Thursday, March 22, 2018

The U's Are Unveiled

I thought I'd pop in today and post the latest pages of the ABC Book I'm working on for my grandkids.
Once I finish a page on cardstock, I scan it to my computer and then put the original in a plastic sleeve in this binder.  (I'm sure this is how all the professional children's book authors go about their business.  Or maybe not.  But since I think of this book as a gift of love for my grandchildren and nothing more, this system is working for me.)

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have been inserting scanned images of some of my old artwork into the book wherever I can, with a dual purpose: 1. It's a good way to preserve some pieces that have sentimental value to me but are not necessarily ever going to hang on a wall; and 2. It saves time!  (And maybe with a little help from these old friends I will finally finish this project, which had its humble beginnings a quarter of a century ago!)

For the right-hand page, I re-purposed an acrylic painting I did of my husband tossing our firstborn son into the air, inspired by a grainy snapshot I'd taken of them on my Instamatic camera. 
I painted this 16 x 20 canvas in 1984, when I was the mother of one baby boy and could find stolen minutes during naptimes for such pursuits.  (By 1988 I was the mother of four little boys, and minutes became harder to steal; so it would be a number of years before I picked up a paintbrush again.) This acrylic painting used to hang in our upstairs hallway when we lived in NH.  I don't think I have a place for it here in VA, but I like the idea of it living on in the pages of this ABC Book.

I wish I could say that now that the U's are uploaded, I'm almost finished with the project.  But I haven't exactly been going in order.  I still have to do I, J, K, N, O, Q, and R before I get to V, W, X, Y, and Z.  But I am officially over half-way done--and that feels almost like a miracle!

8 comments:

  1. I love it!!! You are so talented!

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  2. Awwww! I'm so glad to see another "vintage" artwork repurposed into this book. I'm imagining the little ones learning their letters but also hearing the family stories behind some of these special illustrations - "this was your Dad, or Uncle when they were little like you." It's always fun to watch the little ones wrap their minds around the fact that the adults they know were once little like them. Pat's daughters thought it absolutely hilarious that Uncle Mike and their grandfather, Papa, were ever babies and would dissolve in giggles looking at old family photos.

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    1. I always love to hear from you, Sheila! I hope that's how it works out--that they'll not only enjoy looking at it as a picture book, but will also learn a bit about the history of our family.

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  3. Looks awesome! Saving the complicated letters for last huh? X is always an alphabet book's hardest page I think.

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    1. Thanks, Madeline. <3

      Yes, X is always such a difficult one. The ABC videos our grandkids watch say, "X is for box." What?! I think that will confuse them! B is for box! So I'm trying to decide what to do for X; it'll probably be the usual, either xylophone or x-ray.

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