Everybody, have a happy day!

A Walk at the Farm

Not to far from my in-home studio is a piece of heaven called the Friendly Farm. Farmer Bruce Fox and his family care for the animals who are lucky enough to be residents in a sprawling country setting.  For me, as an illustrator, any visit to the farm is an opportunity to gather information for the books I am honored to be assigned.













Open from late May until Labor day and then on weekends until mid September the farm hosts a variety of loveable animals. This is the perfect spot on a summer day to photograph or sketch the many friendly creatures.  No matter how many art books, nature catalogs, google searches, one may have there is still nothing like the real thing.

At the end of a slightly up hill trail is a welcome bench. This is the perfect spot to sit and sketch the piglets and their huge mama. The close observation of ears, hooves and noses is something I wanted to study in particular.  Now I have to figure out if I can turn a piggy into a boar.

Researching animals online or in the library is never quite the same as being face to face with pigs, goats, geese, horses, chickens, sheep and a scattering of happy children and adults.

If you forget to by a bag of feed at the entrance, you can find a quarter machine near the hungry geese. I bribed them with a bit of corn to get some needed photos.

Along the pathways one can find chickens....all kinds,  colors and sizes.

Goats...

If you have a bag of feed in your hand, the goats will obligingly follow your all along their fence.  The more industrious ones will find a way through the wire mesh and try to grab your bag of feed.

Sheep...same thing here, except that we are allowed to walk among the sheep. They seem to be less forward than the goats.

A beautiful horse was just getting some fresh hay along with two friends.  These animals are fenced off while visitors are at the farm, but they are still close enough to sketch and photograph.

There under the canopy I spied a bull.  I was not too keen on getting very close, however.

Farmer Fox's four sons help out with the feeding, the clean ups and the general care; Mr. Fox himself is always on hand with a smile, a wave and time to chat a bit.

I was in for a treat when one of his son's came to feed the llama.  The llama posed so patiently I am sure he is used to having his picture taken time and time again.

As an illustrator for children's picture books and beyond, I find outings like this not only worth the time and mileage ( in this case not far at all) but necessary for the soul.  Getting out of the studio is important for writers and illustrators . The change of scenery, the human and non human contact is refreshing.

Farmer Fox took a bit of time to pose for one last photo and we chatted about the fire that took place one winter not too long ago.  Because the farm is right off Route 101 in Dublin, NH many people saw the fire and reported it right away.  The damage was fixed and the farm is a good as new.   If you are looking for something bright and beautiful, something warm and friendly, something inviting and inspiring, the Friendly Farm has it all.

Bruce Fox is also a teacher and has recently retired.  I have a feeling after seeing him interacting with the people and the animals that he is going to wonder how he ever had time to go to work.  His smile says it all!  You are invited to visit and you will certainly find a friendly welcome. I am sure I will need to use him in an upcoming picture book.

If you live in the Dublin, Keene, Peterborough, Nashua, Jaffrey, Rindge,  NH area be sure to visit. Bring a camera, a kid or two, or just your notebook. The farm will draw you in and bring you back time after time.

You can find me Here....

Summer reading

I plan each summer to take a week (at least) just to read.  It's good on so many levels.

In between illustration assignments I want also to do some more writing.  I don't know where the writing will go each time I begin, but I love to see what will happen *:)

Cards and Postcards for fall mailing

I decided to create a postcard for the Fall mailing, but at the same time decided upon a business card to match.  I used a different set of criteria for each.  Since business cards are small I wanted the image to stand out a bit more but not overtake the card.  You can see what I mean from the images below.

Postcard:

Business Card:  I moved the image in a bit closer.

Although I won't use  both these items in the same mailing, it is nice to have some consistency in both the postcard and the business card.  Each has also a bit of the same total effect on the back.

Also, if I put together a media kit it would be nice to have the two coordinating items included.

The postcard is coated on the front only, in case I want to write something on the back or hand letter the addresses.  The business card, on the other hand, is coated on both sides.

My address and phone contact are on the back of the postcard and the business card.

I have been keeping my target list small enough to be able to afford 3 or four select mailings a year. That means I don't order that many cards and I can justify three or four different (NEW) designs a year.  In some cases there may be a need to promote a specific style and I want to have that option open.

It was a dark and stormy night

It is important to choose the first line of any story with care.

It was a dark and stormy night

Once upon a time there was a frog

Once upon a time there was a frog and a bug

Once upon a time there was a HUNGRY frog

Once upon a time there was a frog

What is up with the WEATHER?

The new picture book, "Carla's Cloud Catastrophe" has been released.  Beth Bence Reinke's delightful, "WHAT IF" kind of story comes from a question that children may often ask.  "What if, one day, all the clouds fell from the sky?"

Carla's solution to the problem is the perfect ending to a fun filled adventure.  The book is available from 4RV PUBLISHING LLC and Amazon.com as well as any and all bookstores. All you need to do is give your bookstore the 

ISBN  ( 978-0-9828346-0-2 )number 

for them to order the book.  OR, you can go directly to the 4RV Publishing site and get your copy.

What on earth will the Mayor of Clarksville do with all those clouds?  Carla knows!

I always get excited when a book I was chosen to illustrate is released. This book has great appeal for boys and girls alike.  It is always a pleasure for an illustrator to receive a manuscript that has so many ideas for illustrations that you have to choose from the dozens of images that pop into your head as you read the manuscript.  It also meant that I had to stretch a bit to create some of the images.  My research included asking permission of certain people to use them as subjects in the book.  It also meant a trip to our recycling center and town DPW to get photos and sketches of heavy road equipment.  I was fortunate enough, at the same time, to have an entire road crew working on our road.  The machines they were using were perfect sources for some of the illustrations.

SUMMER THEATER CAMP

Each summer an amazing musician stages and directs a fantastic play in our community. It is put on by the children in our community and nearby towns as part of the Summer Theater Camp in Peterborough,NH.

Mary Ann Fleming makes magic each year with children from grades 2-5 and a handful of teenagers who help with lighting, costumes and more. This year's play will review the life of PT Barnum and will feature  an intergenerational cast.

For the play I created  a number of oversized posters for parts of the backdrops and other scenery.  These are what I have done so far. One of our daughters, a very talented artist in her own right is completing the set of posters and I will put those online later when they are finished.

I don't want to throw the posters away after all this work... actually months of work, so we are going to offer them for donations to the Summer Theater Camp... or auction them off, whichever works best.

There will be quite a few and they are rather large.  Most are over 3 feet wide and some are taller than that.  They are based for the most part upon the vintage circus posters I was able to find in my old circus catalogs from when my dad took me to the circus and when I and my dad took our children (his granddaughters, ) to the circus.

I really liked the wording on some of the posters.  It has a timeless feel for a the spectacle that was the circus of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey.

I had to hang these in the hallway to get a good place to put them up so the area was a bit crowded and I cut off some of the lettering in the shots, but all the letters are there and the posters look good from the distance the audience will be from the stage and sets.

For the paintings we are using acrylic paints, computer printed lettering and painting the letters into the posters with the closest match to the background paint.  Since they are seen from a distance it works well.  I used brown craft paper to paint on because I have a lot of it in a big roll and it takes the acrylics very well.

I don't want to tear the posters off the flats after the play, but will carefully remove them, and if anyone is interested in having one, they can make a reasonable donation to the summer theater camp.