Back to Work on the ABC Book

I've been working on an ABC picture book for my grandchildren.

Actually, lately I've been not working on an ABC picture book.  There have been a couple of weddings in our family recently, and a couple of debilitating (although not even close to life-threatening) illnesses, and if you give me some time, I can come up with a whole host of other good reasons why I've been procrastinating.

Last night, my husband reminded me that our twin granddaughters are not going to be this age forever.  It's true; right now, they love their little picture books, and they can pretty much "read" their favorites by themselves--because just like their daddy when he was their age, they've got them memorized word-for-word.  But they will turn three in June, and as smart as they are, they're probably going to leave their picture books behind and move on to chapter books not long after that birthday.  So I've just got to get this ABC book project done for them, and I've given myself a June deadline.  (I've missed several personally appointed deadlines already; but this time, I mean it!)

This book is not just for the twins.  It's for them and their baby sister, but it's also for any grandchildren that will be coming along in the future.  I know there will be other little ones to enjoy it.  But I'm going to feel like a bad grammy if I miss the boat and don't finish it when it's age-appropriate for my firstborn granddaughters.

This is a book I actually started for my youngest son when he was a baby, but I hadn't gotten many pages completed before I abandoned the project when he was about a year old.  Almost twenty years later, I decided I needed to finish what I'd started. 

The hardest part was re-doing the original pages I wanted to use in this new version of the book, because it's always tough trying to recreate a piece of artwork with which you are satisfied (at least it is for me).
  

The originals were drawn on large sheets and hand-lettered;
the new pages are a manageable and easy to print
8 & 1/2 by 11 inches and the text is done on the computer using Word.

But I'm finished with that part of the process, thankfully, and at this point I'm working on all original drawings.  So it should be easier for me to get moving now.  (Should, but for some reason it hasn't been.)

Wish me luck with this, will you?  When I sign off, I'm going to head right over to the old drawing board, where a blank C page awaits me.  When I finish that one, I will have letters A through D completed, with two pages of illustrations for each letter.  That will only leave 22 more letters, which means 44 more pages of drawings...

Okay, I'm not going to focus on that right now.  I'm just going to get to work and enjoy the process, and hopefully I'll be posting my C pages here tomorrow.

(There's an "ABC Book" tab at the top of the page, if you're interested in reading posts about the book and its history or checking out the illustrations that have been completed so far.)