I have made my niece Sara an ornament for Christmas for the past three years. This year I wanted to do something with a milkweed pod. I finished the drying process on low heat in the oven and then created a little felted wool mouse to put inside. I have seen something similar done with walnut shells before, which would certainly be sturdier for little hands.

Happy Holidays! Winter has finally arrived in Vermont inspiring another snowy scene. I am not sure anyone would recognize him, but the fox in the middle is my grandfather- well, what my grandfather would look like if he were a fox. He liked to take my mother and the grandchildren, skating on ponds that he'd find in the woods.

snowflake!

These bookplates should be available before Christmas at Vermont bookstores and gift shops.
Proceeds to benefit Reach Out and Read.

Great news- my f&g has arrived and it looks great, thanks to the designers at Dutton. It looks like this book is scheduled for Spring 2010- just in time for Father's Day.
Keep an eye out for it!

Good news! It looks like my new books will be coming out next year. The first is entitled: How about a Kiss for Me? by Todd Tarpley. I can't wait for this one.
The second will be out in time for the snow in Winter 2010, entitled, Ten in a Sled, by Kim Norman.
Here's a sneak preview of each of them:

My art appears today on a Publisher's Weekly Blog written by booksellers Josie Leavitt and Elizabeth Bluemle of our local bookstore the Flying Pig. http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/660000266.html

Yikes, I can't remember when I last put something up! I finished a little educational job recently that I can share. Other than that, it has been a quiet summer with lots of time with the kids and work on the magazine. I did actually finish my book "How About a Kiss for Me?" recently, and hopefully it will be out next spring/summer. More to come on that subject.

Here's a fun idea for cupcakes. We took regular cupcakes and iced the top with plain white frosting. I used a pastry bag to pipe frosting on in a mound for the nose. Once the frosting was done, I put on the ears. The ears were 1/4 of a marshmallow placed right on the frosting. I then cut junior mints in half to make a nice fat nose to put on the mound of frosting in the middle. Two chocolate chips made eyes. Presto. . . polar bears!

this middle bear is my favorite

but they all have a little bit of personality

baptisia and geranium
when our chickens lie in the garden they look like they are dying
have you ever seen anything as ridiculous as this Auracana chicken with a silly hairdo?
irises
the clematis did survive despite my rough transplant. . .
see?

a pretty close up of a tulip in our yard
and more tulips and some dandilions

tulips grow in the middle of our yard where there once was a garden

I was playing with a drawing that I did for Edie's science enrichment. I wish I could do more in photoshop. . .

In getting this piece ready for a show, I played with pastels to give some depth to the background. Pastels are lovely, but highly toxic and very messy on a small piece like this. I wonder about pastel pencils. I will post the before and after pieces.

Happy Spring and happy Mother's Day! My mother loves to garden. When I was little she had a big vegetable garden and grew everything from beets to brussell sprouts and cabbage to cucumbers. Now that I have a yard of my own, I have my own vegetable garden, and I have her to thank for a lot of what I know about growing things.

Here's what's been keeping me busy these days. Another creative endeavor. . . learning InDesign.
You can find out more about this business forecasting magazine I design and the international institute of forecasters at: www.forecasters.org/foresight.

How did I fit ten animals on a toboggan? Well, it was a challenge, and as you can see, the seal fell out!

Here are the players for the new book I am working on. I have had some trouble uploading images to the blog. I am hoping this will work. Happy tax day!

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. . .

It felt good to break out the sketchbook today. I thought it was the perfect thing to take along to town meeting. Here in Vermont, we still hold town meeting once a year to have a community vote on town budget and planning. The votes are still counted by a spoken yea or nay. There was a good mix of people, lots with beards, winter jackets and even some in suspenders. Here's a little sketch of a community member standing and speaking about affordable housing in Charlotte.

I just got back from the Kindling Words retreat. It was an amazing experience to be surrounded by so many wonderful authors and illustrators.
What I found most interesting was deconstructing both images and writing and analyzing their structure. I could go on about this, but I will just post a little sample image I played with in a session with the wonderful illustrator Mary Jane Begin (http://maryjanebegin.com/).

Our new pets made their way into some artwork.

One of my favorite winter things to do is sledding. We like to go up a very small mountain that is adjacent to our yard and sled down the road that leads to the bottom on the other side.
I like to be the one in the front like the otter!

Share a meal with a friend:

Happy New Year!