Illustration

This is the piece that I submitted for the Tomie dePaola award this year. His prompt was to: using ourselves as the character, create a scene from our youth that said something about the person that we are. He asked that the emotion of the character be immediately apparent. Tomie stated that, in viewing the pieces that he selected as winners, he experienced an element of caring about the characters. He wanted to know more about them. Some of them had not overly defined spaces. Some had a bit … [Read more...] about When Work is Finished

I thought I'd mess with a set of simple kid's markers this morning just to see what would come of layering the colors over one another. Would they be too bold to make any kind of pleasing combinations? Would they look too diluted, being as they were just a cheap brand of markers? Sometimes it feels good to just start putting something down on paper. But often I feel apprehensive about wasting paper, supplies (though not in this case), or even precious time without a clear goal or project in … [Read more...] about Always Reaching

My nephew had it right in finding ways of adjusting to the change of seasons. When he could no longer use his orange plastic sled for zooming down the backyard slopes he'd pull it out for the summer months and use it as his own personal wading pool. I, on the other hand, do my fair share of whining about the colder temperatures and onset of snow covered roads. Perhaps I need to pull out my orange plastic sled more often in snowy weather. (And yes I still have one.) Or maybe I could just pull … [Read more...] about Making the Adjustment

In an exerpt from a book of photographs and writings from a variety of photographers and writers titled America 24/7 writer Naomi Shihab Nye writes of how she was influenced by the truths her parents had come to know, such as how, "All the world's citizens were mixing themselves together by now, in order to survive. Along the way, we would learn to respect everyone else, especially the people who weren't just like us. It was obvious, essential." (by Naomi Shihab Nye) Next to her writing was … [Read more...] about The World Is A Song

I've been in a constant battle lately with this woodchuck over who's got the rights to till the soil out at my country gardening spot. These kind of epic battle scenes and other such Military art are one of the oldest types of art in developed civilizations, not that this battle has been very civil. The first hole I found I dumped a bunch of stones in and packed some dirt firmly over so I wouldn't trip when I was mowing around the garden. I brushed the sweat from my brow with my cap and … [Read more...] about Woodchuck Wars