Lads and Ladies, I Give You the L's!

In case you're wondering what that title means, I'm talking about the L pages of the ABC Book I've been working on (very, very slowly) for the past five years or so.  Actually, I had started this project not long after the birth of my youngest son, back in 1993; but then when he got mobile about a year later and his four older brothers got ever-busier with their sports and school activities, I put it on the back burner and would have forgotten about it entirely, I think, if it wasn't for my husband and one of my dear sisters-in-law, who would occasionally remind me that they'd like to see the finished product one day.

Then TWENTY YEARS LATER in 2013 (yikes, the years fly!), as the second birthday of our first grandchildren--identical twin girls--loomed on the horizon, I decided that I needed to finish the project once and for all.  But first, I determined that in order to do the book justice I would have to re-do the original pages and make a fresh, clean start (which I blogged about here, if you're interested).

A lot has happened since I first blogged about this ABC Book five years ago: we have twelve grandchildren now, ten more than we did when I wrote that post, with a couple more who are currently in utero.  And suddenly, I am on fire to finish it, before all these precious little ones grow up and it's too late for them to enjoy it.  (In my defense, though, one big reason that I've had trouble finding time to spend doing artwork is that we now live close to our four married boys and their ever-growing families, after a move south from NH to VA a year ago; so life seems to be busier than ever these days.  I mean, we're really, really busy.  Really busy, in a very good way.  But I digress...)

Okay then, before I show you the new pages, I have to guiltily admit that I re-purposed some previously rendered artwork for them.  Even though these pieces weren't done originally for this book, they're mine and I made the executive decision that it was okay to use them.  (Especially since it helps to speed progress along nicely when I don't have to come up with all new work!)

I found a way to use this acrylic painting, which was a Christmas gift for my dad in 2000.  Because I have some granddaughters who are utterly obsessed with lions, I knew I would need to include one in the L's; and why draw a new one when I already had a perfectly good one on hand--right?

I also used a really old acrylic painting that I did when I was a senior in college.  I was trying, rather ineptly, to copy a photo I had snapped of my husband laughing with two of his high school buddies while they shared a joke at a 1979-1980 New Year's Eve party at my house, shortly after we'd gotten engaged.  That's my guy in the middle (supposedly--I'm not trying to be humble when I say this painting is not all that good).

And finally, I re-purposed a colored pencil-and-ink drawing of son #2 in his favorite "Soupin' Man" jammies that I did back in 1992, when I had thoughts of using my artwork to make my own greeting cards for friends and family.  (I don't think I ever actually did that, but it was a nice idea.)

Most of what I do is not really suitable for hanging up on the wall, but I think it does the job of illustrating a book for children just fine.

So do you want to see how I employed those almost-forgotten pieces of artwork for the L pages (which I purposely wrote in such a way that they would fit)?

Okay then, here they are.

I had to crop out the beer bottle to make that second one work for this project.  (But those boys were all 21 when the photo was taken--I promise!)

I love that all I had to create for those two pages was a lemon!  How lucky am I?  And I never could have done what I did here back in 1993, when there was no such thing as a scanner or color printer that you had in your own house.  Back then, I had to go to places like Staples or Mail Boxes Etc. to achieve the kind of effects that I can now make happen right at my own desk in my own home office.  I'm thinking perhaps it's a good thing that I waited twenty years from the time I first began (back when my baby was still a baby!) to finally get around to finishing what I started, so that all this modern technology could give me a leg up.  Procrastination has its pluses as well as its minuses, I guess!

It's is moving along so well now that I'll be posting the M pages tomorrow.