when I rediscovered I could draw. And dared to acknowledge that maybe my characters might speak to a community beyond my own family. But drawing is, for me, as I know it is for so many of my students--anyone older than about six---fraught with fear. The fear macerates the wild joy of creation. It is strange to observe.
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I'm started making pictures for my Galápagos poems and Diary. I've just started using Adobe Illustrator, and I'm excited to experiment with what it can do for my typography. I'll download ProCreate next; I love ProCreate pocket but it's time to upgrade. It's super fun to see how fast the images change when I take time off from helping others make art, and make my own! Mira Reisberg's Children's Book Academy has provided me a fabulous opportunity in the past few weeks to make progress on two projects. Here are a few works-in-progress. With any luck, I'll finish it this week. But then, this tortoise can teach us something about luck....    I patched this together in Keynote, and the area with the egg is a bit of a mess. And it's not exactly a tortoise egg. I'll take another stab at painting the egg. Maybe our local zoo can lend me a tortoise egg to photograph! Photos might be a super fun look.    The Utter Zoo Alphabet by Edward Gorey, Pomegranate Communications, Inc., Petaluma, CA, 1967. Check it out! The Plinkerflott was inspired by Edward Gorey's delightful little book, The Utter Zoo Alphabet . Gorey designed the Broadway set for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, and his Goth, morosely humorous pen and ink images earned him a huge following.
One of my favorite art lessons (aren't they all my favorites?) sprang from this book. For the lesson, I ditch the macabre and keep the funny. Using chalk pastels, students make a big abstract mark on the page, as simple or complex as they like, practice their blending skills to manipulate its shape and color, then add features (eyes, ears, horns, wings, claws, wheels, slingshots....), to create a character. Finally, they write a few words to develop the character even further. Then we have a blast sharing them at the end of class!  My first characters for my first picture book project, Mask-a-Rade, had unique problems with masks, just like people did. Except the raccoon. As a practiced mask-wearer, he got it right. In this picture, at least.) I make these pictures with painted paper collage and dental floss. Author PJ Purtee's site: https://www.facebook.com/pjpurtee/ |
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