Sunday musing

It has been a formidable week and an amazing one and tiring and thought provoking. I managed to write a picture book draft and have revised it several times. I uploaded the first 250 words to the forum on 12 x 12 and had some excellent suggestions and feedback for improving the piece. I sent it off to two ladies to critique but have yet to hear back from them. I am hoping to send it off to RYS (rate your story) on the 1st of September and see what they think before finding a place to submit to.
This story is about a boy who is terrified of taking a bath.  It was fun to develop and I plan to story board it next week to see how it flows.

I was incredibly excited to see that Melissa Gjibers has started her Pozible campaign
http://www.pozible.com/project/184562

Melissa
has written a middle grade book about a young girl, Sam, who has returned to Australia after being in Nepal with her parents for several years. Sam finds life hard with the cultural differences between the two countries and becomes the victim of bullying and teasing. She resorts to some unconvincing tactics that make her wish the ground would open up and swallow her when the other children react unfavourably. With the support of her parents and teacher she finds a way to solve her problems.

A lovely story with a terrific solution. What makes me even more excited though is that I created the art for this book. I found this to be an interesting journey in my creative career. I learned a great deal about what information I do and don't want  in terms of creating a concept drawing that meets the requirements of the writer. This book is self published so the communication has been direct between myself and Melissa.
The art in the original concept drawings is a far cry from the final pieces and I have enjoyed that metamorphosis.

Art theme for this week in the 52 week challenge is Butterfly. I played with my prismacolour pencils for this and tried a chibi style for one of the butterflies.

 my butterfly ballerina

Chibi (ちび or チビ) is a Japanese slang word meaning "short person" or "small child". The word has gained currency among fans of manga and anime.

This stylised butterfly is inspired by a tattoo. I like the artistry in some tattoos. I tried using a solvent with my prisma colours but I haven't quite embraced the skill. There are some terrific instructional videos on youtube I am going to study.

I was supposed to be at an adobe illustrator for beginners course today but I had to postpone it. I have a credit for when the course runs again and I am really looking forward to learning how to use my software.

Last weeks theme for the 52 week challenge was Toys and I missed it but did a catch up today.

I purchased a 'uniball signo broad nib white pigment' ink pen and this was my first time using it.  The image is of my set of plastic keys and a rattle with water and floating items in the handle. I have had them for 30+ and 25+ years and they are still as bright as the day they came into the first child's possession.





This week I have extra visitors staying with me. My grandson Kaylem Michael is one month old and he likes my singing. The young man has good taste. Here he is telling me off for taking too many photos.

We are taking bets on what colour his eyes will be. They are baby slate grey at the moment. His Mum has deep chocolate brown eyes and his Dad has light hazel eyes. Half his grandparents had blue eyes and half have brown so it could go any direction.

I entered one of my novels in a competition. I think I wrote a better synopsis this time. I have trouble with synopsis and pitches but each time I do one I believe I am improving.
The competition is with http://www.authorsfirst.com/  and has a pleasant prize of $5000, an ipad mini and a publishing contract.

One of the big things I have had to deal with these last few weeks has been the saga of the car.
It overheated and has been rattling a lot and sounding like a V8. So I had the heater tap replaced and a service $230 then I had a wheel alignment $60, then two new tyres $230 and then the exhaust repairs $100, a timing belt $300 and then a new radiator $300 and then - gulp - the mechanic rings to say the car is still overheating and he doesn't know why. :( My car is still in the mechanics workshop and I am wondering if I will need to sell the furniture on ebay to get it back.(kidding) What is that old homily? A stitch in time saves nine or for want of a shoe the horse was lost. I really think I should have kept up regular maintenance instead of putting it off all the time. Well hopefully after this great saga I will get a few trouble free years out of it.
I didn't even know a heater tap existed. Apparently it looks like this..
and is part of the heating and cooling system of the car. So when my car was overheating I would turn the heater on full and pull heat off the engine. It worked for a little while and finally gave up the ghost.

 Aunty and Nephew becoming aquainted.


I thought I should do the grandmotherly obsessive thing and put another photo up.










Tomorrow I have to complete art for two people and have it sent and start two courses I have paid for but finally Shirley your art awaits. I have it in a frame for you.