the wind was a howling with all of its might. Mama in her kerchief and I in my night cap wondered if the roof and the trees would all snap.
Well I did lay awake and wonder if the roof would stay on. You could hear the walls creak and garbage cans blow around in the 92 mile an hour gusts. That’s what they were clocked at in West Bountiful. Up in Centerville, they got up to 102 miles an hour. A lot of neighbors had shingles ripped off of their roofs right to the bare wood. Others had siding ripped off. Some had pine trees come down in their driveways trapping their cars in their garages.
And now the Christmas miracle. I got the clippers and started clipping the branches off of the pine tree to clean up and get it off the fence. Suddenly Dave said, “Stop!”, then a pause. “Christmas tree”. He got the saw and cut the tree off at the fence. And that’s how we ended up with our Christmas tree for 2011, our Christmas Miracle. I think it tops the year we had to put the lights on the ladder and decorate it for our Christmas tree.
Getting ready for the SCBWI New York Conference
I’ve been working on a few new portfolio pieces to get ready for the SCBWI New York Conference. We can display our portfolios for local editors and art directors. This chick is a part of a larger painting for my portfolio.
In the movie “Miss Potter” about Beatrix Potter who wrote and illustrated “Peter Rabbit”, she says, “We can’t stay home all of our lives. We must present ourselves to the world and think of it as an adventure.” She was talking to her paintings at the time. It’s time to get my portfolio ready to present to the world again but perhaps I will need to chat a bit longer with a few of the illustrations.
We live in a new electronic world.
“Goodnight ipad” by Ann Droid is a parody of “Good Night Moon”. Ann Droid is a pen name which goes nicely with the book title. J. K. Rowling is suppose to have used J. K. instead of her name, because boys didn’t read books by women. “Goodnight ipad” was written by a man who changed his name to Ann Droid for the parody. The book is nicely written and the illustrations fit nicely with the text and bring a smile to the viewer. The story is wrapped up nicely with a final illustration. The book made number twelve on the New York Times best seller list. Way to go David. “Whoops, I mean Ann. The irony of the story is that it is available for your electronic devices. This story, should not be thrown out the window by the little old woman. It’s a keeper.
Out My Window
It is amazing what you can observe out your window. These two birds were dancing outside on my deck a few weeks ago. I never know if I’m going to have enough time to run, grab my camera, and get back to the window before the birds fly away. Luckily, I had enough time. I think these are Northern Flickers.
A New Home
“Arrayed Like One of These” is tucked safely into a frame and is hanging in it’s new home. There is a bit of trepidation when you take the finished, commissioned watercolor and present it to it’s new family. You have been working on it for a long time and you hope that they see, what you see in the painting. They did. It brought a smile to their faces and hopefully it will bring joy into their home for a long time. It is nice to see a picture of how it looks in its new setting. Thanks Karen for the photo.
I am going to be teaching a new watercolor class beginning January 11, 2012 at the Bountiful Davis Art Center. You can call them at 801-292-0367 for more information. It will be Wednesday morning from 9 a.m until 11 a.m. and will go for six weeks. We had a great time during the last class. If you would care to join us or know of anyone who would like to, please forward the information to them.
Carl Purcell’s newsletter had a great demonstration on his new chaos theory. He added this to his pattern lesson that he taught us at his workshop. It is great. If you would like to subscribe to his newsletter, look here: www.carlpurcell.com for more information.